May This Keep You Safe From Harm is a stark look at my own upbringing in the Rust Belt region of the United States. Born into a working class military family where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Allegheny Mountains in rural Pennsylvania, I reflect on the values and belief systems of class, religion, and family history that I came to know, question, and criticize.
“The inherited land’s soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades. Whatever you are wishing away will gnaw at you until you gather the courage to face what you would rather not see. What is left are the unshaken beliefs, carried throughout the bloodlines of family, stretching like veins across the vast rugged terrain of post industrial America.”
