Catch Appalachian Alchemy Constructed By Barlow Adams Expressed As E-Text

parts gritty, beautiful, localized, and universal, A quick read, loaded with meaning and bullets, I'm wishing for a sequel! This is a page turner, a short story, A coming of age tale about brothers, Book and Evan, living by the age old Kentucky code of the river, It is beautifully written and full of heartbreaking characters, Take your preconceived notions of what a “hillbilly” story might be and throw it out the window, This book, short though it may be, was as satisfying as it was surprising, I kept thinking I knew how it would twist or turn, only to find I was wrong, It was at times sad, funny, insightful and poignant, At all times it was entertaining and I highly recommend it, A river runs through it,
Barlow Adams' Appalachian Alchemy is a gripping tale of Marshall Merrick, who is tagged Book because of his love for reading.
Book is poor in upbringing, but rich with knowledge, and dreams
both of which are based in reality, and literature, He wants to get away from his circumstances, and make a better life for himself, He is a type of rugged Gatsby, reaching for the hopeful green light of the future, Is he lead Or is he water Book embodies the struggle between the heaviness of family bonds, and the buoyancy of forging independence.
Book's story is that of a quest for the right alchemy in life, the right mix that blends the bloodline with the realization of his dreams.
I highly recommend this book, Both the writing and moral complexities of the characters reminded me a bit of John Steinbeck, especially his shorter novels, Heavy on symbolism with very good prose, No extra weight to this story at all it is well paced and it moves along smoothly, The ending is wellcrafted, also full of symbolism and allows the reader much interpretation I feelcertain in my own mind exactly how it ended but I'm sure others would disagree!.


This book would be great paired with Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy for a comparison of real and fictionalized views about intergenerational poverty in American Appalachia.
Would work well in a collegelevel literary criticism class, or maybe for book club reading if you have an intellectual crowd,

I will definitely keep Barlow Adams on my radar, It's not Moonshiners and it certainly ain't Deliverance, Barlow Adams transcends hillbilly tropes to deliver an Appalachian comingofage novella with a mastery of voice that reveals the poetry and violence of those living along the Kentucky River.
Appalachian Alchemy is a pleasure to read though those who are squeamish might skip over the more brutal passages, Highly recommend. I encountered this author while skimming short, short tales on Twitter, He captivated my imagination and taste for poetic words in just the few lines of a tweet, His book explodes and expounds all of this from start to finish, Ever since seeing "Mud" with Matt McConaughey, I have been slightly in love with the masculinity and simpleness of "River Life", Something about the depressing overshadow hold that poverty's darkness can bear on a soul mystifies, stymies and ravishes a part of my psyche.
"Book" is a superlikeable protagonist, The early losses he faces set the story up so welllike a classic Western, This will make such a great movie, The command of language, atmosphere and wit are surprising for such a beginning crack at literary success, This is a huge homerun for Adams, who is a courteous fellow from my brief interactions with him on the Tweet, I suspect this land runs in his blood, If not, then his storytelling puts him in a sort of playing field with the likes of Daniel Day Lewis, who can wear whatever skins are needed.
The beauty of the book is the way it starts almost as a child's tale, but progresses to the murky avenue which adulthood often takes us.
My only two complaints, which weren't strong enough to keep this fromstars, were the extreme for my taste sex act details, and then the title.
If this is not already a book box office success, I suspect it could be the title which holds it back!!! Appalachian Alchemy is a very good book.
What could have been a cliched portrayal of hillbilly life and poverty porn can we please move on from Deliverance is masterfully diverted by Adams through his rich characters, especially in the inner life of Book.
With beautiful control over fluid prose and the regional language, Adams took this reader back to a place and story that is painfully familiar.
As a matter of fact, my familiarity with the subject of being an Appalachian wassatisfied with the truths in this fiction.
In some ways, the story is of the universal kind for those of us that want out of our seemingly predestined lives in the towns and places where our blood has scraped by and feuded for generations.
I never fault either the stayers or the goers, In this case, Book might be lead or he might be water after all, Either way, I enjoyed going on this journey with him,

Im going to read this book again, Probably will read it again after that, If Adams writes another book, youll find me in line to read that as well, This is a writer to watch, Based on the reviews I thought for sure I'd love it, I liked it enough to want to know how it ends and no more, Here's a charming slab of story that just keeps twisting, As it opens, it seems to be a quiet coming of age tale a slice of life Kentucky fried and in many ways that remains the case throughout, but a primal violence seeps in there along the way and bloodies the water.
Well, it so happens that's my favorite kind of violence, so I was loving it,

The tale spans from roughly ageto agein the life of our protagonist, Marshall"Book" Merrick, The son of a moonshiner in a brutally poor Kentucky river town, Book struggles to fit in not only with the other townsfolk but within his own family.
They drink and fight. He reads and cries. And yet the hard nosed sense of honor that the river folk prize above all else seems to have taken root in Book's heart just the same.


It's this sense of honor that becomes the core of the Appalachian Alchemy's central conflict, Life beats up on Book pretty good, It teaches him about death and pain and hard work, But it also teaches him about love and identity and dreams of a better life, In the end, these positive and negative values are at odds, The stakes are life and death, and Book must choose who he really is, must decide how deeply the river has gotten into him.


This book is loaded with great, entertaining writing, I'd put it on the literary shelf at the bookstore, although I think it has more in common with John Steinbeck than the more pretentious lit folk the care put into the prose, witty observations, and clever details is balanced with elements I'd describe as visceral, accessible, and emotionally powerful.
I finished it in a day, too, Great read. Lives Forever Entwined

Trying to escape from ones preconceived destiny sometimes looks set in stone, In this beautifully written coming of age story of Marshal 'Book' Merrick as he looks to break free to a better life.


On river river in Kentucky the life is hard and money is scarce, People live with little more than the clothes on their backs and a dirt floor under their feet, Yet they always find money or goods to trade for moonshine and crack That's the life for Book, his Mom Connie, Dad Ennis, and brother Evan.
The book beings with Evan and Book witnessing the murder of their father by Silas Graves, This sets the brothers on their road to adulthood, Two very different roads.

The brothers both work hard to succeed, One just to live in the river, on to escape from the river, The interact daily with the family of the man that murdered their father, waiting for a chance at revenge, But a unforseen relationship developed from that circumstance, Then comes the explosive, emotionally charged event that changes everyone's lives forever,

I cant say this any more clearly: You need to read Appalachian Alchemy by Barlow Adams,

Like many of the other books that have blown me away this year, its from a new voice I hadnt read before and what I read was a magnificent combination of prose and storytelling.


This is a beautiful book,

Its beautiful, and its so, so dirty, Not in the erotic sense, but in the reality sense, You see, Appalachian Alchemy is an exploration of poverty, family, society and circumstance and to be true in that sense, one must get dirty.
Theres drugs, murder, love, violence, pride, sex and desperation abound in this book, A yearning to be free, and a depiction of the helplessness one can feel when surrounded by a reality that you just cant break free of.


Adams is almost Faulkneresque in the way he can tell a story, The little nuances he imbues in the daytoday lives of the characters build a reality thats easy to picture, though at times you may not want to.
Like the films, Out of the Furnace or The Place Beyond the Pines, Adams understands how to build a world you cant help but want to watch, and a main character you want to root for even though you have no idea if hell ever break free of the chains of the existence hes born into.


Im not about the summarize the book, If you want to know what its about, you can read that in the books description, What I will say is that if you are any sort of fan of literature, you owe it to yourself to read this book.


Sadly, its Barlows only published book as of this writing and its fairly short basically a novella, I am eager to read more from this man and will be one of the first in line when he releases another work.


Im sure once you read this, you will be there with me, A beautifully written, unflinching, comingofage story, Adams' prose is just gorgeous, his characters compelling, and I loved the end, Recommend. No doubt, you've read the story about the young man with dreams he can't quite afford, and the unwise, possibly dangerous moral compromises he makes for a chance to pursue them.
So have I. I have NEVER read a story quite like this one, and I imagine you haven't either,

The young man in question is Marshall "Book" Merrick, a fatherless as of the first page kid growing up in a rather bleak Kentucky River town that seemingly never quite managed to become part of Coal Country back in the day, and instead appears to have just been Nowhere Country more or less forever.
It's the kind of sparselypopulated yet claustrophobicfeeling setting that lends itself to almost Shakespearean dramatic entanglements, where the girl you're falling in love with might have an uncle who murdered your father and a brother who wishes to do you and your own brother lasting harm.
Although

the title of the book and its cover image if you happened not to notice the bullet lying beside the flowers could lead you to mistake this for a romance novel, the romance that drives the plot forward here is as fraught and precarious and potentially doomed as everything else in this place, and the "alchemy" in question has more to do with turning corn into moonshine, or Sudafed into methamphetamine.


I'm going to avoid describing any of the specifics of the plot, since it would ruin the profound care Mr.
Adams has taken to make it surprising at every turn, It is weird and dark and beautiful, and I literally cannot think of a single scene in the entire book that played out the way I was expecting it to.
Instead of a synopsis, I'll simply say this: What you will find in these pages is a deeply gifted writer making a debut that reads nothing whatsoever like a debut, and will leave you in awe of what the rest of his career might bring.
From the odd, leisurely cadence of his often extremely funny dialogue, to his evocative descriptions of the town and its woods and its poisoned river, to his depictions of violence which are neither glamorized nor conventionally "exciting," but rather sudden and shocking and laden with terrible consequences for all involved, Adams writes with absolute mastery and maturity and sadness and wisdom, and he gets every little detail right.
I've never been to Appalachia, but I've been to THIS place now, and I believe in it utterly,

I loved this book, I hope you'll read it and love it too, .