By Jennifer Parrill
Published by Ballantine Books, 1992
Published by Ballantine Books, 1992
ISBN-10 0-8041-1144-8
Historical Fiction
Synopsis
The Unquiet Earth is the story of a
mining town on the West Virginia/Kentucky border and the intertwining lives of
its people. Alternating narrators slowly
unravel the decades long story of family, loss, exploitation, and change.
The story continues as Jackie grows
up in the same mining town. She remains
ignorant of her parentage until adulthood, though Dillon is a constant fixture
in her life. Provided with a comfortable
lifestyle far beyond that of her neighbors and friends, she nonetheless
despises her corrupt stepfather Arthur Lee.
Jackie comes of age when she falls in love with a novice priest named
Tom who has come to Appalachia to do service work through VISTA. By the 1960’s, poverty in the mountains has
hit the national stage and this dynamic between the insular mining communities
and the rest of the country figures prominently in the plot. It is through the
character of Tom and his influence on Jackie that we see the impact of the
political activism of the time. Ironically, the help they are given is
ineffective, and the help they ask for is denied. Through Arthur Lee we understand the corrupt
business practices and underhanded government dealings that affected the lives
of miners and their families.
By the end of the book we have
witnessed the passing of Rachel and Dillon’s lives, and endured the
heartbreaking societal, economic, environmental, and personal tragedies that
are deftly woven in the novel.Some Personal Thoughts on Lesson Planning
After reading this novel, I felt as though I had
made a profound discovery. As a West Virginia
native, the language and story were strongly resonant and I found the
characters on my mind for days afterward.
But to address the book successfully with students, I would first like
to get feedback from a few adolescent readers – which aspects of the story were
most accessible/appealing to today’s teenagers? Was there a particular
character they identified with? Were
there parts of the setting or story that seemed utterly foreign and difficult
to access? I’m bringing my own baggage
to the text, but I would like to get a sense of what their baggage is –
experiences and associations different from my own that may shape how I
approach the text in planning for best results.
The novel
is complex and versatile. In retrospect,
it’s hard to believe that it all fit between the covers! This is good news, because it makes it easy
to pair with writing exercises and companion texts. For instance, each chapter is from the
perspective of a different character at a different point in time over the
course of sixty some years. They
function as mini-memoirs and could be incorporated into a memoir-writing
unit. Individual passages could be
compared with Amy Clark’s non-fiction piece “Appalachian Hope and Heartbreak”
in aid of identifying the guises memoir takes.
Because a
large part of the narrative involves the nature and practices of the coal
industry, this novel is well suited to cross-curricular planning and has
potential to incorporate history, civics, and science. The debate rages over environmental safety
and the actual economic benefit to local economies. In the ELA classroom, a head to head
examination of the subsequent literature from each camp could engender debate
over the definition of propaganda and the use of persuasive devices.
Although the idea of Place Based Education is new
to me, I think the blanket of “insider” and “outsider” that covers this text
would be fertile ground for discussion and exploration through writing. What is it about “home” that makes it
inclusive? Why are we so ready to
identify “otherness”? This route would
include an exploration of the language and dialect from the text. The narrative touches often on the idea of
charity and outside aid – from the government, and from private charities in
the form of boxes of random worn out clothes and household items shipped from
up north to the poor of Appalachia. The
1965 video of Charles Kuralt in Kentucky entitled “Christmas in Appalachia”
gives students an idea of the sudden awareness of Appalachia developed by the
rest of the country.
Finally, we
can’t ignore the story of Denise Giardina herself. A native of McDowell County and a professor
at West Virginia State University, this ordained minister of the Episcopal
Church and prolific author continues to challenge environmentally disastrous
mining practices and the status quo.
Such a good example of “Appalachian” may help students who have
internalized the constructed stereotype of Appalachians as poor, dirty, lazy,
addicted, and ignorant. The message
isn’t that we aspire to something greater by becoming something different, but
that what we are already is as unique and full of potential as any other
region. Again, this returns to the goals of this class and PBE, “Engaging
students – including ourselves – as producers, not just consumers or objects in
media representations.”
On a final note about the media
representation of Appalachia, I found this series of articles that I thought
everyone might like:
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