Originally published on April 1, 2021 11:10 am
“Pop: An Illustrated Novel” is a new book by author Robert Gipe, set in a fictional central Appalachian county during the runup to the 2016 elections with parts of the plotline connected to the 2014 West Virginia Water Crisis.
Eric Douglas spoke with Gipe from his home in Harlan, Kentucky to find out more about the story.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Tell me a little bit about “Pop.” Tell me how you came to write this book.
Gipe: The book is set in Eastern Kentucky and East Tennessee and in Charleston. It concerns a woman who s been the protagonist of two prior books, Dawn Jewel, who grew up in Eastern Kentucky. In my first novel, she was the 15-year-old narrator. And now she has a 17-year-old daughter. It s set in the run up to the 2016 election. Dawn s husband works for a chemical company that is selling “coal float” to a coal company in West Virginia.
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In Robert Gipe’s new illustrated novel,
Pop, we return to Dawn, who was a central character of
Trampoline and
Weedeater, Gipe’s previous books in the series. Now in her 30s and back in fictional Canard County in rural Eastern Kentucky, this last installment in the trilogy picks up during the 2016 presidential election.
Dawn enlists the help of two other storytellers: her daughter Nicolette and her uncle Hubert. Because, as she puts it, “The story we are going to tell you is hard.”
Gipe’s style seems to be the right way to tell it. The novel is a quilt of short vignettes narrated by three distinct voices, each dryly witty, painfully clear-eyed, and heartbreakingly sincere. Each chapter is introduced by his signature loopy illustrations, lanky Nicolette in her oversized beanie, Dawn beneath a mop of tangled hair, and Hubert with his belly sticking out from beneath an old T-shirt.