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Strange as This Weather Has Been: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Ann Pancake (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 236 ratings
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A West Virginia family struggles amid the booms and busts of the Appalachian coal industry in this “powerful, sure-footed, and haunting” novel with echoes of John Steinbeck (New York Times Book Review).

Set in present day West Virginia, this debut novel tells the story of a coal mining family—a couple and their four children—living through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their hometown. As the mine turns the mountains “to slag and wastewater,” workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters.

Strange as This Weather Has Been follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen–year–old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more frequently outside among junk from the floods and felled trees in the hollows—the only nature they have ever known.

But Bant has other memories and is as curious and strong–willed as her mother, and ultimately comes to discover the very real threat of destruction that looms as much in the landscape as it does at home.
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  1. Print length
    369 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Counterpoint
  5. Publication date
    September 10, 2007
  6. File size
    914 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A hard-living Appalachian family weathers a contemporary coal boom in the debut from West Virginia native Pancake. Soon after their first meeting in the 1980s, college freshman Lace See and 15-year-old local boy James Makepeace Turrell (Jimmy Make) conceive their first child. Nearly 20 years later, Lace is uneasily settled as a mother to Jimmy's four children as a flurry of strip mining and clear cutting make the mountains she has known since childhood unrecognizable. One summer right after a strip-mining induced flood, things come to a head. Lace's environmental activism ramps up; daughter Bant, working at a local motel, discovers her allegiance to the mountains and her sexuality; each of Lace and Jimmy's three sons (Corey, Jimmy and Dane) is touched in turn by the collapsing economy and environment. Lush descriptions of the landscape are matched with a hurtling stream-of-consciousness narration to great effect: one doubts neither the characters' voices nor their places in a very complex poverty. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* With her beloved West Virginia hollows and valleys under constant onslaught by a savage coal-mining industry whose raping of the land threatens her home with devastating floods, Lace Ricker finds herself battling callous forces both without and within her own family. As thunderous blasts weaken their home's foundation and poisoned wastewater infiltrates their well, Lace and her daughter, Bant, secretly become more determined to find a way to stop the mines, while Lace's husband pragmatically refuses to fight the union bosses, and her sons tentatively, then calamitously, accept the challenges and adventure of life lived in the shadow of imminent danger. By tracing the devastating impact of coal mining through the eyes of Lace and her four children, Pancake's powerful debut novel evinces a poetic pathos and authentic respect for the land and the people who love it. To comprehend the egregious and tragic environmental damage mountaintop-removal coal mining has wrought on the once pristine vistas of Appalachia, one should read any one of many excellent exposés. To understand the human toll such destruction exacts, one must turn to fiction, for novels such as Pancake's reflect deeper, timeless truths. Haggas, Carol

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003Z9JMUC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Counterpoint (September 10, 2007)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 10, 2007
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 914 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 369 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 236 ratings

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Ann Pancake

Ann Pancake

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
236 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Telemachus
5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Novel for West Virginia and Our American Heritage
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2007
Verified Purchase
In  The Jungle: The Uncensored Original Edition , Upton Sinclair portrayed the horrors of the meat processing industry; readers were shocked and indignant. Reforms soon followed. One can only hope that Pancake's current book has an equal impact on her readers. Her new novel reminds us that West Virginia has a long history of wealthy industry moguls stripping the state of its natural resources and leaving the population with little to show for their hard work. In the early 20th Century, the people of Southern West Virginia bravely stood up for their rights during the Coal Mine Wars. A good expose for that history can be found in the movie,  Matewan .

Ann Pancake's book fast forwards to the beginning of the 21st Century where West Virginians are again facing grave threats to their heritage, their lands, and their lives. Pancake tells us in her book how the land AND the people are used up and discarded. Mountain-top Removal mining is destroying one of America's greatest natural assets for short-term gain by a few individuals. The land left behind is ruined and sometimes toxic. The lives of the people who live there are often ruined as well. The mountains are leveled. The valleys, the hollows, and the streams are filled with debris and lost. People who have lived on the land for generations are displaced with no home to re-visit; their homes and their beloved mountains are gone. As Americans we are all diminished.

To be clear, this is NOT just an expose on Mountain Top Removal Mining. As a novel it is quite enjoyable and well-crafted. Aside from the mining subtext, she tells a very compelling human story about love, relationships, and independence. As you might expect, it is not a happy story. But, Pancake captures the essence of West Virginians as few have managed to do. She plays with language related to feeling in a way that brings the reader quite close to the people she is portraying. Character development is excellent. Her chapters cycle through the points-of-view of each of her characters. It is a beautifully told story. Authors writing about West Virginia often try very hard to write in dialect. Pancake to her great credit does not. As in her earlier work,  Given Ground (Bakeless Prize) , the grammar spoken by her characters is not always perfect, but it does not distract from the story as is often the case in the work of others. Her book is far more authentic. She portrays the people of Southern West Virginia with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Pancake tells the story of West Virginians, their heritage, and the spiritual bond they have to the land. But, underlying this is the feeling that the land and the mountains are the heritage of every American and every human being. Hopefully, books like this will spur change and not be a chronicle for future generations of things being lost that can never be recovered. I Highly Recommend This Book!
40 people found this helpful
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Heddie
4.0 out of 5 stars Mountain top removal
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2022
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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The story of coal mining and the effects of mountain too removal on the lives of countless people is just horrendous and so well told in this novel. Having lived in the Appalachians it brought it all back, the feeling of loss and hopelessness. This book was well written although The beginning did seem somewhat disjointed with the various story lines. We get to read about each character through their POV and language. OncE I was just a few chapters in I was hooked. The story was so compelling & so sad. I’d recommend it
4 people found this helpful
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William D. Brisbane
5.0 out of 5 stars Sticks to your ribs, grips your heart, makes you want to act...that is this novel...the BEST!
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2015
Verified Purchase
Novels don't get much better than this one. It has what every unforgettable one should have: plot, characterization, language, history and, most of all, it has purpose. Even if you are not from Appalachia or truly familiar will the evils of mining and mountaintop removal, in particular, this story will raise your level of feelings a number of degrees. In my humble view, not since James Still has anyone written about Appalachia with the knowledge and emotion as has Ann Pancake. I finished the book a week or so ago and still can't get it out of my thoughts, nor do I believe I ever will and can barely wait to recommend it to family and friends; and Lace's last chapter, well, it measures up to any chapter on family I have ever read anywhere.. Yes, I am from W. Pennsylvania and sympathize with the culture and the cause, but first and foremost I RECOMMEND you read this book for its prose and its ultimate quality as contemporary literature of the very finest you will read.
8 people found this helpful
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Miriam
5.0 out of 5 stars Witness the destruction of massive areas of WV over many years from the perspective of the people who live there and love and respect the land
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2017
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One of the most profoundly moving books I have EVER read. Witness the destruction of massive areas of WV over many years from the perspective of the people who live there and love and respect the land. No matter where you live, or what your position on mountaintop removal is, this book is a must-read in order to get a full picture. (Either that, or move there and live it.) Characters and events described so clearly you can feel them as if you are/were there. Poetic and brutal at the same time. In my 65 years, I have never had a book affect me as deeply as this. While I lament that it's likely too late to repair the damage done to the land; I pray it may be possible to stop any more.
14 people found this helpful
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Cynthia Mason
1.0 out of 5 stars Not
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2020
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I live in Southeastern Kentucky so I am familiar with the background of which she writes. The thing that really bothers me is that what I've read has no happiness, only the sad and depressing.
Although people worked and struggled to survive, there is happiness in one's children, the beautiful woods, family gatherings, happy times. I saw none of this on the drudgery of the location.
10 people found this helpful
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Another Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2017
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Good beginning place before reading The Price of Justice and Coal river.
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John H. Rees
5.0 out of 5 stars This Is A Great American Novel !
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2009
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I just finished reading this first novel by Ann Pancake and i am having to emotionally catch my breath. This
is an incredibly powerful and sadly beautiful story in which the ecologic and environmental violence of the mountaintop removal coal mining practices in WVa, Ky, and Tn, is interwoven with the story of a single family as it is formed, grows up, grows together, and grows apart. Her style is modern with multiple first person narratives and the final effect, for me, was to forge a chain of connection between the brutal macroscopic practice of leveling forests and mountains to get at the energy they cover in the most cost effective way, and the most intimate, innermost workings of the human heart and the american family. The early development seemed somewhat disparate, and it confused my poor brain for awhile, but as it unfolds, the relationship between the many vignettes becomes clear and the novel becomes a glowing whole.
3 people found this helpful
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