White Crane #68, Loving Country Loving - Interview with Jeff Mann

Loving Mountains, Loving Men

Dan Vera & Bo Young
Speak with the writer Jeff Mann
about Gay Rural Life, Poetry & Food

About the time Brokeback Mountain was breaking in the theaters, we received a new book by Jeff Mann, an assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech, Loving Mountains, Loving Men (Ohio University Press (OUP), 2005). The Wild West isn't the only place where romance blossoms on mountaintops. We sat down with Jeff to talk about country living, loving men, and rural attractions.

Bo Young: Jeff, I'm always interested in author's intentions and I'm wondering what yours were in writing Loving Mountains, Loving Men?

Jeff Mann: Well, first of all, in writing Loving Mountains, Loving Men, I suppose I was trying to make sense of my own inner tensions, the conflict between my love of Appalachia and my love of gay culture. As you might imagine, queer and mountain identities are sometimes hard to reconcile. We writers often use our writing as a way of articulating and understanding our own inner contradictions.

That's the selfish reason. The altruistic reason (and I'm a Leo, so altruism doesn't come naturally) is that I hoped that such a book-the first of its kind, as far as I know, in the field of Appalachian Studies-might help other Appalachian LGBT folks come to terms with their own lives and their own identities. I also hoped that Loving Mountains, Loving Men might help straight Appalachians understand what we mountain queers go through.

Bo: All the Leo's I know are openhearted and generous people...but do you think straight Appalachians are hungering to understand queer folk?

Jeff: Naw, I don't think that your run-of-the-mill Appalachian is interested in queer experience, but I do think that Appalachian writers (who are usually more liberal than other hill-folks) would be open to my story. And readers certainly tend (I would assume) to be more liberal than the sluggish lumps that don't read...no matter the region.

Bo: Have you heard from other Appalachian writers?

Jeff: Well, in the Appalachian Studies world, Loving Mountains, Loving Men has gotten a very positive reception so far. George Brosi, the great guy who's the editor of Appalachian Heritage, has not only published a flattering review of the book in his magazine, but he's dedicating the Summer 2006 issue of AH to my work. I've been invited to read at Marshall University, Northern Kentucky University, and Appalachian State University. I'm going to be on a panel and be part of a book reception at the Appalachian Studies Association Conference in Dayton. And the editor of Appalachian Journal has asked to interview me for that magazine. Denise Giardina and Irene McKinney-their works have meant a great deal to me-even wrote blurbs for LMLM, which I very much appreciate.

Bo: In your book you speak about how you couldn't live anywhere but in Appalachia. I go to Tennessee quite a bit, or used to, to stay at the faerie sanctuary, Short Mountain, just outside Nashville, and I was always so surprised that this very queer community could exist, much less thrive, as it has these 30 odd years. What are some of the things you think would surprise urban gay men about rural gay life?

Jeff: I think urban gay men would be surprised by the number of queers who live in small towns and rural areas, by the number of our organizations, our celebrations, and our bars. I'd imagine that some urban-dwellers don't even realize that my native Appalachia has cities.

In particular, there is amazing ignorance about West Virginia, a state that is the brunt of many a hillbilly joke. Some supposedly educated folks still don't know that WV is a separate state. Charleston, West Virginia, I'm proud to say, has several gay organizations, three gay bars, and a pride parade.

Another thing that urban queers might not understand is how welcoming some small communities might be. My partner John and I have lived in Pulaski, Virginia, for six months, and our neighbors have been very kind and friendly. I wondered if maybe they didn't get the fact that John and I were partners, but then the local paper The Roanoke Times published an interview with me, "The 'Brokeback Professor,'" about Loving Mountains, Loving Men and its parallels with Brokeback Mountain. My neighbors remained as sweet as ever. In fact, they even asked me if I wanted them to save their copies of the RT interview for me.

I'm certainly blessed in this respect. It helps, I think, to be fairly butch, a guy who comes across as a local boy (as indeed I am), who drives a pickup truck and loves country music, who enjoys (to some extent) football and baseball, who relishes down-home mountain food, and who sports a mountain accent, as well as cowboy boots and hats. The fact that I'm a rampant BDSM/Wiccan, leatherbear is beside the point!

Dan Vera: When you say that there's a lot about West Virginia that people don't understand, I hear that as standing up against the reduction of regional distinction. Some of that reductionism is clearly ignorance or laziness but a lot of it seems like that persistence strain of an urbane elitism that can't imagine complexity in rural parts of the country.

Jeff: It's funny that you mention urban elitism, since as a young man eager to get the hell out of Appalachia, I was very much hoping to become part of some vaguely imagined urban elite. It took only a few months of living in Washington DC to make me realize what a country boy/Appalachian/Southerner I really was. It was then that I decided that living in the Highland South was more important to me than living in a thriving urban gay community. Then, teaching Appalachian Studies at Virginia Tech, I really began to appreciate the complex history and folk culture of my native region. At this point in my life, I cherish regional distinctions: they are what makes America so wonderfully multi-faceted, and I pray that mass media won't erode such distinctions any further. The thought of a culturally homogeneous America makes me a little sick.

Bo: In one of the chapters of your book, Loving Mountains, Loving Men, you make an interesting comparison between gay people and rural living "Self-reliance, toughness, resilience become enviable sources of dignity and strength." I think it's a very interesting comment. So often gay people tend think of gay people seeking the anonymity of the urban environment and I think you're suggesting we might well be better suited to rural life.

Jeff: For a long time, people have been talking about Appalachia as a place where the natives are independent, self-reliant, and resilient. Loyal Jones' classic essay "Appalachian Values" lists "Self-Reliance" as among the best traits of mountain people. It was Carrie Kline's reader-theater piece "Revelations" that made me realize that Appalachian self-reliance served queer hill folk well. We're often isolated emotionally, sometimes without a simpatico queer community, so we must do for ourselves both physically and emotionally. And Lynda Ann Ewen, co-editor of the OUP "Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia" series, in which my book appeared, pointed out to me the ways in which "resilience" was also apropos: having the strength to adapt to changes as they come.

Bo: So what did you think of Brokeback Mountain?

Jeff: I will remember Brokeback Mountain as one of the great films of my life. I don't think any other mainstream movie has ever captured so many of my issues, my passions, and my fears. Most gay films are about the urban experience, to which I can only partially relate. The fact that this film dealt with small town and rural experience really resonated with me, since I've spent most of my life in such settings. I thought the movie was beautifully filmed and finely acted, and I sympathized very strongly with both of the male protagonists. I had read Proulx's short story in Fall 2005, so it was interesting to see how they fleshed that story out to make the film. The additions all worked well, I thought.

Dan: You're doing pioneering work in writing about an area with a life-experience that hasn't been heard from before. But we always come into the work with other voices and other seekers in mind. Who do you see as your literary influences and how has their work or experience helped you in your writing?

Jeff: My influences have been many. The works of Walt Whitman and Robert Frost were early enthusiasms. I loved Whitman's passion for the American landscape and his homoerotic Calamus poems celebrating masculinity, and I could relate to Frost's depiction of country life (albeit Yankee rather than Southern). I enjoyed the English Romantics for their depictions of rural experience and W.B. Yeats for his love lyrics. I actually got started writing seriously because of my love of Sylvia Plath's poetry, and later I got into Anne Sexton's work as well. I admire their honesty and their intensity, their ability to deal with dark and painful topics. Appalachian writers like Maggie Anderson, Irene McKinney, and Denise Giardina have been very influential in showing me how to celebrate my native region. These days, I look to Andrew Holleran's prose and Mark Doty's poetry as some of the best writing around.

Bo: Loving Mountains, Loving Men is a very rich memoir, but it's as much a valentine to rural America as it is memoir. And you aren't shy about showing it warts and all. In some ways your love of rural America, with all its strengths and beauty is not unlike another series of love stories you relate...about loving all the wrong men.

Jeff: I guess you're right about it being a "valentine to rural America." There's so, so much about rural life I love. It's the hateful Christian fundamentalists and the intolerant attitudes they spread around that makes rural life less appealing. It had never really occurred to me, that parallel you draw between loving a difficult region and loving difficult men...but there it is. I guess none of my loves has been simple.

Bo: Can you talk more about that? The plusses and minuses?

Jeff: Well, first of all, since I grew up in the Highland South, many of its values are mine. Loyal Jones, in his often-cited essay "Appalachian Values," lists such things as attachment to place, devotion to family, self-reliance, and a sense of beauty as qualities most Appalachians display. Other than mountain religion, which is too conservative and oppressive for me (and I'm a Wiccan anyway), I possess those typical mountain values, so in staying here I'm staying in a place where I share many values with those about me, and that's pleasant, it helps me feel that, to some extent at least, I belong. I like living around folks whose sense of Southern hospitality, for instance, is identical to mine.

I enjoy the slower pace of small-town life. Can't stand crowds and traffic and noise, so it makes sense that I'd be happier living somewhere other than an urban area. And since I appreciate the outdoors-years ago I got a degree in the forestry department at West Virginia University-it's good to live in an area where I'm surrounded by the natural environment. Must have been a Druid in my last life, because I love trees. And since, as a Wiccan, I locate the divine in nature, staying in Appalachia, where I'm closer to nature than in a city, allows me more of a spiritual life.

The minuses? Obviously that would include the conservative values of other rural folks, the ubiquitous and judgmental religious fundamentalism. There's also a lack of gay social opportunities, though living near a university town helps somewhat with that. I'm not much of a barfly anymore-spent most of my twenties in gay bars, so I'm not interested in a regular nightlife-but I do miss dancing, and unfortunately the nearest bear or leather bars, which would be the only kind of bars I'd really enjoy these days, are in DC. Well, there is one small bar that caters to bears and leathermen in Charleston WV, so John and I get there every so often. But once we give up our WV house and move in together in Pulaski VA, we'll have to visit DC to find such a place. That's about a five-hour drive.

Another minus? Few good ethnic restaurants! The only things that I hanker for in cities are leather/bear bars, gay bookstores, and ethnic restaurants...and grocery stores with sufficiently varied produce and ingredients to allow you to cook up your own ethnic food if you want to. Hell, when I first moved to Pulaski, I couldn't even find feta!

Bo: Heck, where you live you could make your own feta! You and I were talking about good food last night...and there's so much mouthwatering food in your book.

Jeff: There's so much food in my poems that, when I give a poetry reading, sometimes folks complain that listening to me makes them hungry, yet I don't bring food to the readings! My sister and I have talked for years about putting together a combo poetry/recipe book.

Bo: You should do recipes! I was feeling particularly "house proud" when we were chatting because I had a nice lemon cake sitting on my lover's grandmother's tin table top in our kitchen as we spoke!

Jeff: Mmmmm, lemon cake...(insert the drooling sounds Homer Simpson makes here).

Bo: Too bad we're not in the same room. Breakfast is my favorite meal. And my great aunt thought it wasn't a complete breakfast without a little something sweet after, like filled cookies or ginger snaps. What's the perfect Appalachian breakfast in your mind?

Jeff: Well, I had one version of the perfect Appalachian breakfast last Sunday, when my best friend Cindy and I visited my family in Hinton, WV, my hometown. My sister Amy made scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and biscuits topped with sausage gravy. That's the winter Best Breakfast. In summer, I'd say it would be scrambled eggs, plus homemade biscuits topped with mayonnaise, slices of fresh out-of-the-garden tomatoes, and sausage patties.

Bo: What are some of your favorite foods?

Jeff: Favorite foods? Well, though I'm really into ethnic food-you can tell from the book that John and I cook lots of European folk food-my first loves are, of course, mountain specialties. So...brown beans topped with chowchow or corn relish, with cornbread and molasses on the side. Creecy greens, collard greens. Ramps and eggs. Fruit pies, coconut cream pie. Black-eyed peas with ham hock. Bourbon-barbequed ribs, a specialty of mine I make for some local Bear buddies. Lately, I've been passionate about a little hot-dog place called Skeeter's in nearby Wytheville VA. I love a hot dog with everything on it, along with some potato salad and sweet iced tea. No wonder I tend to sport a little bear belly... Hairy scent, creamy taste...the true Mountaineer Queer. You see how easy it is to edge me towards the erotic?! Not for nothing that I have a book of erotica coming out this summer!

Bo: Eros is very much a part of what we do. We don't shy away from Eros whatsoever. Though I think most people have lost, or are at least very confused about, what the term really means. We have been told so many times that we could sell more copies of the magazine if we only put a handsome man with his shirt off on the cover. We've done shirtless men when the subject called for it (most recently the "Gay Bodies Gay Selves" issue) but "eros" and erotic are so much more than that to my mind and eye.

Dan: I love how your work incorporates both poetry and prose. What was your process? Did the poems come first and lead to the reflection? Or did you find poetry a means to crystallize the experience you'd fleshed out in your long form writing? It all seems quite organic.

Jeff: I'm glad the book seems to you to have grown organically, because the actual process was quite convoluted. I gave Lynda Ann Ewen, the editor of Ohio University Press's Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia Series, a collection of poetry in the summer of 2003. She talked to OUP and they suggested that I supplement the poems with memoir-I think they were concerned that poetry by itself wouldn't be sufficiently marketable. So in just a couple of months, I wrote all those pieces of memoir around and in between the poems. Then OUP suggested that I reorder the prose to be more chronological, to introduce the prose sections with poems, and to place the rest of the poems in the back of the book.

Dan: I grew up in South Texas and that has a unique reality that people outside of it can never really understand. It's a reality that is often met with disbelief by people who don't understand it. I find your work amazing in how you're breathing life into the notions of sexuality and place. Reading your writing reminds me of Urvashi Vaid's notion of "contextual liberty." That is, the realization that our liberties as LGBT people is based on our context. Without rehashing the entire thing, it argues that the majority of queer people living today are not living in urban gay neighborhoods but in contexts that are less free and more prohibitive. So if we're trying to see how free we are in "Gay America" we can't even think to gauge that without realizing that most of us aren't living in protected, fully integrated places.

Jeff: Thanks for introducing me to that concept of contextual liberty-I hadn't run across the idea before, but it makes perfect sense to me. I certainly don't have the freedom, where I'm from, to walk down the street holding my partner's hand without getting into a fistfight, but I do have supportive friends and neighbors who know what I publish and who I am. One saving grace for me has been my education: thanks to several university degrees and my publications, for the last twenty-some years I have been able to work in university communities in Appalachia, where there is much more freedom than in the surrounding communities. Folks without that education, who live in small towns in the area, would have much less in the way of protections, much less freedom to be openly queer.

Dan: You've talked a lot about the overwhelming conservativeness of rural areas. Yet there is also a long tradition of fearless progressivism in rural areas. West Virginia and a lot of mining history comes to mind. The Highlander Center in Tennessee comes to mind too and all their work in Civil Rights since the 1930s. They're not the dominant strains in rural reality but they serve as an underground in many ways. Do you see your work as connected to those currents?

Jeff: Yes, I do relate to the history of rural liberalism. My father is a superb example: he's been publishing essays in WV newspapers for years, harassing and mocking conservatives and fundamentalists. Talk about a top-notch role model! He brought me up on Emerson and Thoreau, encouraged self-reliance and a devotion to individualism. There are all sorts of passionate liberals in these parts, standing up for gay rights, speaking out against racism and sexism, battling the blight of mountaintop removal. I'm proud to be part of these traditions. Someone's got to stay in this region and stand up to all those loud and obnoxious conservative voices. Someone's got to try to make the mountains a better place for LGBT folks. I've got fine company in these struggles.

Bo: This is the spring issue and ramps are out in spring. How about a recipe for those Ramps and Eggs?

Jeff: Ramps and Eggs

Start with the oft-used Secret Ingredient of Southern Cooking, bacon grease. Heat that up-about 2 tablespoons-in a frying pan (cast-iron, if you've got it), then toss in the coarsely chopped ramps, I'd say 6 or seven. (Be sure to have cleaned them well, since they grow in the woods and are often pretty dirty).

Use both the green tops and the white bottoms of the ramps. Let 'em sizzle and wilt a little bit-get 'em soft, but don't overcook 'em. Then beat up three or four eggs with a little bit of water, maybe a tsp. Or two, and some salt and pepper, pour that in the skillet with the ramps, and cook as you would regular scrambled eggs. I suggest some hot pepper sauce on the side, and a few buttered biscuits and honey or strawberry jam and some sausage patties or links would make that breakfast perfect.

Eatin' fit for Hillbilly Leatherbears!

Read an excerpt from Loving Mountains, Loving Men

Read the White Crane review of Loving Mountains, Loving Men

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