The Guitar Player and Other Songs of Exile by Jo Ann Kiser
Reminiscent of the work of Alison Stine, Hilary Varner and Barbara Kingsolver, Jo Ann Kiser captures the essence of Appalachia in the snapshot-like stories that make up The Guitar Player and Other Songs of Exile (Atmosphere Press). Set in Eastern rural Kentucky, Kiser weaves wistful tales of identity in an unforgiving but beloved region of the United States. Of course, it’s no surprise that she has such a mastery of the history and ephemerality of the place — a native of the eastern Kentucky hills, looking back on the landscape of her childhood is an experience she shares with her characters.
We sat down with Jo Ann Kiser to discuss what goes into creating her poignant short stories, and how she hopes her writing can open the eyes of outsiders to the region.
Q: Describe your writing process for us. What goes into crafting these tales?
A: I believe it was Edith Wharton who spoke of writing “ab ovo,” from the egg, and I have endeavored to do so also, to have the tale develop as it goes along so that the ending emerges naturally from what has gone before. I try to write most days, often in the evening after the world quiets down.
Q: Throughout this book, there’s a focus on the fleeting nature of places from the past. What inspired you to depict this kind of relationship between the characters and old experiences and memories?
A: Nostalgia is something more than a sentimental remembrance of past times and events. It offers an organic field of self-knowledge as well as contributes richly to individual identity. For those who have lost the “places” of their past — and we all have lost one place, a major one, our childhood — memory offers us a map (a book, if you will) of the bones of our identity. All identities are fleeting in the sense that we are all going to die and acknowledgment of this perhaps comes more easily to those of us who are “exiles.” But our mortality can also serve as a frame for spiritual affirmation.
Q: How does the setting and landscape of Eastern rural Kentucky influence the story?
My writing aims to celebrate the beauty of the Kentucky hills, their unique cultural richness developed through generations of economic difficulty and the dark recesses of coal mines, the closeness of extended families and of banding together for survival. To mourn beauty’s loss where greed (largely in the form of the coal industry) has been destroying those landscapes. To fashion a self that incorporates the beauty and the loss, I hope in a way that will suggest inner pathways to others.
Q: Was there a particular short story that was easier to write? Was there one that was more difficult?
A: “Sunday Afternoons” was an easy story to write. It grew out of a reaction to the sufferings of someone near and pretty much just wrote itself. “Mortlake Terrace,” with its protagonist’s conscious search for identity, for an acceptable home, was perhaps the most difficult.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from The Guitar Player and Other Songs of Exile?
A: First, I hope readers take away from The Guitar Player and Other Songs of Exile a renewed sense of this, our “jeweled orb.” But I have also aimed for readers to appreciate and understand the Appalachian consciousness, so that they become interested, if they aren’t already, in programs that strive to develop in the region new economic and political possibilities. And so that they too feel distressed when they hear of mountaintop removal (which both uglifies the mountain and destroys the valley); when they hear of “hillbillies” being denigrated.
© 2022 Kelly Lyle
About Jo Ann Kiser:
Jo Ann Kiser is a native of the eastern Kentucky hills whom chance has allowed a rich and varied life, from her childhood in the hills, to being a “checker” at The New Yorker, to completing a dissertation on Proust at the University of Chicago. She has also taught briefly at Morehead State University in Kentucky and at Tennessee Tech. The Guitar Player and Other Songs of Exile is her first full-length work to be published.
