Deep & Wild

Reviews / Votes

"Wide-ranging and marvelously specific, Jackson's charming book will give readers insight into a misunderstood state." * Booklist * "Essayistic and investigative, yearning and reaching, Deep & Wild lurks in the dark and deep to clutch at treasures beneath. An examination of the self intersected within small unknowns, there is nothing small that is not significant. This is a cultural reckoning and illumination, a compilation of layers of time and place alongside hidden and invisible losses and epiphanies, Jackson writes with the brilliant meanderings of a true essayistic mind, taking her time, leading us into the 'deep, dark eyes' of what she witnesses inwardly as we watch." -- Jenny Boully, author of "Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life" "Deep & Wild stretches beyond the cliches of possums, moonshine, and John Denver's country roads to fully embrace West Virginia's contradictions, its beauty, and its wild wonder. Jackson's essays are hilarious, insightful, and wise, and will have you reading along with a wide grin." -- Dinty W. Moore, author of "Between Panic & Desire" "Jackson shatters Mountain-Dew-hillbilly stereotypes (and takes down fancy-pants-ers like Bette Midler, who spread such Hollywood-centric nonsense on social media) to show the true, complicated, deeply-rooted truth of Appalachia-a place, Jackson writes, 'of beauty and misery . . . of people who worship nature and people who tear it apart.' Weaving personal narrative and a whiplash wit with deep research, Jackson brings readers into her world where rage-filled but helpless crawdads, shy rattlesnakes, less-than-bucolic country roads, and, especially, the lowly opossum-a creature, Jackson writes, 'an exhausted God might have thrown together . . . (from) leftover parts'-abide." -- Lori Jakiela, author of "They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice"