That fiction for Still obviously is a scenic art is evident in the visual clarity with which he creates scenes and develops characters and in the deceptive ease with which he keeps the author out of the story. Most any section of the novel reads like a mini-play that could be transferred to the stage with a minimum of directives, for the narrative is continually pushed forward by credible action and by dialogue designed more for hearing than for silent reading. And though the reader may insistently remind himself that the story was set down on paper by James Still, he will have to search for overt signs of the author’s presence. It would be ridiculous for a playwright to circulate on stage giving cues and interrupting the action to inform the audience of the thoughts of the actors, Still seems to be saying, so why should I muddy the story for the reader by intruding my directives, commentaries, and evaluations? Using the first person point of view of a young boy as his “center of consciousness,” Still has achieved a fine balance between erasing the author and creating the impression that the story moves of its own volition. And however far in the background he may be, he is there in the form of a magician busy with one hand entertaining the audience with anecdotes, echoes of folklore, and mountain dialogue while with the other hand he is unobtrusively shaping incidents, bridging-in poetic interludes, and disguising signs that direct the story toward his intended climax.

Still is a writer of constricted lives, valid desperations, and victories that seem small reward for all the patience and hurt they exact; but in his most successful scenes he creates a world whose resonances echo beyond the last word to the fullness of the reader’s capacity to understand. His work reflects a compassion, insight, and objectivity remindful of Katherine Anne Porter (“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” “The Downward Path to Wisdom”) and of Bernard Malamud (“The Loan,” “The Magic Barrel”).

With each “discovery” and each exploitation of Appalachia, River of Earth assumes new meaning and increasing significance both as a chronicle of change and as a work of art. Read today with the strip-mined region as a map—the scalped hills and gashed mountainsides, the ruined farmlands, the dead streams, the flash waters the earth can’t contain—even the title assumes a prophecy of doom undreamed of by Brother Mobberly.