Dear Appalachia : Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction Since 1878, Hardcover by Satterwhite, Emily, ISBN 0813130107, ISBN-13 9780813130101, Brand New, Free shipping in the US

No other region in America seems to be as burdened with stereotypes as Appalachia. Movies, television shows, books, and news media promote generalizations about the region, but what roles do viewers and readers play in perpetuating or challenging these stereotypes? Dear Appalachia: Readers,
Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 explores the responses of readers to best-selling fiction set in Appalachia. Emily Satterwhite employs an innovative new strategy, examining fan mail and reviews to understand how readers imagine the region and what purposes these imagined geographies serve
for them. As she traces the changing visions of Appalachia across the decades, from the Gilded Age (1) to the present, Satterwhite finds that every generation, regardless of its historical circumstances, has produced an American audience hungry for a romantic version of Appalachia. By
mapping fans according to geographical location, Satterwhite demonstrates that mobile white readers in particular (including regional elites) have idealized Appalachia as rooted, static, and protected from commercial society. For many, the region fulfills a sense of identity and belonging.
Satterwhite warns of unintended consequences, including the potential to romanticize whiteness, reinforce white nationalism, and endorse problematic images of so-called primitives the world over.

Investigating texts such as John Fox Jr.'s Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), Harriet Arnow's The Dollmaker (1954), James Dickey's Deliverance (1970), and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain (1997), Dear Appalachia moves beyond traditional studies of regional fiction to document the functions of these
narratives in the lives of readers, revealing not only what people think about Appalachia, but why.