Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The lives of the working class in West Virginia—a train engineer, an epileptic, coal miners and outlaws, the fragile and dispossessed—are explored in this powerful yet tender collection of six short stories and a novella. They depict an isolated world of hardship, human endurance, and hard-won dignity and are a lyrical rendering of times and places now largely gone—but the stirring clarity of people and landscape can persist in the reader's imagination.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA LIBRARYTHING EARLY REVIEWERS. THANK YOU.

My Review: The novella "The Love of a Good Woman" reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's Southern Gothics. All of the stories are set in West Virginia, so should we call it "Appalachian Gothic" just to be clear? You're missing a trick if you don't procure one for yourself because it's rich, involving prose that tells really honest stories about people's real lives...love, family, the curdled joy of intimacy all get their inversions here. There's something very Lewis Nordan, in his Wolf Whistle mode, about the whole collection. Recommended. ( )

Richard Currey's writing style is beautiful. It is inspiring almost despite the settings and types of characters he depicts in these stories.
Though I have long wanted to, I have never visited this part of the country but this book and others of its ilk can make me feel like I have. These are not happy stories overall, but understanding the people and their times make them enjoyable.
I have been on a bit of a short story jag lately and this is one of the better collections I have read. Recommended. ( )

The Wars of Heaven is both the title of this book, written by Richard Currey, and of one of the six short stories collected. Besides them, there is a longer short story that the author chooses to call a novella.

Richard Currey is an artisan of the word and a master teller. His prose is poetic and uplifting. He deals with strong and sensitive characters, men and women of West Virginia, who suffer, love, know sacrifice and disaster, and face life with all the makings of real human beings. Currey deals with suicide, accidents and labour conditions in coal mines, an epileptic boy, fatal disabilities and a son turned criminal (to mention the subjects of the short stories) with a perceptive feeling for what goes on the mind of his characters. He is not sentimental; he calls a spade a spade, leaving the reader impressed by the accurate psicological description of motives and faithful situations.

The novella is quite different from the rest of the stories. Its tone and style are light, playful, humorous. The central character is a loveable oddball who can perhaps be best described as a modern reincarnation of Don Quixote. A true joy to read about his concept of what the world is all about, and just how misinformed everyone is. ( )

Received this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers - a book of short stories (and one novella) of everyday people of West Virginia during the Great Depression.

Be it a farmer, a coal miner, or a clown, each has his own story to tell and they kind of helped filled my imagination of what it must have been like there in the 1900's. Coupled with Currey's great choices of words, the stories were almost poetry-like and lyrical.

The novella, The Love of a Good Woman, was thought provoking. Is it heroic or just plain crazy to go all out to help a woman with a sick baby? Borrowing a car without permission, and taking money straight out of a bank's cash drawer in the name of a loan. All while made up with a clown-painted face...

Truly, is our society today as forgiving when it comes to peculiar individuals?

Overall well-written, easy-to-read stories.

http://thinkb4aftertot.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-wars-of-heaven.html ( )

Being a West Virginia native I was eagerly awaiting this collection of short stories. I was not disappointed.

The writing is so lyrical I kept re-reading certain sections just to enjoy them. Some brought me to tears.

I especially enjoyed the section at the beginning of the story Wars of Heaven where Rockwell is describing his mother’s coffee. It is magical. Luther’s plight in Rock of Ages also touched me deeply.

The collection is very bleak and atmospheric. It takes you there. Five Stars ++ ( )