Wish

Author Barbara O’Connor was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and grew up amidst the beauty and mystery of the iconic Smoky Mountains. After pursuing her post-graduate studies in California and living in New England for 26 years, O’Connor returned to the Appalachian region and settled in Asheville, North Carolina, where she uses her childhood memories of gardening, playing in the creek, and searching for salamanders as inspiration for her novels. Although the town of Colby, the main setting of the novel Wish, is fictionalized, O’Connor draws on her love of the language, culture, and cuisine of the Appalachian region to create a strong sense of place in the narrative and honor a culture that some have dismissed as being primitive, coarse, and uncivilized (“About Barbara O’Connor.” Barbara O’Connor, 2023).

Covering 13 states and over 200,000 square miles of land, the Appalachian Mountain range is one of the oldest in the world, and the people who live in the mountains’ shadow have developed a rich cultural heritage that reflects the history of the region. Despite the majestic, biodiverse mountains, the Appalachian regions have come to be synonymous with negative cultural stereotypes, some of which have been reinforced by popular culture, such as the controversial book Hillbilly Elegy and the equally controversial novel Deliverance. From the onset of the novel, O’Connor addresses the stereotypes of the Appalachian region head-on, as Charlie describes her Raleigh friends’ simplistic assertions that people in Colby are hillbillies who eat squirrels and don’t have paved roads. The exact origin of the term hillbilly is unknown, although it most likely emerged sometime in the early 19th century and may be a derivation of the phrase “hill people,” which referred to Scottish immigrants who lived in the mountains and came down to work on farms during harvest season. The pejorative term “hillbilly” is now used to widely categorize people who live in rural, mountainous regions and implies that such people are poor, uneducated, and uncivilized. Although most people see the term as offensive, authors and artists from Appalachian regions have worked to reclaim the term in a positive way and educate people on the rich history of the region and its people.

In her novel, O’Connor takes her protagonist on a journey designed to deconstruct many Appalachian stereotypes. As Charlie becomes entwined in Colby’s life and culture through her experiences with Bertha, Gus, and the Odoms, her paradigm shifts, and as she learns to look past their poverty and into their rich souls, she sheds the negative preconceptions that she has been taught about the people of the Appalachians. People of this region may have indeed eaten squirrels at one point when food was scarce. However, they also eat vegetables grown in their own gardens, along with cobblers and pies made from recipes that have been handed down for generations. Their conversations may be full of curious idioms, but they are also full of stories about humor, survival, and resilience. Thus the story of the Appalachian people is the story of humanity, and like other authors who have roots in this unique community, O’Connor elevates the culture of the Appalachians by vividly describing the picturesque landscape and creating characters who embody the spirit and enduring legacy of the region.