Tales of Chinkapin Creek - Softcover

A collection of stories about what life was really like growing up on a working farm in rural West Virginia in the early 1900's. For young Nellie Wister, life was rich and meaningful among the people of Chinkapin Creek, a small Appalachian community, stirred by changing times, but held together by a distinct West Virginia spirit that rural Americans will recognize today. Tales of Chinkapin Creek illuminates an aspect of the American character rarely explored: the attitudes and temperament of a state with a burr under its saddle. Broken off from Virginia in the Civil War, West Virginians occupied the neglected counties west of the Shenandoah mountain. Their largely Scots-Irish and German Heritage made them a self-sufficient, often stubborn and unpredictable people. For Nellie, each denizen commands a special place in her open heart. These include the morose Uncle Edward; the seemingly erudite Levi Harman; the turtle-toting Wilse Strickland; the feeble minded Bean Kimball; the sequestered, speech-impaired Millie Flood; Nellie's suitor, the tippling Dr. John Echols; the pushy fertilizer salesman Ben Moomaw, and other intriguing real-life characters.

Jean Ayer was born and raised in West Virginia. She is a graduate of Barnard College, and Columbia University's Creative writing program. She was a prolific fashion illustrator for Lord and Taylor under her married name Jean Karnoff. Her work appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire and McCalls magazines among many others. She has translated books from many languages, notably "The Besler Floriligium", a 17th century work, and "Patients are People Like Us," by Henri Baruk. Her fiction has been published in Appalachian Heritage, Confrontation, Anthaeus, and other literary magazines.