In the Cut : Catamount Press : 9798888190616 : 05 Sep 2023 : Life in Appalachia is like a kid standing in the center of a seesaw. It's a fragile balance, somewhere between the old world and the new, flat-broke or getting by, rooted in place or getting out. Sometimes, folks here lose footing, lean too far one way or another. If one end of the seesaw comes down hard, it knocks them right off. These are stories of hard-scrapped, everyday Appalachians. Think laid off miners, moms who garden and can food, gravediggers, dishwashers, Mennonite farmers, and big-box store cashiers. They inhabit hollers, rust belt towns, trailer courts, and farms. In the Cut, A teen faces a pregnancy scare as a mountaintop removal mining operation threatens her home. A twenty-something Chile's dishwasher returns to his small town from the city to deal with his hoarder mom and her pet raccoon. A third grader destroys a schoolmate's Lisa Frank art kit after her methed-out mom crashes into a small-town football he