In the interest of being honest, I probably made a mistake in requesting this book, but the title had the word fox in it and I just really couldn’t help myself. I wanted to be fair to this collection of stories and put in the work to read it in its entirety, I just had no idea how long reading Foxfire Story: Oral Tradition in Southern Appalachia would take. For reference, it took a really long time.

A collection of stories that had been told orally at first before a group set out to hear and finally write them down, Foxfire Story is incredibly informative. And I just couldn’t get into it. 

I think the book does, generally, do what it sets out to do. Which, namely, is to preserve the stories from the area of Southern Appalachia. What it really struggled to do, however, was hold my interest. The stories themselves are quite dense and this isn’t the kind of book you typically pick up because you’re looking for a good read to keep you entertained. Rather, it’s something to develop your knowledge and understanding of an area and the people who lived there.

In essence, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I do think you have to be going into reading a book like this with a genuine interest in that particular aspect of storytelling. Unfortunately for me and for the book, that’s not really what I went in looking for. And so I spent much of my reading of these stories more bored than anything else. And I felt kind of bad for that.

Ultimately, I think what this book does is great. I just don’t think it was really my taste.

I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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