Where Everything Important Happens on a Hillside

The Country Music Highway, US 23 in Kentucky, runs close by here with signs for all the stars, which is all well and good for country music, but there is more than one kind of talent in these hills. John Butch Preston is a unique Kentucky author and playwright, who deserves his own sign for the voice he lends to the arts.This is his first novel. It is set in the fictional town of “Hambleysburg, Kentucky” and follows the lives of one family as they leave and stay, love, hate and die. The themes are universal but the setting is intimate and particular to eastern Kentucky. If you are from here but living far away this book will make you so homesick you can’t stand it. You will hurt in a good way as the author lets you breathe mountain air and feel the dew of a damp hillbilly morning. There are rock cliffs and coal banks to remember. Honeysuckle and sassafras to smell. And there are characters to fascinate you with their words and stories. If you have never been here you will feel as though you have been.Here are some comments about the book: I read this book in less than three days, and it is a 500 + page book. It’s far different than any book I’ve ever read, but it is a good book – well worth the time and money. The book is based in the Appalachian area, specifically eastern Kentucky, and there are some very colorful and interesting characters, but the plots and twists are why I highly recommend this book. They keep the reader in suspense. You just never know where the author will take you next. There is love; there is crime; there is sex (nothing too explicit); there is humor (lots of it); and there is innocence. Although Appalachian folks/mountain folks are often stereotyped, this book does not do it to the point of ridicule. There are shady characters and there are the ‘Good Samaritan’ characters, and there are hard-working characters. I appreciated the author bringing out the latter because there are and were so many people who work extremely hard in the mountains. The book is fiction, though, but the lifestyles are very close to reality, especially for the time periods in the book. I bought a copy for myself, my husband and a friend. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.Where Everything Important Happens on a Hillside takes you through the lives of a family, their relatives and friends living in rural Eastern Kentucky. I could barely put the book down – wanting to see what was going to happen next! By the time I finished the book, I felt like I was saying goodbye to old friends.Excellent book!! It was difficult to put the book down I couldn’t wait to see what happened next!!! Very well written and each character was wonderful. So proud this was written by someone from eastern Kentucky!John H. Butch Preston is the author of the novel, Where Everything Important Happens on a Hillside;Ten Miles From Clay City and Other Stories, and History and Tales of the Paintsville Stockyard. His newest play, Kentucky’s Richest Man, the Life of John CC Mayo was recently performed at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg, Ky. He is currently working on a new novel and building a tornado shelter.