Unveiling Hidden Truths: Emilee Hackney’s Appalachian Memoir Reveals What Lies Beneath the Surface
Reviewed by Nan J. Bauer
Emilee Hackney never refers to herself, or anyone she grew up with, as a hillbilly.
That assessment comes courtesy of her Ivy League peers and teachers. They lob it at her as soon as they hear her accent; “I’ve never heard stairs pronounced with two syllables before!” says one with the glee of discovering a real-life gnome. Nearly everyone she meets in Cambridge views Hackney’s home of Appalachia—she pronounces it with short a’s, as in “latch”—as a coal-dust-covered, Trump-loving, opioid-addicted, cousin-marrying monolith.
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