A West Virginia family struggles amid the booms and busts of the coal industry in this novel from an author called “Appalachia’s Steinbeck” (Jayne Anne Phillips). Set in present day West Virginia, this debut novel tells the story of a coal mining family—a couple and their four children—living through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their hometown. As the mine turns the mountains "to slag and wastewater, workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters. Strange as This Weather Has Been follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen–year–old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more frequently outside among junk from the floods and felled trees in the hollows—the only nature they have ever known. But Bant has other memories and is as curious and strong–willed as her mother, and ultimately comes to discover the very real threat of destruction that looms as much in the landscape as it does at home. “Powerful, sure–footed and haunting.” —The New York Times Book Review
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Strange as This Weather Has Been was a loaner from a friend and co-worker. I had only a cursory knowledge of Ann Pancake from my final years at college when I worked with a group of students on an anthology of “West Virginia” literature (see Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia ). I am, by and large, a fan of literature by and about my home state, so I started Strange as This Weather Has been with grant anticipation.
The main story arc follows a family in the southern West Virginia coal fields. It is hard to say that the main character is Lace - because the story is told from several points of view - but the story “revolves” around Lace (and her parents and children). At the start, Lace wants nothing more than to escape her hometown, but as the story progresses, she is drawn back and learns just how hard it is to leave. At about the time she learns to love her homestead, she begins to realize how much in danger the entire area is on account of the strip mining that is taking place overhead. Lace learns that the Earth is more than just the ground under her feet as she sees her children get drawn into the secrecy and deception that is spread by Lyon Coal - the mining company.
There were a number of flashes in this novel. Reading it as a West Virginian, there were passages that resonated with me. I, too, have been entranced by the “big city”, had a burning desire to leave, and so on. But it is hard to leave, and Pancake captures that beautifully. Her descriptions of the almost spiteful relationships we can have with our hometowns are well crafted and thorough. Her language conveys the emotion. Her story carries the notion that we (as locals) can criticize this land, these towns, but we become fiercely protective of them one outsiders criticize. Pancake's characters quickly learn that West Virginians do stick together when outside of our state - not that we are segregated, per se, just that we sense differences between ourselves and others and that we tend to seek each other out.
Past the strength of the West Virginia bond, though, I found Strange as This Weather Has Been to suffer from an identity crisis. Given several possibilities, one central theme never emerged. (Despite my WV rambling above, that element was something I gleaned “in pieces”; it never really emerged as a theme either.) The novel could have drawn parallels in the “coming of age” of mother (Lace's mother and Lace) and daughter (Lace and Bant) - but it didn't. The novel could have commented on social norms, both in West Virginia and beyond, but it didn't. The closest thing to a central theme focused on coal mining, but even that one dissipated by the end upon Corey's death.
The dissipation of the mining theme was one of my two primary criticisms of the book. The narrative leads us to believe that the mountaintop removal mining was going to lead to some major event that brought the story together. Pancake drew a number of parallels with the 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster. Yet the story abruptly transitioned to the failure of Lace and Jimmy's marriage and Corey's death in the space of one or two chapters. The mine was mentioned almost as an after-thought in the last chapter just so, it seemed, the author could get one final comment in on mining itself.
Which brings me to my second primary criticism. West Virginians are not strangers to environmental controversy. Fights over natural resource extraction have been present - in force - since West Virginia's admittance into the Union. People are entitled to their own opinions and Pancake chose to use Strange as This Weather Has Been as a vehicle to speak against mountaintop removal mining. Her railing, though, felt more whiny and childish than literary. In some of the best West Virginia literature I have read, subtlety is abundant. While I take no issue with Pancake's views on the pros and cons of the practice of strip mining, the delivery of her message came through much less educated that I believe she intended.
Perhaps Pancake's flaws in this novel stem from her transition from short story to longer narrative ( Strange being her first novel). Her descriptive prowess and fierce loyalty to her home state can (and I hope do) develop. While the Strange as This Weather Has Been story will likely not move me to pick up this book again, I would be anxious to read future Ann Pancake novels to see how her writing evolves. Perhaps this is my fierce loyalty to the Great State; I can't summarily dismiss one of its authors.
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