This semester the Appalachian Book Club, hosted by the Graduate Appalachian Research Community (GARC) will be reading Happy Land (2025) by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. This book is a fictional account of a real community near Hendersonville in Western North Carolina, which was founded by a group of formerly enslaved people in the 1870s; please see the publisher's summary at the bottom of this email for more information. Our first meeting of the semester will be on Thursday, October 30, at 10am at the Appalachian Center Annex, when we will discuss the first 125 pages of Happy Land. The book is available for purchase through local retailers like Joseph-Beth and is also available to check out from the UK Library and the Lexington Public Library. We hope to see you all at the first meeting! Contact GARCommunity@uky.edu with any questions.
"Nikki hasn’t seen her grandmother in years. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, due to a mysterious estrangement between her mother and grandmother, she’s determined to learn the truth while she still can.
But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki an incredible story of a kingdom on this very mountain, and of her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, who would become its queen.
It sounds like the makings of a fairy tale—royalty among a community of freed people. But the more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she discovers in the woods, the more she realizes how much of her identity and her family’s secrets are wrapped up in these hills. Because this land is their legacy, and it will be up to her to protect it before it, like so much else, is stolen away.
Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a transporting multi-generational novel about the stories that shape us and the dazzling courage it takes to dream."
