Review: Town Smokes by Pinkney Benedict

It's good. Another anthology of short stories set in Southern Appalachia, written by a West Virginia author. I'm particularly in awe of the way he switches voices so easily; yes, it's an anthology, but all his characters feel well-rounded and like complete people dropped into the story from outside it. He shows so many microcosms of Appalachian life, and they all feel incredibly genuine. The story All the Dead touched me specifically because of the voice it's written in— how wonderful it is to see a character that talks like me that isn't made to be a joke, or less of a person. I also liked the wild hog story; the imagery was fantastic, and I could vividly see the whole story— probably because it reminds me of the holler much of my family used to live in, rabbits and all. (Reminder: naming your meat rabbits is a terrible idea!) Old men drinking beer on a sunken-in porch, listening to an old radio made around the year they were born. Us kids would always sit at their feet, enraptured at their commentary on the radio and the stories they spun again and again. And, it's realistic; doesn't skip over the casual abuse, casual violence cemented as a mere fact of life. You struggle, you bleed, everything is covered in dirt and grime and the walls are falling down around you. Benedict's writing is visceral in the original sense, in that it's guts and gore and all the grossness inherent in living. It's not hopeful, but it seems content with its lot, or at least accepting of it. Reading it is like just walking off your porch, with all the good and bad it entails. Anyway, a content warning for violence against women, animals, just people in general, etc. I give it a 7.5/10. (And, of course, I wanted to highlight the dog stuff. The Telltale Heart meets Moby Dick, escalating over a couple of days in an Appalachian trailer park, localized to one man's porch.)