Josh Baldwin

Sugar Run

Josh Baldwin
Sugar Run

Greenbrier County native Mesha Maren is no stranger to these pages, as we recently featured her in “West Virginians to Watch” just this past year. Her debut novel, Sugar Run, is now out via Algonquin Books and delivers a new voice to the world of modern fiction. Maren’s world is one of second chances, as her main characters search for new beginnings out of the rubble of their past. Those second chances are set first in Georgia, and then into the hills of West Virginia, in the fictional Malonga County.

Jodi McCarty is recently released from prison and, after 18 years, sets out to find Ricky, the younger brother of her former lover Paula, and take him away from his abusive father. Along the way, as she struggles to adjust to a life of freedom, she falls in with Miranda, the sometimes-estranged wife of a former country music star. Upon her return to West Virginia, with Ricky, Miranda, and her three children in tow, they struggle to find what they are looking for.

Maren does a masterly job of not overly romanticizing Appalachia, and instead relies on the themes, both dark and bright, that define modern mountain life. Familial relations, addiction, attachment to place, the modernization of the landscape, both temporal and physical, and sexual boundaries are all explored within a driving plot that pulls you along with its mysterious past. Sugar Run has received a huge share of compliments from across the literary landscape, including Lauren Goff, who praised its “explosive plot and taut, burnished prose,” and Charles Frazier who, writing for the New York Times Book Review, says, “Maren is masterly at describing America’s modern wastelands, the blasted towns not yet and maybe never-to-be the beneficiaries of rehabilitation and reoccupation.”

Sugar Run is available at A New Chapter bookstore in downtown Lewisburg. newchapterbookswv.com

Josh Baldwin

Elmwood

This gorgeous estate in Monroe County is enjoying its new owners

Josh Baldwin
Elmwood
Josh Baldwin

On Tap

West Virginia, once a fast-rising star in the beer world, was his hard by the national prohibition on alcohol in 1912. A century later, a new crop of craft brewers are bringing the state back to the forefront of the beer world. These pioneering entrepreneurs are blurring the line between the art and science of the brewing process and putting West Virginia beer back on palates nationwide.

Josh Baldwin
On Tap
Josh Baldwin

Serving the Public Good

The Monroe Watchman, and its previous iterations, have been published in the same historic downtown Union building since 1903. Dating back to 1872, the paper is the only newspaper for rural Monroe County, pop. 13,500. The weekly’s motto—The Noblest Motive is the Public Good—rings especially true for this West Virginia treasure.

Josh Baldwin
Serving the Public Good
Josh Baldwin

Rebel Sommelier

When your sommelier begins using Ozzy Osborne as a reference point when suggesting a vintage, you should probably start paying attention. And that’s exactly where Heath Porter, The Greenbrier’s Director of Wine, feels comfortable steering his discussions of wine. While most wine enthusiasts are busy trying to find the next great winery, Porter is plunging straight into the broad canon of vino with an eye for personality, history and anecdote. Greg Johnson caught up with Mr. Porter in December and found out that the recent infusion of energy and creativity into the new Greenbrier wine list is mostly due to the fact that its creator plays by his own set of rules.

Josh Baldwin
Rebel Sommelier
Josh Baldwin

West Virginians to Watch

West Virginia is, dare we say it, becoming cool to the outside world.

Josh Baldwin
West Virginians to Watch