It isn’t often that you get a glimpse into lives far from your own, only to learn we share more that we know. An anthology of life in Appalachia, many veins leading to one true fact. Humans will surprise regardless of their geography. It’s a testament to resilience and the chance to change course. A good read.

I hardly ever like every story in a short story collection, but these little vignettes into Appalachian life were perfect. I loved them all, and I think my only critique is that for some of the shorter stories I just wanted more. Otherwise, this is a perfect collection.

Make no mistake, these are darker stories. They are sometimes morbid or gross. They are certainly sometimes profane, which should come as no shock considering the title. I mean, you read a book with this title, you have to expect something with adult content.

This collection of stories centers around the Appalachia region, and I loved being immersed in that region and seeing things from multiple perspectives. As with any collection of stories, there were some with more charm than others. But, I will say that overall I'm glad I read this one. It gives a glimpse into another world. I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys things that are off the beaten path.

I really enjoyed learning more about Appalachia through these stories. The characters were beautifully written - as other reviewers have said, I wanted more and more of this book, which is a testament to how fantastic these stories are.

This is a collection of short stories. Based on the book's title, I was intrigued. However, I couldn't really get past the first couple pages of any of the stories in the collection. Something about them was too dark, perhaps too gross and not interesting. It's a shame because the title of the book is so promising!

This review was also published on Goodreads.

I don't typically read short stories, since they often leave me wanting more. I also struggle with how to rate this, since I loved some stories and didn't care for others.

They all have a theme of Appalachia, and ring true. Not in the stereotypical "hillbilly, redneck" way, but in the sense of small community, poor, no resources.. A person knowing they are gay in Appalachia is so very different from someone in New York City.

The stories were beautifully written, and some really stood out. I felt sad and hopeful at times throughout this book. However, the ones that stood out - I wanted more. (Again, why I dont tend to read short stories).

3.5 stars rounded up.

I find it difficult to rate short story collections because it’s rare that I like every story. There were some stories here that left me at the end of them unsatisfied, wanting more, with the feeling they were just too short. I won’t remember much about those. On the other hand, there were several that were so moving, profoundly sad and beautifully written. I’ll remember those. The stories are not connected in any specific way, other than that they are set in a recent Appalachia in a number of states. A number of different themes are covered - people leaving, loneliness and isolation, environmental issues.

One of my favorites is the first story, “F*ckface”. It’s heartbreaking, but there is a slight glimmer of hope . Pretty is a grocery store clerk in a backward town where it’s difficult to find acceptance for who she is, but for the friend who leaves town, the only person who knows that she “likes girls”. I was as surprised as she was that she could find understanding from a person she least suspected. Even with the possibility of hope, I found this to be a profoundly sad story. “Saint” was the most beautifully written story in the collection, depicting a sister’s grief for her brother. His death haunts her as her thoughts did mine.

Those and a couple of others were for me 5 stars, so I have to round up even though I didn’t connect with all of the stories. I will, though look to see what Leah Hampton writes in the future.

I received a copy of this book from Henry Holt and Co. through NetGalley.

4.5
This is a collection of 12 short stories set in rural Appalachia.
I enjoyed them all, some really left me wanting more, which is why I don’t normally gravitate towards the short story genre and that’s the only reason this didn’t get a full 5 stars from me.
There are flawed characters and wonderful descriptions of the landscapes.
Dark stories with a touch of comedy...very readable and I liked coming back to this for each new story as I took my time reading this.
I’m drawn to Appalachia because my mom’s side is from West Virginia, and I’ve heard stories from my grandparents and their neighbor Suzie, who delivered all my grandmas children at home, and she never got a chance to leave and see beyond the mountains. I can’t even imagine that.

Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Holt for the ARC

Published by Henry Holt and Co. on July 14, 2020

The stories collected in F*ckface are set in the South, primarily in mountain communities in Appalachia. While the stories resist stereotyping characters as hillbillies (the protagonist in “Sparkle” tells a man that she grew up with indoor plumbing and “even read a few books when I was a kid, when I wasn’t losing my teeth”), many of the characters view outsiders with suspicion. At the same time, outsiders — such as the guide who gives visitors an environmental tour through a nature preserve in “Frogs” — tend to view locals with condescension. The guide admonishes the protagonist for damaging the ecosystem when she falls from the path and lands in the water, crushing some frogs’ eggs, because she didn’t wear the expensive hiking shoes that all the visitors are wearing. Only her twin brother understands that locals aren’t the problem.

The stories generally focus on relationships. The protagonist in “Sparkle” takes her husband’s friend to Dollywood and propositions him because of her long-standing crush and because her husband hasn’t touched her since she started complaining about the sameness in their life. A woman who has been sexting a married man in “Wireless” decides she’s willing to give him whatever he wants, even if she thinks it’s a bit kinky, because she views herself as invisible and doesn’t know when another opportunity will arrive.

Leah Hampton’s characters are a product of their environment and, like the environment, are too often misused. A woman who is approaching menopause fears that the work she once did at “Eastman” Chemical might have caused the lump in her breast. She can’t say anything bad about the company, despite the proliferation of cancer among its employees, because her husband was the company’s director of planning. A woman in “Mingo” argues with her husband about mountaintop removal and wonders if, in thirty years, he’ll look like her father-in-law, who makes her laugh by exposing his naked body in the hospital when she refuses to hand him his pants.

In “Boomer,” a forest fire raging toward Kentucky leaves a firefighter with no time to deal with the woman who is moving out of his life — but then, he never had time and that’s why she’s leaving. He feels like the world is ending, not entirely because of the approaching fire. A park ranger in “Parkway,” having grown tired of finding dead bodies, decides to find a new job while his family still knows his name.

Both home and work relationships are at the heart of “F*ckface,” a story that involves employees of Food Country wondering how their manager (you can guess what the employees call him) will deal with the dead bear in the parking lot. “Queen” uses bees as a metaphor for families; hives break apart and its members scatter or die for reasons that are not always apparent, leaving the person tending the hive to wonder whether she is to blame.

The woman narrating “Saint” in the second person recalls childhood memories of a brother who, when the memories are formed, has not yet died. The memories have turned him into a saint, and make his death a sort of martyrdom that she always anticipated, although she cannot prove that her memories are true. A young woman in “Meat” attends a funeral and thinks about a barn fire that killed hundreds of pigs during her college internship, prompting her to change her major.

My favorite story, “Devil,” describes a visit home by a 32-year-old Air Force tech sergeant shortly before his post-9/11 deployment to Bagram. Remembering the harsh discipline imposed by his Bible-quoting father, the tech sergeant still cringes, as he did when he was a child, at his father’s flashes of anger. Both parents condemn their child for his failure to live up to their Christian standards. The story suggests that the damage done to a child by parents who mistake discipline for love can never be undone.

F*ckface is a solid collection of stories, each managing to address Appalachian living and relationships in a different way. Other than “Devil,” none of the stories struck me as being special, but none of the stories struck me as being a waste of time, which sets the book ahead of most short story collections. I appreciated the complexity of the conflict between eco-friendly characters and those who need jobs, the kind of conflict that pits Appalachian residents against “outsiders” while sometimes tearing families or couples apart. I also appreciated the recognition that religion is a force that holds some Appalachian families together while destroying others.

Leah Hampton writes with a sure hand, seemingly certain of the story she wants to tell. She tells the story without a wasted word. That clarity of purpose adds power to stories that showcase large issues through small moments in ordinary lives.

RECOMMENDED

Leah Hampton's "F*ckface" is a collection of stories focusing on Appalachia, primarily the Blue Ridge Mountain region (think Boone, Asheville, Pigeon Forge ,and Dollywood). While the stories focus on a region of the country, the themes are varied. The beauty of nature is often held in conflict of destruction and violence. Park service workers stumble across bodies frequently. People have lasting health effects from mining and factories in the region. We follow a woman who is waiting to find out if she has cancer, and thinks back on her time working at a factory for a short period of her life. She really does a nice job of digging into the lives of different people in this region, with honesty and humor at points. I enjoyed this one.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for providing me this ARC for review.

I read so many books in July set in Appalachia, but none that I enjoyed as much as this short story collection from Leah Hampton!! I liked that each story was set in a different location within the region. F*ckface was good, but Saint was my favorite!! Thank you for the opportunity to read this one.

This collection was, for me as someone right in the middle of the Blue Ridge, perfection. Leah Hampton writes with heart that goes deep down to the point that you feel the hurt of longing, the sting of insecurity and the tingle of happiness. There wasn't a piece of her writing in this entire collection that I didn't enjoy fully. From the first story to the last, I could relate to SOMETHING. She knows these mountains and she knows people. She knows gestures and emotions and how to paint that word picture for her readers. Fabulous, fabulous collection.

4.5 stars. I didn't keep track of rating each individual story because I wanted to try rating this collection just as a whole rather than in pieces, the way I usually do with anthologies written by multiple authors, since all the stories in this collection are by one author. I will say though that toward the end I almost went back on my word on that because two of the stories were just so good that I needed to note for myself that they were five stars. Most of the stories I thought were good but not as spectacular as those few, which is why overall this gets a 4.5 for me.

Maybe I'm biased because I went to school in the Shenandoah Valley, and therefore the Blue Ridge Mountains have a special place in my heart, but I loved the way she describes them and the way the characters interact with nature and their surroundings overall was just so very well done and I am so happy to have read this, almost for that alone.

As I said above, all the stories were good, but I'm going to mention my personal favorites, in case you only had time to read a few stories out of this collection, in preferential order.

Saint - This story made me tear up and I don't think I've ever read a short story that has managed to get an emotional response out of me, but. The writing. This was a story, and it was written in prose, but it was damn near poetry. The raw emotions. Holy shit.

Devil - So many layers. All the stories were so well-written but this one managed to find a balance between soft and harsh both in what was happening in the story and the choices that Leah Hampton used in the language itself. This is one that I can see myself re-reading.

Parkway - None of the stories shy away from that darkness, but this highlights it in a way others don't. In this one, it almost feels like the setting is its own character.

Boomer - This brought me back to a memory I haven't thought about in a while. There were tons of fires happening in the mountains one of the years I was in school (2016, maybe?) and one day there was just like a black fog over campus because the wind had brought the ash that far. It was such a unique and bizarre (and, let's be honest, sad in a climate grief way) moment that reading this story brought it back to me in full living color memory. This story sets itself right in the heart of a character fighting those fires physically and also struggling with a failing marriage. The positioning of it was very poignant, and one of my favorite lines in this whole book came out of this story.

Fuckface - I thought the story that the collection takes its name from set the stage really well for the whole collection. I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this, and this story just pulled me right in. To the setting, to the types of people that would be explored, just a worthwhile read.

Also, a good number of these stories have LGBT rep or implied LGBT rep, and while that's not the central focus of those stories or this collection, I do want to point that out because I really appreciated that.

I very highly recommend this.

This was a great collection of stories about Appalachian life in various forms and circumstances. Some stories were funny, some tragic, but all were good. I enjoyed the common them of Appalachia, as it was unique and showed the dependence those from there have on their environment.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.


Everything felt ruined. She needed another two days of silence to crush things back down inside herself again, but nobody was going to give her that kind of time.

This was from the story Wireless. I’d never heard this feeling so perfectly articulated before.

I was first attracted to the crass title of this short story collection, and my interest was immediately peaked when I discovered this collection focuses on Appalachian communities. Not only do I love a good Appalachian-based story, as a North Carolinian who adores the mountains here, it was a lot of fun to read stories set in recognizable places.

This is an excellent short story collection. There is not a weak story in the volume, each of them tightly arranged so not a one feels like it's missing a thing. In her stories, Hampton explores themes from family relationships and healthcare to climate change in a land of few opportunities if you choose to stay. As a whole, this collection is not nearly as vulgar as you might expect from the title, but Hampton also does not turn away from the blistering and sometimes mortifying realities of life.

I definitely recommend this collection, especially for folks who love Southern slice-of-life storytelling.

I only recently became aware of this impressive debut collection of short stories yesterday, when I saw a comment by David Joy, who stated: ”As fine a collection as you are ever likely to encounter. Leah Hampton may very well be Appalachia’s finest story writer at work.”

Considering that, for me, David Joy is one of Appalachia’s finest writers, I knew this was one I had to read, and so I quickly reached for it.

Twelve stories of life in various Appalachian settings, each with differing themes, although they are all strongly representative of some of Appalachia’s stronger draws – whether that is the finest things to offer, or the strangest or the less lovely aspects – depending on your point of view. Appalachia, like everywhere else, is changing, although there are some that would prefer it remain the same, or perhaps, return to how it was many years ago.

The initial story, which is also the title, begins with:
”Nothing’ll ever fix what’s broken in this town, but it would be nice if they’d at least get the dead bear out of the parking lot at Food Country.” This shares the story of a young woman named Pretty, and her need to hide who she is living surrounded by these intolerant small towns, where there are roads where you’d lose count of the churches within a few miles, and LGBTQ are just random letters in the alphabet.

This gives a small taste of what connects these stories, the fight for man to conquer and control nature, to force the landscape into something unnatural, and sometimes destroying it in the process. As well as the nature of man to put profit ahead of not only nature, the planet, but also of people as is shown in the story Eastman, which shows the danger posed to those living near, working in, chemical plants.

War is another topic, religion, ecology, and the nature of visions for the future to change from one generation to the next. There is even a nod to Dollywood in Sparkle which concerns shattered fantasies. In Boomer a state forest service man attempts to conquer the wildfires that are burning out of control in the early fall of 2016, as his marriage also seems to be going up in flames.

“Milestones and bodies. These ridgelines can’t hold them anymore. Coralis was right about people using parks for selfish reasons. We empty sorrow and trash out of ourselves into them, and now everything is harrowing up and spilling out from the boundary. I have to look away.” - from Parkway

For me, the one that I found to be the most moving, but which also stands out a bit from the rest was Saint which deals with loss of a sibling, and has a meditative, omniscient quality, shared in a second-person point of view, which adds to the emotional pull as this one unfolds.

This was a stunning collection, a wonderful debut from a new Southern author, for me. I look forward to reading more from Leah Hampton.


Published: 14 Jul 2020

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Henry Holt and Co. via NetGalley

#Fckface #NetGalley

I highly recommend F*CKFACE for fans of literary fiction. Hampton's characters are genuine and diverse representatives of the Appalachian region and I like how these stories explore a myriad of situations, desires, and challenges. The region is what links them. Some of the stories are sardonic and witty, while others are poignant and sad, Hampton's language is never flowery or overblown; her style is tight and spare and readers are sure to enjoy her sharp observations and this collection's multi-layered character development.

Full review published here, at The Haint: https://medium.com/the-haint/book-review-f-ckface-and-other-stories-by-leah-hampton-f3225806ba2f

"These intertwining themes — of insiders and outsiders, of access to land and space, of the past and the present, of sorrow and laughter — are tackled directly in Leah Hampton’s gloriously quick-witted and unashamedly melancholic Appalachian debut short story collection F*ckface and Other Stories (Henry Holt: July 14, 2020). Over the course of twelve single-word-titled tales about contemporary rural living, Hampton nails the complex politics, genuine diversity, and gorgeous mountains of the place I’m proud to call home.

While mainstream media representations of Appalachia tend to focus on individualistic conservative white male narratives, Hampton’s work is filled with working class women/female-identified folks and/or members of the LGBTQIA and BIPOC communities (in other words, 'y’all'). We get characters like Pretty from the title story 'Fuckface,' a closeted young woman with a dead-end job at the local Food Country grocery store, who loses a chance at love. Or Coralis from 'Parkway,' a Native American park ranger who instructs a lesbian named Priscilla in the art of spotting dead bodies dumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Then there’s the perfectly named Iva Jo Hocutt from 'Twitchell,' who seeks comfort in a community of women while coping with breast cancer caused by the chemical company of the story’s title."

An absolute joy to read. I love short story collections and there have been a number of stellar ones in recent years, so my standards are high going into them. Fuckface lives up to my high standards. It's full of raw, gritty characters and layers upon layers of nuance in each short vignette. I loved spending time in Appalachia and felt like I knew the people by the time the book was over. The title story made me laugh out loud but I was also a huge fan of the story Parkway. This book just simmers. Can't wait to see what's next from Hampton.