Labor Days, Labor Nights Would Let You Crash On Its Couch
Larry D. Thacker’s 2021 collection, Labor Days, Labor Nights: More Stories, is a 22-story tour through the soul of the fictional Labor County, Kentucky.
This is a book that, in that specifically Appalachian way, stares straight into your eyes and dares you to take issue with it. It lives its characters’ lives honestly and frankly, without lampshading the ways that their perspectives are incomplete or inaccurate. It simply lets you, the reader, make your own judgments. It’s almost Watterson-ian in its commitment to internality—each character, even the adults, is a Calvin of sorts. The differences of perspective, and the reconciliation (not compromise) of those differences, are the fabric of the community in Labor County.
It’s not without its faults. Despite the fact that the author lives in the region he writes about, some of the stories trend toward what I’ll charitably call “poverty tourism.” There’s definitely a conversation to be had about presenting Appalachia in shades of realistic gray, rather than the unequivocal black-and-white applied to us by the outside world. But multiple times throughout the book I found myself thinking the literary equivalent of “my eyes are up here,” while Thacker indulged his urge to describe the circumstances of economic disadvantage with a touch too much enthusiasm.
The book is a fairly generous 22 short stories. To reduce the sense of voyeurism, four or five of them could have been cut or replaced, shifting the balance in favor of the tragic, delightful, sometimes haunting tales that make up the middle of the volume. Maybe something as simple as re-ordering the appearance of those stories would have helped leave me with a better last impression of the work as a whole. Overall, though, it’s worth reading, and it has some real gems. “The Quiet Scars” clotheslines you with a feeling of lost potential familiar to so many of us who’ve watched circumstances and blind chance snatch away a future. “The River Cairns Tale” plays a game of chicken with grief at a sedate, meditative plod that guides you through the grayness of loss and into healing. “She Sure Could Dance” stares you down until you wonder if maybe you’re the delusional one.
Labor Days, Labor Nights is a book that’s best read by people who already have a nuanced view of Appalachia. For us, it’s harmlessn. Knowing that the author truly understands his community lets us laugh without guilt when he uses a cliche or makes a reductive joke. And there are stories in the middle that leap, flashing like silver, from the surface. I recommend it to anyone who already loves the people of Appalachia, and whose love isn’t based on primitivist notions of the idyllic mountain past. This is a book about the present: warts, COVID, unlimited data, and all.
