The Hardscrabble Hollers of New Hampshire

I ran across a review of the book Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music by Dana Jennings, and though this is not my type of read, it caught my attention because he is a native of New Hampshire. I read a couple of reviews and found myself fascinated by the way New Hampshire was portrayed in the reviews. Here a couple of my favorite snippets:

• From Publisher's Weekly: "Jennings tells of his upbringing in the hardscrabble hollers of New Hampshire."


• From the Washington Post's Book World: "Jennings was born in rural New Hampshire and grew up in Kingston, a town of fewer than 1,000 residents. The local accent was Yankee cracker, but it was cracker all the same..."
  
• From the book: In his "particular chicken-scratched swatch of New Hampshire, postwar prosperity was a rumor."

I have never read so many colorful phrases to describe a book, and the home state of its author. But seriously the book has been well-reviewed, and in its essence the book is the story of rural America in the 20th century through the lens of country music. Come to the library to check it out, but please ask for it in your best Yankee cracker.