Anna May’s mother writes to her sister Jinny in desperation – and to her relief, she agrees to house Anna in Lonesome Holler, within the Ducktown Basin.Ĭircumstances in Lonesome Holler seem much nicer, but Anna learns the truth soon enough – that the people see Aunt Jinny as a witch because she practices herbal medicine. When her father dies of black lung, Anna and her mother are turned out of their home due to said debt to the company store. Anna May Jones’ parents are poor, in debt to the company store, and Pa has a coal cough from the mines – and worse, they have little love and low regard for Anna, who’s just a part and parcel of their general misery. Our heroine lives in the coal mining town of Soddy, Tennessee. Some readers will find this to be a severe impediment to their enjoyment of the book, but I didn’t find it too hard to follow. In Lackey’s able hands, it soars, only stylistic choices disrupting its flow, because as engrossing as Jolene is, it’s important for readers to know that every character’s dialogue is written-out in an approximation of a heavy redneck-cum-deep-southern accent. Jolene is indeed – at least in part – a fantasy retelling of Dolly Parton’s seminal country tale about a woman begging a mysterious, gorgeous woman not to take her man – though the tale also takes inspiration from the Russian folk tale Queen of the Copper Mountain.
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