Allegiance by Gurney Norman

In his “Author’s Note,” Gurney Norman explains, “In this book, I write of my allegiances to places and people, to language and story making, to experiences that have stayed with me throughout my life, and allegiances to memory itself.” The “Author’s Note,” appears between 35 stories that basically follow the short story conventions. They are all autobiographical with the character, Wilgus Collier, serving as a stand-in for Gurney himself. After the “Author’s Note,” four pieces of autobiographical non-fiction follow. The final piece is a stream-of-consciousness contribution that does not fall in either the short-story or the memoir category. Gurney is 84 years old and still teaching creative writing as a full-time professor at the University of Kentucky. What makes autobiographical stories by Gurney Norman such gems is that he has lived such an interesting life. He grew up in the small farms of the Southwest Virginia hills and the Eastern Kentucky mountains, and then, after graduating f