‘Twilight in Hazard’ gets a lot right, leaves me looking for Dawn in Kentucky

How to understand the title of journalist Alan Maimon’s new book, Twilight in Hazard: An Appalachian Reckoning?

The book is his attempt to be nuanced and an opportunity to correct and extend the limits of the short-form newspaper article. His very desire sets him on the right course.

Twilight is the light in the sky after the sun has gone down. As any Kentuckian knows, twilight’s red and purple hues over our mountains and lakes are transcendent. A prayer after day is done. But twilight also suggests the dark is near.

Night Comes to the Cumberlands was written nearly 60 years ago. While Twilight in Hazard is a much- needed update, it feels as though it could be titled: It’s Still Night, Y’all.

Maimon leaves out much of the historical context that Caudill covers and rightly so. Caudill provides the textbook, but Maimon brings it into the 21 st century. He adds Mountain Dew, UK Basketball, and Wal- Mart. It’s all here. And it feels like home. He provides a nuanced portrayal of many, somehow making folks both likeable and a cautionary tale.

Maimon gets a lot right. He tells some family secrets: there is incredible wealth in the mountains. There are folks who say dichotomy and ain’t. There are Democrats living alongside Republicans. There is a strong culture of family. And most importantly, People really do look out for each other.

Maimon reiterates what many have. But he is clear these problems are so much bigger than any individual person.

These issues are structural and deeply embedded. There is political corruption, a culture of arson, dependency, and depression, an urgent public health crisis—not just with coronavirus but the long-standing opioid crisis, and an economy that has not yet found new ways to sustain itself.

If there’s any fault in Twilight in Hazard, it’s that it is short. Perhaps, the brevity is intentional. After all the book is an invitation for a reckoning. Maimon knows that Kentuckians don’t want prescriptiveness.

And Maimon himself mentions the lack of sustainability or transformation from policy solutions like the War on Poverty or Welfare Reform.

Maimon points to Charles Booker as the man who can change things, the convener. His last chapter even takes the tag line of Booker’s campaign: from the hood to the holler. And a month after the book’s publication, Charles Booker has officially launched his campaign.

Maimon lays out a credible argument that a Booker win is possible—that moderation is not what Kentuckians need. Maimon’s probably right. We Kentuckians are drawn to fire. We burn couches and forests and are like to burn down the whole system if we please. (Let’s not Kentuck this up, folks). But time and time again Kentuckians have also learned not to pin our hopes on one thing, whether that’s one industry or one person.

As Maimon said in a recent interview, “There are some really smart people with a real vision for the future . . . it doesn’t feel like lip service like it did twenty years ago.”

The thing is . . . I want to read that book about our promising Kentucky pluriverse; let’s call it Dawn in Kentucky. Because Maimon’s Twilight provides the menu but leaves me hungry.

Dawn would feature chapters on this bright energy flowing across out state. It would include chapters on solar energy, ag tech, reforestation of abandoned mine lands, small businesses and innovation incubators, our rich arts and literary community, education initiatives by our community college system but also smaller play, nature-based, and farm school movements, our strong non-profit sector, and key innovation and research from EKU, UK, and Berea College.

The penultimate chapter would be called, “Give us all your money and ALL THE INTERNET.” The last chapter draws out a collective plan on how to spend it. A connect the dots, if you will.

Something that’s hard to remember: constellations, though ancient, aren’t eternal. They are groupings, patterns found and connected, they are a story told over and over until it is so. We’ve got a thousand bright stars shining over the hills. Who’s going to chart, name, connect, and then, tell their story?

Maimon’s Twilight in Hazard: An Appalachian Reckoning brings energy and an insight to a region that for so long has deserved so much more than a death song.

But I’ve got to ask. What if it’s morning and we just haven’t opened our eyes yet?

It’s a story worth telling ourselves, until it’s clear as day.

Sarah Curry is a writer and development professional.