Appalachia: A Photographic Novel

NOTE: This book is a work of fiction. The people, places, photographs, and historical accounts presented in this book are not real. The year was 1872 and fighting from the Civil War had nearly torn the United States apart. The young country had survived, but a new one was taking shape directly within its very borders—along the rift of earth and rock they called the Appalachian mountains. A hardy group of Nordic Americans, disenfranchised with the direction of the American nation, began to carve out a slice of the beautiful land they had come to love. With the United States still reeling from years of conflict, they were able to form their own republic, connected together by the tribal bonds of kinship and the spiritual ties of their Christian faith. Their fledgling republic would flourish at first. Towns were built. Children were born. An entirely new culture was born from their prosperity, a mix of their Nordic traditions infused with their more recent Christian conversion. But troubl