Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South

leondumoulin.nl: Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South (Audible Audio Edition): Jeff Mann, Jonathan Young, Lethe Press: Books.
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Would this have been what you wished your early years were like? None of those things happened to me, except for my grief when a lesbian couple I knew broke up, and I went to Morgantown to visit them after the break-up.


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Why does stereotyping prevail in this age of the internet? Why do people fear difference instead of celebrating it? I think the fear of difference works almost at a genetic level, which would make sense in primitive tribal times, when other tribes could be dangerous. Folks like to generalize; they like to pigeonhole. It makes thinking simpler.

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Popular media often still represent My People as backward rednecks and ignorant, inbred hillbillies. The war was always seen as about abolishing slavery. You see it differently. How do you deal with that? Surely you knew those questions would madden me?

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Yesterday, I visited my sister in West Virginia. Her husband is black. Her son is biracial. The fact that I have black in-laws is a very valuable education for me. When Obama got elected, an event that moved me to tears, I actually joked that my in-laws were finally in the White House. Were I a white Southerner in , I might have been a supporter of slavery, simply because slavery was taken for granted by many, many people at that time as part of the usual order of things. As it is, I am a white Southerner who grew up in a region that admired and still admires the Confederate struggle and Confederate heroes like Robert E.

I come by my Rebel sympathies naturally. What does a man do when his country is invaded? I am a regionalist with very strong attachments and loyalties, much more so to my region than to my nation. I would have put on Rebel gray and tried to kill as many invaders as possible. I think they were right.

I grudgingly admire Abraham Lincoln as a man of great conviction, a political genius, but I believe he should have let the South go its own way.

Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South

And Reconstruction would not have poisoned race relations for generations to come. Anyone with the gall to admit that he admires Rebel soldiers or sympathizes with the Confederacy runs the risk of being regarded as a stupid redneck, a conservative country hick. Confederate soldiers and civilians suffered and endured horrible things.


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They were human beings just as much as the triumphant Union soldiers and the black slaves. Why are their stories not to be told? Why does their suffering not count? Other people can tell those tales and focus on those aspects of history, and I respect their attempts to do so. I absolutely resist the stupidly simplistic way the Civil War is most often represented these days: Those evil people deserved their suffering. The right side won. I visited the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia, a few years back, and they have their exhibits arranged to tell three different stories: More recently, that organization has come up with a new logo: Just one more thing.

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Covington, Virginia, and Hinton, West Virginia—the two small mountain towns where I grew up—and Pulaski, Virginia, the small mountain town where I now reside—all have monuments to the Confederate soldier. Pulaski lies in the upper part of the Valley of Virginia, the lower part of which was decimated by Philip Sheridan in the fall of Those soldiers doused the fires.

And history feels very close when you live and move amid landscapes where those events occurred. Speaking of stereotypes and labels, there is growing debate about the way gay men are depicted in MM romance. One well known gay writer, Jeff Erno, has bemoaned the fact that when he depicts men like himself: These same female readers are also known to complain about smelly armpits, an abundance of hair and pot bellies, all the things bears love. Yet, in some ways these two extremes have something in common because in one of your books, you describe, Bob, one of your Mountain State buddies: When it came to looks, dress, and mannerisms, Bob was very masculine, but he also embodied sweetness, gentleness, domesticity, and kindness, more traditionally feminine characteristics.

Why do you like bears and being a bear? Bears also tend to resemble the country boys I grew up around, the kind of men I was first attracted to as I grew up in southern West Virginia, the kind of men I patterned my style of masculinity after, and the kind of men I still most powerfully desire. Do you ever wonder or despair about what is going to happen to these twinks or boys who have been admired and identified only by their cuteness? I had a friend in college—a former friend, I should emphasize, for we fell out nearly two decades ago—who was a charming twink with many admirers.

I doubt that aging has been any fun for him.

Thank God for men with Daddy fetishes. For many of us who love to read, there are two types of books that especially enrich us: Now for the future. You once said you use writing to probe. Is there anything left to probe? What compels you to write? Finally, I write because my whole sense of self—critical acclaim or not—is wrapped up in the concept of being a writer.

What are you writing now? What can we expect in the future? It continues the adventures of lovers Ian Campbell, a Rebel soldier, and Drew Conrad, a Union soldier, as they make their way through the mountains of western Virginia, encountering several colorful, intolerant, and dangerous characters along the way. That novella is supposed to be the last section of a new volume collecting some of my previously published erotic fiction. That collection will also contain one other new piece, an experimental braiding of fiction, essay, and photographs. There I was, swilling high-quality bourbon in a fancy big-city hotel room, with assorted leather accouterments, a professional photographer, and a professional porn star.

Quite the adventure for a middle-aged academic. Folks will have to buy the book to know more. Appropriate for a guy who regards the aforementioned Celtic Horned God, Cernunnos, Lord of the Wildwood, as one of his patron deities. I would like to end by thanking you for your support. No, thank you for being so patient and taking the time to answer my questions. Apart from his great fiction, I can thoroughly recommend the memoirs and essays.

They give a fascinating glimpse of his life, his world and the people in it. His books can be purchased by following the links on the name and cover. Most are also available through ARe, Amazon, Smashwords and other retail outlets. Now for some great news. Jeff has offered the prize of a copy of the audio version of "Fog" to one lucky person who comments on the interview by the 14th July For once, the fact that it was present tense didn't irk me. In fact I was half way through before I realized.

I'm not sure if that's testament to the fact that the story and characterisation swept me along so much or the skill of the writer. The subject matter is confronting, but what I liked best was that the GMC was consistent throughout and the emotional as well as the physical consequences of every deed rang true.

The story is more about the character's needs and desires as much as what they do and why they do it. Edited after listening to the audio version kindly supplied to me by the author. For half the journey I saw only three other cars on the road The length was perfect. By the time I hit the busy Newell Highway, it had finished. But the lonely journey was not only enlivened by listening to a riveting story, the isolation also matched it perfectly.

I felt as trapped and isolated in the car as the characters were in their hideaway. Having read the story before, I knew what was coming, so I was able to concentrate more on the way it unfolded. How could you go from such a dire start to a HEA? Jeff has also written a short story and a novella on a similar theme included in "History of Barbed Wire" that are like sketches artists like Rembrandt and Michelangelo did before creating their final masterpiece.

Working on the hand or a section of the whole. Jeff's shorter pieces didn't have an HEA though, so as an author I found it fascinating the bits that were added to make the ending, not only logical but immensely satisfying. I enjoyed hearing the story, the narrator's voice changed a bit in the middle, not sure if it was just a reflection of different recording sessions or a different narrator, but both versions were fine.

No question of it. As Patrick Califia says in the opening words of his intro: They'll break your heart every time. But until then, the sex is amazing. I found it interesting reading this anthology after having read Jeff's essay in The Other Man based on something that happened to him in real life. He talks about being involved with "Another Man" even though he was in a committed loving relationship. This theme resonates through his stories.

Having a lover who is a good, kind reliable person - but not kinky-and the way he got so aroused whenever he thought about being tied up and taken to his physical limits. I've always been interested in uncovering men's fears and fantasies as knowing these gives a better picture of who they are. Jeff's are written here, plain to see.

Above all, this is a book about bears. Nowhere else have I really felt the essence of these big men. And not just big, hairy men with voracious appetites for food and drink, but also sex, especially the intense experiences brought on by the extremes of leathersex. I deliberately skipped reading the introduction by Patrick Califia until I'd finished the collection as I didn't want to be influenced by anything other than Jeff's own words. However, Patrick does sum up what this essence is. The last story was especially interesting from a writer's POV after having read Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal The two stories have very similar plots but just some slight shifts as far as goal, motivation and circumstance leads to a different take on the scenario.

Yes, there are similarities. But the differences are what makes them both worth reading. Both are satisfying in their own rights. Both had me on the edge of my seat wondering how it could ever be resolved without something drastic happening to one or all of the characters. That's what good writing is all about. Incidentally, I managed to buy this through All Romance Ebooks but it definitely shouldn't be shelved as romance even though there is a lot of affection and love in the true sense of the word.

For starters we learn more about Jeff's relatives and his long term partner, John. In his essay "How to Live with Peace" Jeff says One of the great blessings of having a spouse is being able to lay down that terrible search for touch, for romantic and erotic connection, and concentrate on the rest of the world.

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The spiritual sense of things which in my bachelor days I sometimes achieved via those rare and rapturous moments with other men Yet at other times, Jeff notes that in some ways he misses the pain and intensity of failed relationships or unrequited lusts that inspired him to write poetry. Perhaps it has been replaced by his lust for food! We had caught tantalising glimpses of John before. One memorable episode was Jeff's fortieth birthday which I had read about earlier.

But I hadn't read how they had met, what had sparked this partnership. There are still a couple of pieces missing - Jeff doesn't disclose everything - but he gives enough to satisfy. We also hear about the father who taught him so much, from the practical lessons on gardening to seeing romance in the tradition of Emerson and Thoreau.

Yet, Jeff is also frank about the strained relationship between his parents. Acknowledging his mother's unhappiness, distanced from her husband and lonely emotionally if not physically. This affected him just as much. We also meet other people who have influenced his life. His eccentric aunts and grandmother. Words capture people and places for posterity: Appalachian culture, the landscape, the characters, growing up gay in an age that didn't accept that, being a minority both because of his sexuality and his love for, and adherence to, his roots.

You can see that the latter are strong. He never distances or hides behind himself for the sake of his own comfort. Full review at https: Lethe Press rated it it was amazing Aug 15, Steve rated it it was amazing Mar 17, Gayle rated it it was amazing May 27, Blaize rated it really liked it Nov 11, Ron Suresha rated it it was amazing Aug 18, Amelia Fowler rated it it was amazing Nov 23, Strobing Limelight rated it it was amazing Jul 22, Murray rated it liked it Mar 24, Caroline rated it it was amazing Sep 17, Aunty rated it it was amazing Nov 21, Raven rated it it was ok Jan 05, Emerson rated it it was amazing Jan 19, Napier rated it it was amazing May 21, Natalie rated it really liked it Oct 24, Bob marked it as to-read Jul 06, Karin Wollina marked it as to-read Aug 09, Dexter John Wildblood marked it as to-read Sep 19, Bradley marked it as to-read Jan 19, Danny Tyran added it Jun 27, LJ marked it as to-read Jun 27, Woodbane marked it as to-read Sep 03, Romann marked it as to-read Mar 19, Walt marked it as to-read May 08, Jess marked it as to-read Nov 01, JohnM marked it as to-read Dec 31, David marked it as to-read Jan 24, Ascian marked it as to-read Jan 25, Jeff marked it as to-read Mar 05, Rita-Teodora marked it as to-read Aug 30, Mischa Kelvin marked it as to-read May 17, Xan West marked it as to-read Sep 11, Timothy Kelley marked it as to-read Sep 11, There are no discussion topics on this book yet.