Jack Tale Players at Ferrum College will host a reunion for Jack Tale Alumni as part of the 50th Blue Ridge Folklife Festival. All past players are invited to…
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.