Some of the best fiction comes from Appalachia; most likely, because of their storytelling habits. I've always been fascinated by folk medicine, maybe because it is similar to what my ancestors did in Louisiana. One of my ancestors was a traiteur, or faith healer. Granted, this is different from folk healing practices in Appalachia, yet both relied on medicinal plants and faith.
Lately, its hard not to notice an explosion of taleneted Appalachian writers--authors like Amy Greene, Joni Agee, Ann Hite, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Robert Morgan, and Daniel Woodrell.
These novels aren't simply set in Appalachia but are informed by the setting. These characters couldn't have lived anywhere else. In many cases, the folk healing is a significant part of the story or other aspects of Appalachia--mining and its effects.
Folk medicine:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40932250?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
One of my favorite Appalachian novels, The River Wife.
https://chantalreviews.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-river-wife-by-joni-agee.html
Listening to Joan Bauer speak about her latest middle grade novel, Soar, made me realize that I want to write hopeful novels as well.
Jeremiah in Soar faces a lot of adversity, a rocky start in life and a defective heart yet he pursues his dream of coaching a baseball team.
Bauer spoke about her days as a writer and how she got her first breakthrough after adversity--an injury that made her determined to write. She spoke of hearing the character's voice in her head. That character became the protagonist of Squashed, Bauer's first young adult book.
What the world needs, Bauer says, is more kindness and joy.
Flora begins to have leadership problems with her crew when she accepts a man's place in the expedition for the money his sponsors can provide--Gilbert Ashbee.
Aniguin and her begin to drift apart after he returns from America. Armitage had taken him and a few other "eskimos" are tragically put on exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
This incident is reminiscent of events that actually occurred shortly after Robert Peary's 1897 expedition. Two books that chronicle the strange incident are Give Me Back My Father's Body: The Life of Minik and Minik: The New York Eskimo.
Aniguin does not seem to be based on Minik but some of the details are the same. In any event, the experience changes Aniguin as it had also changed Minik.
Flora feels estranged from Aniguin when he returns to Greenland. Her old friend, Tateraq, has also changed. He leaves Flora to die on the ice.
At this time, there was intense competition to reach the Pole, so much so that some scientists were willing to fake their results. Real life fraudster, Frederick Cook, claimed to have reach the North Pole before Peary.
His photographs and his story were later revealed to be hoaxes. Penney seems to base some of Armitage's chicanery on Cook or scientists like him.
Armitage, of course, goes a step further by not only claiming to have made discoveries he never made. By destroying Jakob and Flora's records, he tries to obliterate their work.
Flora revels in the one thing Armitage cannot take away--her time with Jakob in the valley. Though this is a doomed love story, it is an incredibly rich look at at the life of two explorers who were willing to risk so much.
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1
Some of the best fiction comes from Appalachia; most likely, because of their storytelling habits. I've always been fascinated by folk medicine, maybe because it is similar to what my ancestors did in Louisiana. One of my ancestors was a traiteur, or faith healer. Granted, this is different from folk healing practices in Appalachia, yet both relied on medicinal plants and faith. 
