“We must unhumanize our view a little, and become confident / As the rock, and ocean that we were made from.” — Robinson Jeffers

I’ve said it before — our local authors are “going to town” these days, and in this case quite literally. 

“Eleutheria” is the Greek word for “freedom.” It is also the reference name of an island in the Bahamas (Eleuthera). And it is the title and the setting for Allegra Hyde’s first novel (Vintage Books, 2022). 

Having grown up in these Cherokee hills, I became interested in things native from an early age. This interest, spawned by my boyhood friends over on the Snowbird Reservation, has continued throughout my life and until today. 

In my recent passion and ongoing interest in reviewing books by local and regional authors, I am offering here, yet another from our cache of talented writers that are close to home. In this case, it’s a book just released in the month of June by regionally heralded Hub City Press in Spartanburg, S.C., just over the North Carolina line.

It’s not often, if ever, that I would review a book about “how to succeed in business.” But I’m in the mood and the mode for reviewing books by local authors, and as I said in my last review in these pages our local authors have been hard at it during the pandemic cranking out new volumes of interesting, innovative and important work. 

During the pandemic, regional authors have been busy. I’ve been made aware of several books being released this year by writers in our own back yard who have published books in several genres. 

I spent my boyhood living in Graham County in a community called Milltown in Robbinsville. In those days, there was still segregation amongst the white and Cherokee communities.

It’s rare to come across a book that takes one far afield from the original focus presented by the artist at hand. Most books aim to keep the reader “at home,” so to speak, not venturing out and about into uncharted or unrelated territory.

“The story can’t be about the heroism of one person any more, it has to be about the heroism of communities.” — Barry Lopez