You have to be an outsider to really see it, to create that necessary aesthetic distance.вЂќ вЂњThe minute you write about your family or town, youвЂ™re set outside the family and the town. вЂњA writer is always in exile from home,вЂќ Smith says. Nonetheless, the essays of Dimestore establish the tension between staying home and making a home, being raised to leave and finding a place to settle. вЂњEven when we read Faulkner,вЂќ Smith says, вЂњhis grand themes of the tragedy of race and of guilt fascinated me, but they might as well have been set in France or some other country.вЂќ Smith continues, вЂњJames StillвЂ™s mountain voice and Eudora WeltyвЂ™s stories set in small Southern towns helped me realize I could write from home, from where I was from.вЂќ Smith enjoyed strong teachers in her Hollins career-Louis Rubin, Richard Dillard-but the authors she read (Nabokov, Borges, Henry James) didnвЂ™t help her find her narrative voice. A good writing teacher tries to match authors with the talented young writer.вЂќ вЂњI had never seen that voice or diction in a literary novel.вЂќ Smith continues, вЂњWriting teachers tell students to write what they know but a young writer doesnвЂ™t always know what he or she knows. вЂњWhen I first came across James StillвЂ™s River of Earth, I read it straight through and then immediately started reading again,вЂќ Smith says.

It also gave me great swaths of time to read.вЂќ The love of reading is prominent in these essays: childhood discoveries and college lifelines (Welty, James Still) pointing a direction for SmithвЂ™s own fictional material and narrative voice. Smith explains that as an only child of older parents, she was more вЂњwatchful and mature.вЂќ That watchfulness planted the seeds for her vocation: вЂњThat whole experience,вЂќ she says,вЂќ made me sensitive to other peopleвЂ™s emotions and moods. And the essays also cover imaginative territory: the world of stories and books. I had a glorious childhood it was a different life back then, when twitter meant the sound of birds.вЂќДЄlthough this collection begins with an examination of Appalachian culture gone mainstream, with ruminations on her experience in the small mountain town of Grundy, Virginia, these essays cover as well, Smith explains, вЂњother places that have meant a lot to meвЂќ-places such as Hollins College, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Hillsborough, North Carolina, and Castine, Maine. The longest essay, over 30 pages, opens the collection properly after the prologue, titled вЂњRaised to Leave: Some Thoughts on вЂCulture,вЂ™ вЂќ sets the stage for a portion of SmithвЂ™s subject matter and for a central theme: as Smith says, вЂњwe are raised to leave our families and our hometowns.вЂќ Nonetheless, SmithвЂ™s collection of essays is, she explains, вЂњa love song to Appalachian culture and to this small town of Grundy and to the extended family (even as they drive you crazy!). ДЄs in a dimestore or Five & Dime, many of these essays are a mere five pages, or 10. And following a writerвЂ™s life through the potpourri of stories she tells about her home, her family, her schooling, her mentors, her writing and teaching, her loves and losses, and her own complicated and hard-earned life, вЂњstill trying like crazyвЂќ to understand and to communicate the sense of it all, is among the signature pleasures and lessons of Lee SmithвЂ™s first book of nonfiction, Dimestore. The impulse to make sense of the world through the magic of story is almost as old as the Appalachians- is as old as mankind.

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