Negotiating a perilous empowerment

Those who advocate literacy sometimes ignore an important fact--that newly acquired literacies, although empowering, can create identity conflicts, especially for Appalachian women. In Negotiating a perilous empowerment, Erica Abrams Locklear explores these conflicts by focusing on central female characters in the works of Harriette Simpson Arnow, Linda Scott DeRosier, Denise Giardina, and Lee Smith. She shows how these authors deftly overturn stereotypes of an illiterate Appalachia by creating highly literate characters, women who not only cherish the power of words but also push the boundaries of what literacy means. --Book cover.