Book Reviews

Pursuing Daisy Garfield: A Novel. By Otis Bulfinch. 397 pages. Publerati, 2023.
Newton County, Arkansas, is a real place, one of the most rugged counties in Arkansas, the home of such landmarks as the Hawksbill Crag, Hemmed-In Hollow Falls, the Buffalo National River, and the late lamented Dogpatch USA. Newton County is also a fictional place. It’s the setting for Pursuing Daisy Garfield, an ambitious, challenging, sometimes frustrating, language-mad book that both taxes and rewards its readers’ patience.
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The inciting moment of Pursuing Daisy Garfield takes place on May 19, 1890, when the title character persuades a passing waggoneer named William Crawford to come inside her house to assist her. But his assistance doesn’t involve a mere household task. Daisy’s husband James has cut his leg while chopping wood, the wound has turned gangrenous, and James now lies in a miserable state of near-unconsciousness, waiting to die. Daisy wants William to hurry him along that path a bit, to put him out of his misery, in short to commit an act of murder. William, who has been peeking at the impossibly beautiful Daisy on his trips past her cabin, has a moment of moral qualms but then agrees, his motives impure and rather badly thought out. And thus their entanglement begins.
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The story is William and Daisy’s, but it’s also John’s, and that of a sizable cast of other characters, as it moves backward and forward in time. What at first glance might look like a historical-hillbilly-noir develops in unexpected directions as the plot unfolds with a logic that is effective though occasionally strained.
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The story is also Otis Bulfinch’s, as he tells the story in a distinctive and highly wrought style. Like Gramma Greer, a storytelling crone who dictates several of the middle chapters of the book, Bulfinch is no believer in a terse or direct style of narration. The path through the story, for an old-time storyteller, is just as much pleasure as the story itself. The style of Pursuing Daisy Garfield is ruminative, digressive, given to meditations on things lofty and low. There is never a straight route. Here, for example, are the first sentences of the book:
The road was rutted by the wheels of mule wagons and washed out by the annual torrents of spring. The wallows jarred the wheels pretty rough, and the mule had to be encouraged with whip and reins, but the wagon trundled on, and the trail led upward into a mystery of green that looked very like the mystery left behind. The waggoneer cursed, as well he ought, for cursing comes natural in desolate places. God is in nature—everyone insists it is so—but He is shy and unpredictable as a hummingbird, and you’ve got to look obliquely and quickly at that, and even then, He has probably already flown. (1)
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What struck me about the style of this book is its old-fashioned quality. The narrator adopts a stance reminiscent of the classics of the 18th and 19th century novel, freely commenting on the events of the story even as he relates them. And he revels in big words and big thoughts, sometimes leaving the story behind for a few pages while he chases one down.
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This anachronistic quality reveals itself in another essential element of the book’s style: its use of regional dialect. Any writer dealing with the Ozarks has to decide how much regional speech to depict: none, a light dusting, or an attempt at full approximation. Any rendering of a regional dialect is inexact, and the trend among authors nowadays is to avoid going too far in trying to mimic one. Mark Twain’s boast in the introduction to Huckleberry Finn that he has presented seven different dialectal varieties in the book, a dubious claim at best, serves as a warning to the contemporary author. But Bulfinch goes all in. The proliferation of “thang,” “yore,” “mebbe,” “orter,” and other such words permeates the dialogue thoroughly. Personally, I find them distracting. But other readers may perceive the heavy use of regional dialect as a contribution to the book’s authenticity or historical tone. Whatever your attitude toward regional dialect, brace yourself in reading this book because you’re going to get a lot of it.
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The two main characters of the book, Daisy and William, form an unlikely pair. Daisy’s irresistible beauty has exposed her to the worst impulses of humanity, especially from the male half, and her resourcefulness and intelligence has taught her how to deal with them. William is something of an Everyman as he fumbles toward a better understanding of himself and his place in the world, and especially his proper relationship to Daisy. After all, they are partners in crime. But they are partners in other ways, each with something to teach the other about living in our broken world.
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Both Daisy and William spend a lot of time thinking about God, in the traditional Christian framework of conceiving God, with long passages devoted to questions of theology. I will admit that I found these passages tedious. On the other hand, nearly every page of the book contains a passage of flat-out beautiful language, often language of description, and I found myself smiling unconsciously at the nifty way in which an observation was expressed. Bulfinch’s style is extravagant, in the sense Thoreau used the word: extra vagant, wandering beyond the ordinary limits, and there’s pleasure in watching a sentence loop around for a while, like a goose before landing.
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“Without stories, music, moonshine, and missionaries, Ozarkers would have had neither diversions nor culture,” our narrator declares. “And stories were, one could argue, preeminent among them all, for in stories antitheses and antipathies could meet and blend, and that, of course, is what culture is: a confrontation and a mingling, rather like young love” (138). The literary landscape of Pursuing Daisy Garfield reminded me somewhat of Stay More, the mythical northwest Arkansas community created in Donald Harington’s many novels, in that they are essentially communities built around, and for the purpose of, elaborate storytelling rituals. A core of ironic playfulness lives at the heart of Harington’s work, no matter how grim or unsettling the events depicted, while Pursuing Daisy Garfield strikes me as an ultimately earnest book, one that takes seriously the questions of faith and fate its characters meditate upon. So, while their styles may be reminiscent, their tones are dissimilar.
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Pursuing Daisy Garfield is a worthy book, although it will not be to everyone’s taste. As a debut novel, it holds the promise of more books to come, and I will look forward to those books with eager anticipation.
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Steve Wiegenstein

Vance Randolph, Mildred, Quit Hollering! And Other Ozark Folktales (with commentary by Curtis Copeland and Augustus Finch) (Morley, MO: Acclaim Press, 2023).
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No one contributed more to the national image of the Ozarks in the twentieth century more than Vance Randolph (aka “Mr. Ozark”), the anthropologist/folklorist/storyteller from Pittsburg, Kansas, who fell in love with the region and its people and subsequently introduced the rest of the country to his pals in the hills. Though Randolph published well over a dozen Ozark-related works, his most popular, by far, was the 1976 classic Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales, a collection of bawdy anecdotes from area locals. Over forty years after his death, Randolph is back, thanks to commentators Curtis Copeland and Augustus Finch, with a similar title, Mildred, Quit Hollering! And Other Ozark Folktales. The collection is an enjoyable, informative, eccentric read that excellently captures the storytelling spirit of Mr. Ozark.
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The history behind this new collection is in stark contrast with its humorous nature; during the last four years of Randolph’s life, he worked on the book from a nursing home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, intent on capitalizing on Pissing in the Snow’s success. But Randolph was no longer physically able to venture out into the Ozarks to find tales, his “old informants had passed away decades earlier, and the primitive Ozarks was long gone” (11-12). Randolph passed away before the collection was finished. Because of this, Mildred contains only 42 stories, compared to Pissing in the Snow’s 101. The stories found in Mildred are also fairly mild compared to its predecessor. This is understandable, given the fact that they are likely tales that did not make the first cut. Still, there are some that will garner more than a smirk (particularly “The Sharecropper” and “The Prize Winners”).
Due to the relatively low volume of stories in the compilation, editors Copeland and Finch have provided supplemental information to each tale (Pissing in the Snow utilized a similar strategy, documenting the historical background of each anecdote). Copeland’s additions are largely biographies of Randolph’s informants or their locations. These sections are well researched and highly educational; anyone interested in brief introductions to some of the Ozarks’ well-known and unknown names, such as Otto Ernest Rayburn, Gerald L.K. Smith, May Kennedy McCord, and Gordon McCann, who initially provided this collection to Copeland, will find Copeland’s contributions almost encyclopedic. Through meticulous research, Copeland uncovers several life stories worthy of their own books.
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Another life worthy of its own book is Michael Galloway’s, aka, “Augustus Finch.” Finch’s addendums include narratives of everything from his preaching days and romantic exploits (often present in the same stories) to his experience as an impromptu tour guide at Eureka Spring’s Crescent Hotel (183-87). They examine philosophy, religion, sex, language, and everything in between. Though sometimes slightly distracting from Randolph and Copeland’s pieces, the yarns Finch spins are raw and endlessly entertaining, regardless of their truthfulness. One of Finch’s first sections is appropriately entitled “On Bullshitting.” Plato had a particular term for “bullshitters,” Finch claims, “He called ‘em ‘sophists.’” A “sophist,” according to Finch (and apparently Plato), does not value the difference between wisdom and everyday malarkey “as long as he gets what he wants, namely, for the menfolk to open their wallets and the womenfolk to open their legs” (34). It does not take too many pages to gather that Finch himself has participated in the sacred activity of “bullshitting” a few times in his life. But these tales expertly match the spirit of storytelling, and thus, the spirit of Randolph. Mildred creates in the mind of its readers images of old men, sitting around a town square or gas station table, sipping coffee and swapping legends. Finch would certainly have a spot at this imagined table.
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Randolph has rightly received a great deal of flak from academia in the twenty-first century for his simplistic portrayal of the Ozarks as a wholly backward land full of America’s “contemporary ancestors.” Randolph was as fully aware as anyone that his subjects often constituted the margins of Ozarks society; but more than anything, Mr. Ozark was interested in hearing and telling a good story. Mildred continues Randolph’s tradition of entertaining literature about the Ozarks, with excellent supplemental contributions from Copeland and Finch. For anyone interested in the character of the hills, or an endlessly enjoyable read, Mildred is a worthy investment.
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Joseph Hutchison, October 8, 2024

Yellow Jack and Turpentine by Mara W. Cohen Ioannides
In her novella of historical fiction, Yellow Jack and Turpentine, Mara W. Cohen Ioannides follows an expedition of Jewish emigrants from their home in Odessa, Russia, to the Ozarks foothills some fifteen miles north of Newport, Arkansas. Yellow Jack focuses on two families, the Herders and Woskoboynikoffs, and the extreme hardships they and others faced in their effort to establish an Om Alam—a community of Jewish farmers—in a “new Eden.” In clean, straightforward prose, Cohen Ioannides conveys their children’s wonder at a train ride through the German countryside, the chaotic hubbub of a depot, and the deprivations of an Atlantic crossing. She also recalls the commune’s ongoing struggle with starvation and disease after they settle in their Arkansas home. The soil is too poor for crops, so they are able to survive only through the occasional generosity of neighbors. Their principal income is derived from tie-hacking, but when rains swell the White River, the men are unable to float the ties to Batesville. The boggy ground left by the receding river breeds mosquitos that infect many members of the group with malaria. Nevertheless, the Om Alam perseveres through setback after setback until they can no longer avoid the inevitable. In fact, the title of the work refers to the final malady of the commune and its ineffective cure: “Yellow jack” was a common name for yellow fever and “turpentine” was mixed with castor oil as a remedy. In the end, “yellow jack” won out, and the little band passed into history. Their efforts left hardly a footprint in the Ozarks soil. In recovering their story, however, Cohen Ioannides enables us to empathize with their struggles, honor their perseverance, and lament their failure.
​Yellow Jack and Turpentine would be an excellent addition to middle school curricula in Ozarks schools. Much of the story is told from the perspective of the children, which makes the story relatable to young readers. Cohen Ioannides also supplies period illustrations to support her descriptions and a glossary of Yiddish words and historical characters that could serve as starting points for further study. Finally, Cohen Ioannides’ book reminds us that the Ozarks has often served as a kind of screen onto which the fantasies and dreams of “outsiders” are projected. For Moyshe Herder and the Om Alam in the 1880s, as it was for Edd Jeffords and the Back to Landers in the 1960s, the Ozarks was a primordial Eden, a place of promise and new beginnings. In Wright’s Shepherd of the Hills, the Ozarks reflected a Rousseauian innocence in characters like Sammy Lane and Young Matt, rural young folk unspoiled by the enervating influence of the city. In the early 20th century, the Ozarks was often portrayed as a dark and mysterious realm, an isolated region of lust and violence analogous to the unconscious mind. In the mid to late-20th century, the Ozarks meant hillbilly comedians and sequined singers and the “promised land” of Corrie Ten Boom. Young Ozarkers, I would argue, should be introduced to these ideals of identity in order to separate the reality from the projection. Eventually, they will ask, “Who are we?” Mara W. Cohen Ioannides’ book would be an excellent place to begin.
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Dr. Hayden Head, September 23, 2024.

Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks: Photos with Notes by John J. Han
John J. Han exudes his love of Harold Bell Wright in his Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks: Photos with Notes. For those who know him, you can hear his voice as you read the preface. I was unsure what this book would be when I received it, but I can say it was fun and accessible.
Han takes the reader on a photographic tour of places he has found that Wright wrote about or were inspired by Wright’s writing. I am very sorry these photographs are not in color. The Ozarks abound in color, multiple shades of green in the summer and reds and yellows in the fall. However, they are beautiful black and whites that bring the reader to the locations Wright mentions.
As delightful as this journey was and, in many respects, it could be classified as a travel log, I want more. It felt more like a teaser to a movie. Wright’s books are about the Ozarks, but there are less than a dozen quotes about people and places that Han has used. Images from the periods when the novels are set would also have made this a more poignant read.
This is a non-academic book made for Harold Bell Wright fans. Sit back and enjoy the Ozarks Wright wrote about, if you are as a big a fan as Han is.
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Dr. Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, December 8, 2023