The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox Jr.

Appalachian romance outdated in a bad way

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine bears a title that makes it sound like a Western, but the story takes place in the Appalachian world of coal miners, moonshiners, and hillbilly feuds. Originally published in 1908, the novel by John Fox Jr. is set in a mountainous region on the border between Kentucky and Virginia. John Hale, a college-educated entrepreneur, ventures into this country looking for undiscovered coal beds to exploit into a lucrative career. He discovers his hoped-for mother lode in a secluded hollow called Lonesome Cove. As an outsider, Hale is looked at with suspicion by the region’s inhabitants, but he manages to get involved in the lives of one family in particular. Two local clans, the Tollivers and the Falins, have been engaged in a long-running feud, the kind in which any traveling man might be shot and killed in the woods without warning. As Hale and other speculators begin to develop the mineral resources of the region, the next logical step is the establishment of a boomtown. To protect his investments, Hale founds a police force to maintain law and order in the region, which draws the ire of the locals who resent the “furriners” who have intruded upon their homeland and meddle in their lives.

Just as in any horse opera, West or East of the Mississippi, the dynamics of a feud and the ubiquity of guns offers the potential for some exciting drama and adventure, but Fox never truly realizes the potential for action that the premise allows. All throughout the narrative a showdown between the hero and his nemesis is foreshadowed, but the reader ends up feeling cheated when the confrontation never reaches fruition. It is also difficult to get excited about the commercial side of the story. Unless you’re a geologist or a coal miner, it is hard to understand the plot elements revolving around Hale’s mining enterprises.

Rather than feuding hillbillies or coal riches, however, the bulk of the novel revolves around a romance between Hale and a girl he meets in Lonesome Cove. In this case, “girl” is the appropriate word to use because June Tolliver is literally a schoolgirl when first encountered by Hale. Like some Kentucky backwoods Pygmalion, Hale supervises June’s upbringing, pays for her education, buys her a home, and initiates her education into big-city culture and fashions. All along he intends to marry her, but first he must transform her into a woman worthy of being his wife. In the time and place in which this novel takes place it probably was not unusual for girls to be married at a young age, perhaps even in their early teens. Nowadays, however, what Hale is doing with June would be called “grooming,” and it leaves a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. The hillbillies of Lonesome Cove may not have known any better, but Fox, a Harvard-educated New York journalist should have thought twice before penning what comes across as a pedophilic My Fair Lady sexual fantasy. If Hale and June were closer in age this would just be a dull and corny romance novel, but the repeated referrals to June as a “little girl” are a constant reminder that he is acting as her svengali. On the surface this is an innocent romance in an idyllic woodland setting, which probably explains why this book is regarded in come circles as a beloved classic, but it’s hard to understand how anyone could let this story premise slide in the 21st century.

The basic plot of the book, its local color, and Fox’s descriptions of the natural landscape call to mind a harmless and wistful Western by Zane Grey, but the grooming aspect of the lead couple’s relationship has lain a patina of creepiness over this outdated Appalachian yarn.
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