Sidle Creek

by Jolene McIlwain

Melville House, 2023

reviewed by Seana Graham

A beautiful collection of stories set in the hill country of western Pennsylvania. Most of the stories at least allude to Sidle Creek, a fictional river that is McIlwain’s own equivalent of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, giving her license to use the ambiance without having to focus too specifically on her real neighbors.

One of the things that struck me about the collection as a whole is that McIlwain writes excellent descriptions of the kind of jobs that her fellow Pennsylvanians often do, and these are often what are thought of as “men’s jobs.” Although she says in the interview I’ll link to below that she was raised by anglers and hunters “so that comes easily,” there are several other masculine worlds that she had to do some investigative reporting on. I admire how she doesn’t shirk from the more difficult (and technical) aspects of such jobs but just lays them out, calmly and in detail.

I found myself thinking of the Santa Cruz Noir collection I had a small part in a few years ago, because that book also took us all over the area, revealing many aspects of my Central California county. But while that book had twenty authors, Jolene McIlwain was somehow able to tackle a similar range of experience and territory on her own! 

I asked my book group to read this book together and though several found some of the stories  very sad and even painful, they also recognized her skill as a writer and the great beauty of the writing, no matter the topic. Different people came up with different favorites, one being a story called “Loosed”, in which a man turns his dogfighting business into something even grimmer.

I think the standout for me (though this could easily be different upon rereading, as it is a very strong collection) is a longer story called “You Four Are the One”, in which four young girls are tasked with simply being companions and helpers for a woman who needs strict bedrest to see her pregnancy to term. The story is all about how this assignment looks to these not yet sixth graders, who’ve only just started to learn about things like menstruation. It is beautiful how seriously they take their responsibility. There is an older woman too, Nonna, the narrator Lanie’s great-grandmother, who studies an older lore about how to approach women’s  health. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but let me just say, “It takes a village.”

In Meredith Miweti’s interview with her ( link below,) McIlwain quotes podcaster Maris Kreizman as saying  “I think so much of the literature about Appalachia and the discussion around Appalachia feels like an obituary. I didn’t want to add to that. Appalachia is beautifully, complexly alive, and I wanted to figure out a way to write about it that felt like I was writing and imagining its future and imagining a present that is vibrantly alive.” McIlwain says she couldn’t agree more.

In writing this collection of stories, McIlwain is giving us a look into a culture that we may know only through stereotypes, with a deeply sympathetic eye for even those we might not have an immediate ability to identify with ourselves. I hope she will continue to act as that sort of bridge to those of us who are less acquainted with this fascinating place.

Seana Graham is the book review editor at Escape Into Life. She has also reviewed for the biography website Simply Charly. She attempts to keep up with her various blogs, including Confessions of Ignorance, where she tries to learn a little bit more about the many things she does not know. She has published stories in a variety of literary journals. Her latest story appears in the new Substack Voices of Santa Cruz. The recent anthology Annihilation Radiation  from Storgy Press, includes another. Santa Cruz Noir, a title from Akashic Press, features a story of hers about the city in which she currently resides. 

Get Sidle Creek at Melville House

Meredith Mileti’s conversation with Jolene McIlwain on Sidle Creek

an interview with Jolene McIlwain at Fractured Lit

a YouTube interview with Jolene McIlwain for the Fox43 book club

Beyond Binary Thinking: Writing Cruelty Without Inflicting Harm (a review of Sidle Creek)