River Roots

Mary Kuykendall goes back to her roots along the South Branch of the Potomac River in West Virginia for this collection of short stories based on characters struggling for survival in a world which appears indifferent as they face adverse and social conditions beyond their control. River Roots’ stories interrelate to give one a total view of river valley life, then and now. In some ways, the Hampshire County she grew up in reminds her of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, in which man, in his essential nobility, sometimes repudiates himself in all his reprehensible weakness. But mostly she hopes she has captured some of Wendell Berry’s love of land and the family farmer’s innate respect for it.

Mary Kuykendall-Weber holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from West Virginia University and a master's degree in American literature from the State University of New York.
After 25 years at General Electric as a publicist and speechwriter, she wrote a book on corporate greed,The House That Jack Blew Down, of which parts were used in GE, Jack Welch and Profits at Any Cost, by Tom O'Boyle. A play,Gold Collars, a new category in the traditional labels of blue-, pink- (female workers) and white-collar workers, was more successful, a short version was produced in San Francisco. She is now working on a book entitledThe Perils of Pauline in Big Business. She has written some one hundred short stories, with seven published in small press anthologies.