The Hungry Hills is a collection of short stories about living hillbillies in the Missouri Ozarks.
A college professor moves his Phi Beta Kappa wife and three anemic kids to the hills of southeastern Christian County, Missouri, to get away from noise and pollution. The Hungry Hills is a semi-autonomous region located on either side of a dogleg of the Ozarks Mountains that run from the hamlet of Bugscuffle on the north down Pine Ridge to the village of Hopeful (at the elbow) to the unincorporated town of Jubilee on the south. the natives of this region are descended from the second and third sons of Tennessee and Kentucky jpioneers, men shorn of birthright and therefore forced to move westward in search of wild game and security. Some of them arrived in the wild upper reaches of the Ozarks just ahead of U. S. Marshalls--which explains the large number of Smiths and Joneses out that way.
Taken individually and real carefully, these hillbillies are about as friendly a bunch of citizens as can be found anyplace. They may pay no taxes on much of anything or believe in gainful employment as a way of survival, but then they don't expect handouts from anybody, either, especially the Government.
Excerpt
The Reverend Robert Roller was the first to park on the side of Ridge Road just above the big Cape Cod house and welcome Clarence and Mabel Phleugel to the Hungry Hills that day in late September, 1972.
He had been returning home from a mission in the village of Hopeful when he caught sight of the tall, dignified schoolteacher putting up a mailbox on Ridge Road. On his left was a considerable drop-off down into Sawmill Holler and on his right a grader ditch; so he eased his right wheels off the blacktop just a bit and parked, blocking about half of Ridge Road.
"Wal, now," he said to Clarence. "I be Holy Bob Roller, pastor and custodian of the Sacred Temple of Blessed Faith Missionary Baptist Church, just a piece down there in the Holler. You must be Mister Floogly I hear tell of."
The city man took the outstretched hand and held on for awhile, then leaned on his posthole diggers and wiped his sweating brow. "Glad to meet you, Sir. The name's Phleugel, however."
Holy Bob laughed uproarishly, finally raising his right hand as if to put a stop to his merriment. "Hev yew made yewr peace with Jaazuss yet?"
The Wholly Book of Doo-Doo-Rot-on-Me is adult satirical humor featuring adult language and adult content, and the work is a parody of the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy.
