Gilliam chronicles a coming of age and sustains a fine (and difficult) balance between the child's immediacy of experience and the adult's analytical recollection. The setting is Appalachia, but this is no tame, nostalgic look at life in the hills. Here are bears, real and otherwise, and fences to keep them out.--Joan Murray

Jimmie Margaret Gilliam (1935-2015) was a Professor Emerita at Erie Community College in Buffalo, New York.