Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories

Gnomon, 1977.

Gurney Norman

This book brings together Norman's Wilgus stories that have appears in small magazines over a ten-year period. The stories explore the variety of relationships among members of an Eastern Kentucky family in the post-World War II years. Wilgus Collier is nine years old in the first story, and by the last, when in his twenties, we have witnessed the many rites of passage in growing up. The feeling and mood of the mountain region are present here, but Norman's sense of place is very much his own. Yet the mountain setting with its humor and fine madness does not limit these stories to their audience--for they range into intricacies of character, family situation, and American life that have wide appeal.