In November 1863, David Creigh killed a Union soldier who robbed his home in Lewisburg, West Virginia. Seven months later, in June 1864, federal officials convicted Creigh of murder and sentenced him to be executed. A slaveholder and the father of a Confederate soldier, Creigh, unaware of his imminent death, hoped to see his family again. Union Army officials, however, ensured the family's earthly separation. Creigh wrote to his wife before his execution and confided that, after he had eaten his supper, he was "taken into a house and the sentence pronounced that I was to be hung." Creigh's Christian faith allowed him to meet his death with peace and instilled in him a belief that he would meet his wife and twelve children in heaven. Concluding his letter with a call to faith, Creigh prayed that "God be your stay and support, trusting in God, and preparing to meet in heaven." Shortly after sunrise on June 11, 1864, the Union Army tied a piece of rope to a tree limb, placed the other end around Creigh's neck, stood him in a wagon, and pulled the cart from beneath him. The scene must have been horrific, as the executor admitted years later that he did not know enough to tie down the convicted man's arms and legs before the hanging.¹

Dr. Karida L. Brown's book is a thoughtful journey from the Deep South to the coalfields of Kentucky and beyond. Reading it feels like you are sitting on the porch with your grandparents and your aunts and uncles as they regale you with stories of their growing-up years as you sip on homemade sweet tea. In this volume, Dr. Brown explores the lived experiences of Black women and men who grew up in coal country. The tri-city area of Lynch, Benham, [End Page 56] and Cumberland is located in Harlan County, a mountainous region in the southeastern corner of the state of Kentucky. Both Lynch and Benham are coal company towns.

While the opioid epidemic has raged across the nation, attentions lately have turned to Appalachia, where the people of the region have been hardest hit with the issue. Eric Eyre, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Investigating Reporting, weaves the tale of the battle those in southern West Virginia waged against the source of the epidemic itself. Death in Mud Lick, the culmination of nearly fifteen years of Eyre's reporting for the Charleston Gazette newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia, brings to light the full story of the state's battle against the pharmaceutical distributors of name brand drugs like Oxycontin, Lortab, and other potent opioid drugs that ravaged the people of the region. This battle, Eyre says, "set up a collision course with three of America's largest corporations" (xiv).