Fact and fiction collide in a new collection of West Virginia stories.
Appalachians have long been storytellers. We can all remember moments huddled around photo albums, staring over mountain ranges, rushing home with textbooks or bits of schoolyard gossip to verify the truth with those older and far more seasoned than us. We’ve been passing down moral lessons, cautioning tales, and imperative information as far back as our history may reach. It’s how we learn and grow—how we remember.
Randy Safford is a man interested in the stories we tell and the lives behind them. While he’s not from here, West Virginia roots inherited from his parents ground him in his fascination with the region and the stories it has to tell. His first novel, An Act of Remembrance & Other Mostly True Historical West Virginia Stories, takes gathered accounts, facts, and true events and reimagines them with great care as he plays with what those moments may have been like for a person experiencing them.
Each chapter of the book sets a different scene. Rather than floating from moment to moment, we are firmly grounded in the details and the unique atmosphere of each. We may not be given extended, lofty descriptions of what the burning coal smells like or whether a pair of boots is worn and muddied, but we don’t need it. As West Virignians, those details are in our bones. The balance is found, and we ache with familiarity and nostalgia of time gone by.
The stories range in content, from the imagined journal entries of Hannah Church—one of the players behind the town of Hundred—to the curiously morbid travel exploits of Graham Hamrick’s mummies. There is something for everyone, whether you’re a history buff or a lover of fiction, a fan of comedy or gothic tales. Whether you laugh or cry, learn something new, or relive a memory, this carefully curated collection is bound to draw you home.
With thorough research and skillful telling, Safford handles our history with the care and empathy of someone who truly sees the state for what it is. By acknowledging the power of these stories and the way they have shaped the state, Safford writes to the heart of who we are and how we got here.
You can find An Act of Remembrance & Other Mostly True Historical West Virginia Stories on Amazon or through Morgantown’s own Populore Publishing Company.
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