The Life and Times of Ray Hicks Keeper of the Jack Tales
Adult: Non-fiction biography
ISBN: 978-1-57233-621-6
Lynn Salsi has captured the voice of the late Ray Hicks of Banner Elk, NC, internationally known storyteller, in a biography written as a memoir. It is structured within his famous Appalachian manner of speaking. Yet the dialect does not saturate the page. There is plenty of standard English to hang on to, making the book an excellent read.
The drama of how the Hicks family lived on a cold Blue Ridge Mountain top for over a hundred years is astounding. Never mind that Ray and his wife and children lived within the context of the famous stories that sprang forth from family members including Hickses, Harmons, and Wards.
Hicks did not make his public storytelling debut until 1951 when he told elementary school children Jack tales in a rural school in Cove Creek. After that, he was “hooked” on going off the mountain to talk for a little pay. He often remarked how he wished his beloved grandfather, John Benjamin Hicks, had lived long enough to see Ray get a little pay just for talking.
The book is based on hundreds of hours of interviews between Lynn and Ray. It is an Appalachian Angela’s Ashes.