Book Review 2: The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by M. Glenn Taylor

The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart

By M. Glenn Taylor

Published: 2001

274 pages

            The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by M. Glenn Taylor is a delicate balance of historical folklore set in the hills of southern West Virginia starting in the early 1900’s.  It is the lifelong story of a man outcast from society at the early age of two months.  Said to have spoken in the devil’s tongue at his christening, Trenchmouth finds himself orphaned to a widow who seems to be one of the few in their town accepting of his unsightly oral disease, trench mouth.

            Trenchmouth is taught how to shoot, sip shine, and survive off the land within the Appalachia region of West Virginia and Kentucky.  He struggles to adapt to the ever-changing norms of society while constantly on the run for crimes that some may have considered just.  Despite his frequent run-ins with the law, Trenchmouth finds himself learning life and musical skills from the best including Sid Hatfield and Hank Williams.

            As he moves from town to town, displaying his skills a musician and writer, Trenchmouth must come to terms with his inability to stay close to those he loves and the destruction of the mountains he once called home.  The Ballard of Trenchmouth Taggart is a striking account of how the traditions of Appalachia can be confused and lost in the outside world’s need to expand and understand anything that is foreign to it.

Incorporating the Text in an ELA Classroom:

            This is an extensive novel, not so much in its page length, but the time periods that it covers.  Divided into three sections, the novel highlights T.T.’s (Trenchmouth Taggart’s) childhood, adulthood and eventual old age.  There are many shifts in society that some students may not be familiar with.  Personally, I had to research some of the events that occurred within the novel to better understand them.  There is a delicate balance between what is real and what is fiction.  Taylor is able to place T.T. into historically events that, unless I looked it up, I would have not known were true.  One such example is T.T.’s involvement in the Battle of Matewan.  How much T.T. influences the outcome of it is up to the reader’s imagination.

            Because of this there may be a need for students to participate in some front-loading while reading the novel.  It would help to gain perspective on what students know about the historical events before they read about T.T.’s involvement in them.  That way the teacher can clarify any discrepancy or uncertainty about the events they read.  The flow and context of the novel would be much easier for students to understand if they were to gain some historical insight to the events covered.  Having said that, the novel lends itself well to the possibility of a cross disciplinary study with a historical subject.  It is important that students do gain some historical insight before and while reading this novel.

            There is one main occurrence that may not be appropriate for any grade lower than 11^th, and even then that may be pushing it.  The first third of the novel is an account of T.T.’s boyhood and his development as a teenager sexually.  As mentioned before, T.T. has the uncanny ability to speak in the tongue of the devil, or in other words, snakes.  When ladies hear of T.T.’s unusual talent they find him and pay him generously to demonstrate it.  I won’t go into any further details as I think an older audience can deduce what T.T.’s explicit business was.

            However, the book’s layout does provide the opportunity for a teacher to explicitly choose sections for students to study.  As previously mentioned, the book is dissected into three different sections, each pertaining to a part of T.T.’s life.  The sections of the novel do not rely heavily on one another and certain sections can be chosen to convey other important themes and motifs.  This gives the teacher discretion to choose which section he or she finds most fitting for a class to study. 

            Aside from its graphic sexual content early in the novel, there are some instances that involve racism and the ever-controversial “n” word.  However, I think this is something that can be looked past as it was part of history and is a truth that students need to have knowledge of. 

            Despite this, the novel is loaded with important themes such as, racism, loss of culture, and displacement, which can be discussed and debated for endless amounts of class periods, especially with students who have ties to the Appalachian region.  It gives great insight into the livelihood of people who relied on the land and were able to fend for themselves in a time period that some people may have come to forget.

            For some reason or another, the Appalachian region has obtained the identity that it is filled with backwards living people who are dim witted and slow.  This novel has several examples that displace this idea and shows readers to not allow outside stereotypes to change your perspective of who you are.  This is a novel that can be used to display the fact that people have different intelligences to adapt to different ways of life.

            Towards the end of the novel, there is a brief mention of the ongoing problem of mountain top removal and strip mining.  This is a significant topic that is relevant for many students today.  It also brings to light the travesty of this process that some people, who don’t live in the region, may not be aware of.  I was curious as to why it was so briefly mentioned and asked the author on what his views are, however I have yet to get a reply.  Whether this topic was intentionally covered briefly or not, it opens up the opportunity to discuss such controversial topics that may arise in the classroom.  In this way we can relate this novel to current events that deal with environmental controversy.  Students can use current events and events that are happening within the community to better relate to the story.

            The book is written in what I thought to be a very unique way.  While the dialogues and dialects very much matched the way you might imagine someone of the Appalachia region to speak, the text did as well.  You got the sense that Taylor himself was a pioneer within the Appalachia region as you read.  One might consider his growing up in Huntington, West Virginia as an influence on this.  This style of writing is something that I think students within an Appalachian region can relate to.  The writing alone can provoke interest in students who may have not seen their dialect represented in a written text.  Students can draw personal connections to a text that follows and represents the stipulations of their community.  I chose one passage from the novel that I think represents a fitting snapshot of the text.

            “Some stood scarecrow still, some ran.  Either way, they were thoroughly discombobulated by the sight of a black boy hitting a white one for insulting his race.  It didn’t happen in Georgia, they were pretty sure, and it didn’t happen in southern West Virginia either.  But it had happened, and Warren Crews lay asleep on the ground, thick blood, chunked by dirt, running from nose to mouth.

            Eventually, they all left their ten-year-old comrade where he lay, only one of them with the wherewithal to shout a promise of revenge.  Arly and Trenchmouth remained.  They looked down at Warren together, the black boy rubbing his throbbing knuckles, the white boy rubbing his head.  This would take some figuring.” (pg 64)

             Like I noted this an Appalachian book that feels like it is written by an Appalachian writer.  The writing is short and to the point, yet gives metaphors and descriptions that we would have probably never considered.  This novel gives readers and teachers the ability to pick and chose how a theme develops through T.T.’s lifetime.  I would highly suggest this book to those who wish to show an Appalachian heritage and region to be proud of.