* Clinton in Australia about Providence, VA

I met Clinton while hiking (for three days in the pouring rain) in New Zealand in January. He wrote,

"I finally read your book after meeting you on our Routeburn trail hike early in the year. I really enjoyed it and found it an uncanny similarity with other information I have recently received and been interested in. I want to know if there is a sequel as I presumed you were moving towards Avalon actually being the Antichrist with the crosses appearing in her eyes etc."

* Alexis in Pennsylvania about Harmonic Highways

I’ve written several times about my musical heritage and how I wasn’t raised on classical music. I didn’t even really become immersed in classical music until the summer before my senior year of high school when I attended the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. Learning the musical language of an art form I didn’t really grow up with was the challenge and I worked incredibly hard to achieve competence and a feeling that I belonged.

I grew up listening to all kinds of music, but I started out singing in church and I sang a lot of gospel music. I still remember my favorites like Give Me that Old Time Religion and I’ll Fly Away (imagine my excitement to find a youtube channel devoted to the hymnal I vividly remember as having the most fun songs to sing). Eventually, I sang more contemporary music and then I began playing the flute in 6th grade. I eventually stopped singing and focused on the flute and classical music.

When I was younger, I never linked my own musical heritage with the flute. I always felt like the flute connected me to the larger world beyond the sheltered region of Southwest Virginia where bluegrass and old time music is the organic and dominant musical presence. Aside from school band programs, classical music was and is non-existent in my home county.

In reading Michael Abraham’s book, Harmonic Highways: Exploring Virginia’s Crooked Road, I’ve realized how much the region has changed in the 10 years since I’ve lived there. Abraham’s book reminded me that I have an innate need to somehow combine sound worlds and learn more about the music that is a part of my individual musical fabric, even if I wasn’t actively listening to it during my developmental musical years. I want to tap into the change, forge relationships and connect to the music that is present in everyone in that region. It may not be “art music” but it’s the kind of music that gets you moving, thinking and processing life.

I’m working on a special project that will be the first step in my process of actually combining worlds. It’s going to require some stepping out of my comfort zone but why not? I’m always going to feel a special connection to my tiny hometown and I want to honor those roots. The beauty of this music is that anytime I feel homesick, I can just listen and it takes me home.

* Yuri in New York about The Spine of the Virginias

I have been reading Michael Abraham’s collection of interviews, “THE SPINE OF THE VIRGINIAS” in tandem with reading COLD MOUNTAIN, by Charles Frazier. They each, in far different manner, render the history, culture , physical geography and toll of human conflict on the native species and immigrant inhabitants of Appalachia. Frazier’s novel draws you into the reality of western North Carolina residents during the late Civil War through the vernacular of his novel’s narrative which frames the profound struggle of the characters as they weather the plot. Abraham pursues an anthropological travelogue that is much like reading an extended series of features in an independent regional newspaper you might read in daily installments for a month as you ride a bike tour through the counties along the Virginia & West Virginia border. In a very different manner, both works land us in a similar point of the same historical narrative and, similar critical observation on the extended reality of western industrial civilization (sic) as revealed in its execution over the past 200 years in the Southern Appalachian region.
Abraham starts by introducing us to the unique history of West Virginia’s Civil War secession from Virginia and travels chronologically and geographically from north to south, much like the long walk of Frazier’s protagonist Ingman from Virginia to Cold Mountain, North Carolina reveals the internalized impact of congressional politics, imperial economics and industrialism on non-elite Americans.
Abraham arrives at his journey’s illustrative pivot almost smack dab in the middle of his text, in what he terms the “Lumbar” area of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, as articulated by BJ Gudmundsson, “Our coal severance tax barely repairs the damage of what the[(coal)] industry leaves behind. The schools are hurting. The roads are full of potholes. The drinking water is poison. We need to have people in government who will admit that we are glad to have all the money that coal has brought us over the years, but we need to chart a new course for the future…..We have outsourced our manufacturing economy to the developing world. I think this is a tremendous mistake, and will come back to bite us. We live in a country that is unable [to reclaim our glory( if)]. We don’t have the spine to take it back.”
Frazier, following the classic plot organization taught in middle and high school English class, delivers his characters’ common wisdom, uncommon and almost lost in our time, just prior to the novel’s Climax:
“Do you remember that song of your father’s about the mole in the ground?
Ruby said that she did, and Ada asked if Ruby thought Stobrod had written the song. Ruby said there were many songs that you could not say anybody in particular made by himself. A song went around from fiddler to fiddler and each one added something and took something away so that in time the song became a different thing from what it had been, barely recognizable in either tune or lyric. But you could not say the song had been improved, for as was true of all human effort, there was never advancement. Everything added meant something lost, and about as often as not the thing lost was preferable to the thing gained, so that over time we’d be lucky if we just broke even. Any thought otherwise was empty pride.”
I can recommend the reading chronologically of Frazier’s novel and Abraham’s travelogue, or if one prefers, reading in tandem, as a worthwhile endeavor while awaiting another Appalachian Spring.

* Bill in Blacksburg, Virginia about Providence, VA

I wanted to let you know that I finished "Providence, VA" a few weeks ago and enjoyed it very much! Also, I was sorry that the book had come to an end, because I grew to care for the characters, and I wanted to know what happened to them next. Of course that's the mark of a "good read".

* Ibby in Rocky Mount, Virginia about Providence, VA

(Note: This review of Providence, VA was written by Ibby Greer in Rocky Mount, Virginia and posted on Facebook. A similar review is on Amazon.com.)

“Providence, VA, a novel of inner strength found in adversity,” by Michael Abraham. Pocahontas Press. 2012. ISBN 0-926487-63-9.

Journey Through Dystopia: A Review by Elizabeth T. Greer

“Reisen,” German for “to travel, to journey”…It cannot be by chance that Samantha Reisinger, heroine of Michael Abraham’s riveting novel, “Providence, VA,” has that verb as the very root of her name. A privileged and naive “Jewish Princess” from New Jersey, an accomplished classical violinist used to a charming second home and a horse with which she trains in Dressage, access to the cultural riches of NYC, and a highly successful father at Goldman Sachs, this 17-year-old product of the glittery Northeast Corridor travels to Galax, VA, for the annual Fiddlers’ Convention in the hills of rural SW Virginia to hear Bluegrass on fiddles. Bluegrass lyrics, homespun folk songs, classics for violin, and even three of Vivaldi’s “Seasons” enrich the texture of this episodic novel, of life after the Grid goes down. Darkness, despair, courage, integrity, horror, and knowledge describe this story.

With an occasional subtle tip of the hat to another fantastic American novel of surprise, survival, and friendship, Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz,” Abraham has this Dorothy also dropped into a new kind of world because of a natural disaster, an electromagnetic “Pulse,” and struggle to find her way home, with music at the heart of the journey. Where Dorothy’s world went from black and white (in the film) to full color in Oz, Sammy’s world goes from full color to complete darkness…lit by a moon or flashlight. Like Dorothy, Sammy encounters, one by one, a diverse new set of friends, some local and some imports, like herself. Some of the characters are professors, allowing them to explain what is happening with the effects of the Pulse.

Black, White, Pentecostal, Native American, Jew, rural folks, musicians, urban elites, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Tech, Georgetown, Dartmouth, Oxford Univ., and Winston-Salem play a part in this novel. Slavery, the Holocaust, folklore, and the Rapture are woven into the journey and stories of survival. The story unfolds quickly, and this reader could not put it down. I was familiar with every place, historical reference, school, and religion portrayed. That enhanced my appreciation for the depth and intensity of this novel.

Michael Abraham, author of books about the Crooked Road Music Trail and motorcycling over the region’s back roads, is a resident of Blacksburg, VA, (home of Virginia Tech) He is able to share his vast knowledge of the rural culture, musical traditions, history, and topography of the region around Galax (notably Fries, Independence, Elk Creek, Roanoke, and the New River), all in the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains. The point-of-view, that of an innocent Jewish girl surrounded by people of faith, agnostics, atheists, and a New Age herbalist, lets the author explore this nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage and show the similarities and differences of people’s belief systems, especially how they are used and are helpful, or not, under terrible community stress.

Midwifery, carpentry, hydraulic engineering, mechanics, radio and camera technology, food preservation, and transportation are just a few of the skills that Abraham weaves into the story through the articulate and patient characters who try to make the best of disaster. Some of the “speeches” that occur when someone answers a question, usually one asked by the bright and curious protagonist, Sammy, seem a little pedagogical. Yet, the knowledge comes forth clearly and propels this amazing saga along to a satisfying finale.

I may have been present, in Galax 2011, when the seeds of this novel started to sprout. I was seated next to Michael and a young woman classical violinist from somewhere “up North,” while Roger Sprung [NY/CT Bluegrass banjo player] and Fred Swedberg jammed with Barbara and Frank Shaw [CT] of “Shoregrass Bluegrass. Michael Abraham, will there be an “Encore”? Bravo! Bravo, Michael Abraham. I have not read a book this enthralling for years. More. More. And, thank you. Wow.