Joy Reads Books

  • Tales of Koehler Hollow: Reclamation, Oral Traditions and Black Love

    A review of “Tales of Koehler Hollow”, a collection of family stories from a formerly enslaved women.

    Image of the book cover of Tales of Koehler Hollow, aged paper background with images of dried flowers

    Tales of Koehler Hollow tells the story of Amy Finney, a formerly enslaved woman, and her descendants who established a homestead of family and community in the Appalachian Mountains. The stories are told simply through the voice of Amy’s great-great granddaughter, Naomi Hodge-Muse, and collected by anthropologist Christopher A. Brooks. 

    The stories in this collection draw on the oral tradition of storytelling and reading it felt very much like sitting with a beloved auntie, so effectively did Dr. Brooks captures Hodge-Muse’s voice. There is very little in the way of superfluous language or lengthy descriptions, people are introduced with tenderness and care but there is honesty and acknowledgement that people are complicated and flawed. I was struck by the way Hodge-Muse described complicated family members, acknowledging the difficulties of growing up with an emotionally immature mother but also we know her mother was loved and more than a selfish, flighty woman.

    The African-American experience is one that has been often marred by violence and loss, but in this anthology we are presented with a family that is strong, complex and driven to remain in community. There is devastating loss and violence, but it is recounted with the same calm tenor found in the rest of the collection.

    Tales of Koehler Hollow is an important book to read and I’m grateful for the opportunity. History is often controlled by the powerful, they had the money to create records and steal people from their homes. Having this record of Amy and her family’s experience is a gift. Dr. Brooks has helped preserved this family’s history in a restorative way, a long, long time after their history was brutally ripped away. This collection is an extension of what drove Amy to establish the family homestead – without that grounding, we wouldn’t have this collection of stories, as told through Naomi Hodge-Muse.

    Tales of Koehler Hollow is available for purchase at Unsung Voices Books.

  • Characters Take Flight in MONARCH: Literary Review of New Short Story Collection

    Dusty road background and book cover of Emily Jon Tobias' short story collection, Monarch.

    In Emily Jon Tobias’ new collection of short stories, “MONARCH”, we are confronted by realistically flawed characters who are given the space to form, make mistakes, and heal. An award-winning writer and  Pushcart Prize nominee, Tobias was raised in the American midwest and now lives in Southern California.  The way she captures and releases hard fought words has a feel of that hardscrabble grit you used to associate with an essential Americanism. It’s all the more poignant that the characters in MONARCH are imperfectly real – addicts and sad girls, overwhelmed mothers and people whose tether to sanity has loosened. 

    Tobias plays with language and voice to raise her characters into existence.The title story stopped my breath and as I read, I had the distinct sense that Tobias was gleefully playing with her words, stretching out each sentence to its limit, a fullness like the protagonist’s intentional weight gain. My first inclination – trim these sentences, they seem too full created the sense I was as quick to jump to conclusions as the people who brazenly stare at Georgia and judge her size. Such is the subtle brilliance of Tobias’ writing – the excess was an intentional weight and slowing down that ties us to Georgia.

    We see this again in “Vida”, the sentences short and choppy with Wiley’s anger. Tobias’ characters are confused and confusing – which is what I feel most days. Which is to say, each is fully formed in their humanity as its splayed on the page for the brief glimpse we have as a reader. We are like passersby, sometimes witnessing these characters’ worst moments and the way Tobias intends to pull them through and heal some of the cracks. 

    The book includes a reading guide that is straightforward to use, and I think this book works well for readers looking to include more diverse character sets in their reading. It depicts largely heteronormative experience, while also giving space and life to queer characters. Upper level English class settings, as well as guided reading groups – there is intention in the way Tobias has cultivated this collection and guided readers to know the characters in their complete selves, regardless of identity or partner. The writing is accessible with beautiful prose, worth a read because of that alone. 

    Find MONARCH via Emily Jon Tobias’ website or visit your local bookseller.