Susan O'Dell Underwood. Genesis Road. Madville Publishing, 2022. Reviewed by Damjana Mraović-O’Hare, Nov. 15, 2022.
Genesis Road, by Susan Underwood, is an important Appalachian book. Unique in its form and scope, it is a narrative-driven page-turner of almost 350 pages whose action is dislocated from Appalachia but whose characters are profoundly defined by the region and its mores. Part travelogue and part introspection of female grief, Genesis Road offers a contemporary account of the area that is still commonly associated with a poor, rural and devout recluse who is in constant conflict with nature that he equally revers and fears. Instead, in Genesis Road, Appalachia is modernized and its concerns individualized, while the region’s distinctiveness stems as much from its complex past as from the issues that dominate current social and political discourses, ranging from child abuse to motherhood.
Genesis Road begins by seemingly replicating all the main tropes of the regional literature: the narrative is written in first person and by the end of the opening page, there is a death of a child and a parent; there is a burned house, an extensive reference to the Bible and an emphasis on the narrator’s disarrayed life in Newport, Tennessee. But we also learn immediately that Glenna Daniels, the narrator named after her father who wished for a son, suffered and concealed a miscarriage that started a spiral of guilt and sorrow. Glenna’s father, a physically and emotionally abusive parent and husband as well as a petty criminal, who once held a gun to her head, burned Glenna’s house spitefully and negligently. She passionately hates him, but also loves him for all the tender moments of paternal affection. Soon to be a three-time divorcee, Glenna in response quits her job as a social worker in Knoxville, cuts her long, beautiful hair and decides to go on a road trip to the West with her childhood friend, Carey. Carey is a college history professor in Atlanta, gay, and recently widowed; his partner died after a long battle with cancer. Carey effectively masks his own grief with erudition and extreme tolerance for Glenna’s moodiness and silence, which she presents as stoicism typical of Appalachian women. The two became lifelong friends when they recognized each other as outcasts: Carey was tormented for his sexuality, while Glenna was a neglected child. Glenna, though, protected her friend from adolescent bullies and the friendship continued through life challenges and geographical distances. The narrative, therefore, is a combination of self-examination and travel diary through the most famous American national parks and landmarks (Max Patch, the Grand Canyon, Cimmaron Canyon, The Gateway Arch, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, for instance).
While initiated by Carey, the trip “to the end of the world” functions as an escape from Glenna’s personal troubles (all those avoided phone calls in the 1990s!), but also a needed distance from the region that Glenna leaves for the first time at the age of thirty-six. The trip is also—predictably—recuperative and rewarding both for Glenna and Appalachia, which does not seem to be any more exceptionally burdened by poverty, racism, sexism or environmental problems than any other rural part of the US. For instance, in New Mexico, Carey claims “You think the Trail of Tears was bad for the Cherokees. Thousands of Navajos died, too…. But worst of all, he [Kit Carson] destroyed the pride and joy here in the canyon…. Peach trees. Thousands of peach trees. They just hacked them to pieces.” At Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch, which turns out to be an animal rescue center, Glenna sees a black bear whose mother was killed by a car. He reminds her, “the first bear I ever saw… trapped like that, in Pigeon Forge to this day businesses use live bears to bait tourists.”
But poetic observations and aphoristic phrases mark Underwood’s realistic prose, as well. She is an established Appalachian poet with three published poetry books, whose “Holler” is still played on Knoxville’s WDVX and is regularly taught in college classrooms. For instance, in Genesis Road, Elvis’ house is “just a subdivision house on steroids,” cows’ tufts behind their ears are “like bad toupees,” while the sunset was “only a failing brightness.” Genesis Road is funny, too, even cynical at moments. One of the most humorous segments is a dinner scene in San Francisco, when Carey’s gay friends entertain the couple. Glenna, who by that point of the novel is riddled with self-doubt and indecisiveness often attributed to her private and regional circumstances, does not become a vocal local patriot only because of her respect for Carey. And that, of course, makes her more refined than her supposedly sophisticated urban host:
“‘Pasta con quattro formaggi.’… ‘Have you ever had it before?’ Marcus asked. I held up my wine glass and prepared to exaggerate my hick accent. Sometimes a situation calls for a hillbilly to mock herself so she can size up others. You stun people, and you can read authentic reactions. But one look at Carey’s hopeful face and I couldn’t bring myself to turn the joke back on them that tempted the tip of my tongue: You really think that we ain’t got mac and cheese in Tennessee?”
Such a sentiment is pronounced in recent books by Appalachian authors. The ecological and feminist concern of the last three decades of the 20th century is refocused on issues of identity, race, sexual orientation, and unsentimental investigations of Appalachia. Authors such as Silas House, Mary Hodges, Rahul Mehta and Frank X Walker have been effectively contesting a reductive view of the region seen as politically conservative and industrially underdeveloped; Underwood’s debut novel not only further diversifies the contemporary literary representation of Appalachia, but it also enriches Appalachian literature with a book that will, for sure, become its staple.
Genesis Road, by Susan Underwood, is an important Appalachian book. Unique in its form and scope, it is a narrative-driven page-turner of almost 350 pages whose action is dislocated from Appalachia but whose characters are profoundly defined by the region and its mores. Part travelogue and part introspection of female grief, Genesis Road offers a contemporary account of the area that is still commonly associated with a poor, rural and devout recluse who is in constant conflict with nature that he equally revers and fears. Instead, in Genesis Road, Appalachia is modernized and its concerns individualized, while the region’s distinctiveness stems as much from its complex past as from the issues that dominate current social and political discourses, ranging from child abuse to motherhood.
Genesis Road begins by seemingly replicating all the main tropes of the regional literature: the narrative is written in first person and by the end of the opening page, there is a death of a child and a parent; there is a burned house, an extensive reference to the Bible and an emphasis on the narrator’s disarrayed life in Newport, Tennessee. But we also learn immediately that Glenna Daniels, the narrator named after her father who wished for a son, suffered and concealed a miscarriage that started a spiral of guilt and sorrow. Glenna’s father, a physically and emotionally abusive parent and husband as well as a petty criminal, who once held a gun to her head, burned Glenna’s house spitefully and negligently. She passionately hates him, but also loves him for all the tender moments of paternal affection. Soon to be a three-time divorcee, Glenna in response quits her job as a social worker in Knoxville, cuts her long, beautiful hair and decides to go on a road trip to the West with her childhood friend, Carey. Carey is a college history professor in Atlanta, gay, and recently widowed; his partner died after a long battle with cancer. Carey effectively masks his own grief with erudition and extreme tolerance for Glenna’s moodiness and silence, which she presents as stoicism typical of Appalachian women. The two became lifelong friends when they recognized each other as outcasts: Carey was tormented for his sexuality, while Glenna was a neglected child. Glenna, though, protected her friend from adolescent bullies and the friendship continued through life challenges and geographical distances. The narrative, therefore, is a combination of self-examination and travel diary through the most famous American national parks and landmarks (Max Patch, the Grand Canyon, Cimmaron Canyon, The Gateway Arch, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, for instance).
While initiated by Carey, the trip “to the end of the world” functions as an escape from Glenna’s personal troubles (all those avoided phone calls in the 1990s!), but also a needed distance from the region that Glenna leaves for the first time at the age of thirty-six. The trip is also—predictably—recuperative and rewarding both for Glenna and Appalachia, which does not seem to be any more exceptionally burdened by poverty, racism, sexism or environmental problems than any other rural part of the US. For instance, in New Mexico, Carey claims “You think the Trail of Tears was bad for the Cherokees. Thousands of Navajos died, too…. But worst of all, he [Kit Carson] destroyed the pride and joy here in the canyon…. Peach trees. Thousands of peach trees. They just hacked them to pieces.” At Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch, which turns out to be an animal rescue center, Glenna sees a black bear whose mother was killed by a car. He reminds her, “the first bear I ever saw… trapped like that, in Pigeon Forge to this day businesses use live bears to bait tourists.”
But poetic observations and aphoristic phrases mark Underwood’s realistic prose, as well. She is an established Appalachian poet with three published poetry books, whose “Holler” is still played on Knoxville’s WDVX and is regularly taught in college classrooms. For instance, in Genesis Road, Elvis’ house is “just a subdivision house on steroids,” cows’ tufts behind their ears are “like bad toupees,” while the sunset was “only a failing brightness.” Genesis Road is funny, too, even cynical at moments. One of the most humorous segments is a dinner scene in San Francisco, when Carey’s gay friends entertain the couple. Glenna, who by that point of the novel is riddled with self-doubt and indecisiveness often attributed to her private and regional circumstances, does not become a vocal local patriot only because of her respect for Carey. And that, of course, makes her more refined than her supposedly sophisticated urban host:
“‘Pasta con quattro formaggi.’… ‘Have you ever had it before?’ Marcus asked. I held up my wine glass and prepared to exaggerate my hick accent. Sometimes a situation calls for a hillbilly to mock herself so she can size up others. You stun people, and you can read authentic reactions. But one look at Carey’s hopeful face and I couldn’t bring myself to turn the joke back on them that tempted the tip of my tongue: You really think that we ain’t got mac and cheese in Tennessee?”
Such a sentiment is pronounced in recent books by Appalachian authors. The ecological and feminist concern of the last three decades of the 20th century is refocused on issues of identity, race, sexual orientation, and unsentimental investigations of Appalachia. Authors such as Silas House, Mary Hodges, Rahul Mehta and Frank X Walker have been effectively contesting a reductive view of the region seen as politically conservative and industrially underdeveloped; Underwood’s debut novel not only further diversifies the contemporary literary representation of Appalachia, but it also enriches Appalachian literature with a book that will, for sure, become its staple.