4/8 - POP by Robert Gipe w/ Lesly-Marie Buer

Union Ave Books and Choice Health Network Harm Reduction welcome Robert Gipe to present his newest novel Pop. Robert will be joined in conversation by Lesly-Marie Buer, author of RX Appalachia. This free virtual event takes place on Thursday, April 8th @ 6:30pm (Eastern) on Zoom. You MUST register at the following link to attend.

Register Here

Description


A coming-of-age story of hope, betrayal, and familial legacy set in rural Appalachia.

Set in the run-up and aftermath of the 2016 election, Pop brings the Canard County trilogy to a close as Dawn, the young narrator of Gipe’s first novel, Trampoline, is now the mother of the seventeen-year-old Nicolette. Whereas Dawn has become increasingly agoraphobic as the internet persuades her the world is descending into chaos, Nicolette narrates an Appalachia where young people start businesses rooted in local food culture and work to build community. But Nicolette’s precocious rise in the regional culinary scene is interrupted when her policeman cousin violently assaults her, setting in motion a chain of events that threaten to destroy the family—and Canard County in the process.

In the tradition of Gipe’s first two novels, Pop’s Appalachia is full of clear-eyed, caring, creative, and complicated people struggling to hang on to what is best about their world and reject what is not. Their adventures reflect an Appalachia that is overrun by outside commentators looking for stories to tell about the region—sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but almost always oversimplified.

About the Author


Robert Gipe lives and works in Harlan County, Kentucky. Pop is his third Ohio University Press novel. His first, Trampoline, won the 2016 Weatherford Award for Appalachian novel of the year. His second novel, Weedeater, was a Weatherford finalist. For the past thirty years he has worked in arts-based organizing and is the founding coproducer of the Higher Ground community performance series. He has contributed to numerous journals and anthologies, is a playwright, and is currently a script consultant on a forthcoming television show based on Beth Macy’s Dopesick.

Lesly-Marie Buer is an activist and public health practitioner at Positively Living/Choice Health Network in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her work on substance use and harm reduction has appeared insuch publications as Boston Review, the Journal of Appalachian Studies, and North American Dialogue. Her book, RX Appalachia: Treatment and Survival in Rural Kentucky, focuses on women's encounters with substance use treatment in rural Central Appalachia.

Event date: 
Thursday, April 8, 2021 - 6:30pm
Event address: 
517 Union Ave.
Knoxville, TN 37902
Pop: An Illustrated Novel By Robert Gipe Cover Image
$21.95
ISBN: 9780821424391
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Ohio University Press - February 26th, 2021

RX Appalachia: Stories of Treatment and Survival in Rural Kentucky By Lesly-Marie Buer Cover Image
$22.95
ISBN: 9781642591231
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Haymarket Books - May 12th, 2020