Newfound by Jim Wayne Miller

Newfound by Jim Wayne Miller. 1989. NY. Orchard Books. pp 213.

“There are two classes of people, the good livers and the sorry.” was how Robert’s Grandma Wells explained life. “Good livers were workers, they looked ahead, laid up for a rainy day. They were good providers. The sorry were shiftless, didn’t look ahead. They were improvident, lived from hand to mouth. A person should have goals, ambitions. One needed to be able to see further than the holler one lived in.”

Poet, playwright, and novelist Jim Wayne Miller, a native of North Carolina, graduate of Berea College and Vanderbilt University, uses Grandma Wells’ words as the underlying theme of this Appalachian coming of age story set in Newfound, TN. The main character, Robert Wells, is twelve years old at the beginning of the story. Coming off the bus on the last day of school, before summer vacation, Robert sees his father’s car and wonders why he is home so early in the day. The arguments between his parents escalate throughout the summer. Soon Robert, his younger brother Eugene and his little sister, Jeanette, are taken up the road by their mother to go live with Grandpa and Grandma Smith. A place Grandma Wells calls “an unsuitable environment”.

Robert's paternal grandparents, Grandpa and Grandma Wells live in a nice two-story home with a tree-lined drive and they own a store. They also have several families living on their land who are sharecroppers and pay Grandpa Wells a portion of their earnings from the crops they grow, primarily tobacco. His maternal grandparents, Grandpa and Grandma Smith are sharecroppers on Grandpa Wells land. Which is how Robert’s parents met. For the first time, Robert begins to look at the structure of his family. Why do his mother’s parents live on his father’s parents’ property? He begins to notice the differences in his grandparents’ homes and the way they each lived. Before he never thought about these things. Everything was just the way things were supposed to be.

All through the divorce of Robert’s parents, Grandma Wells’ words ring through his mind and he begins to observe the way the adults in his life live, trying to determine to which class of people each belongs. Grandpa Wells has several businesses and people working for him. He has financial security thanks to the legacy left to him by his ancestors, who have always been prominent citizens in Newfound. Grandpa Smith works long hot hours in his tobacco fields to provide for his family and pay Grandpa Wells his share. At the mercy of Mother Nature, he has little financial security. Grandma Wells knows poetry, geography and shows Robert a family tree with all her ancestors, who they were and where they came from, and lectures on the importance of a good education, while lamenting the fate of her son, caused by the “ignorant” girl he married. Grandma Smith can’t remember her grandparents’ names and only knows they came from across the water, and she uses words like “spread natter”, which Robert learns later in college is the old world term for a snake, instead of “adder”. Grandma Smith knows that when bees begin to swarm, you can get them to settle in one spot by beating a pie pan with a spoon. Unlike, Grandpa and Grandma Wells who own a store and never have to worry about raising their own food. Grandpa and Grandma Smith grow nearly all the food they eat. They can, dry and store all the food they can to keep them through the winter.

After the divorce, Robert’s dad comes to visit him and his brother and sister regularly, always with a different car and a different “enterprise”, while Robert’s mother gets a steady job in a local factory and studies in secret for her GED and teaches herself to type and Robert grows. He hunts, learns to drive, hangs out with the guys, becomes interested in girls and works for Grandpa Wells and Grandpa Smith. At seventeen, Robert heads off to Berea College in Kentucky to get educated, seek ambitions and achieve goals, still unsure of why some folks left Newfound and never came back, while some kept trying to leave but somehow always came back.

Perhaps it is not that there are two types of people, but more like two types of living. Which is the good life and which one makes a person sorry to be living it? Progressive living with material goals, insurance policies and a pace that goes faster and faster and faster with each passing generation or simple self-reliant living with hard labor, sound faith and in harmony and keeping pace with nature. Seems this depends more on each individual. Whether the inclination is of a divine nature or influenced by environment makes no difference, either way there is nothing worse than to be a progressive liver in a simple world, unless it is to be a simple liver in a progressive world. Who is to say who is right and who is wrong or who is “educated” and who is “ignorant”? No one has all the answers, like in the story of the blind men describing an elephant. The knowledge that one possesses is only a representation of one's experiences and preferences.

This book was the late Mr. Miller's first novel. He passed away in 1996. During his career, he was the spokesman, advocate and hero of Appalachian writers everywhere. He served as a consultant to Appalachian Studies Programs throughout the region and as a visiting professor in Appalachian Studies at Berea College, the University of Tennessee, Radford University and Appalachian State University. His characters are real and descriptions vivid. At the beginning the narration seems choppy, while other times there are moments of literary genius. Overall, it is a good read I would recommend, especially to teens and young adults. Be sure to check out other literary works by Jim Wayne Miller .