Knowing Your Place
When I set out to create the fictional town of Hartsend, I leaned heavily on my own experiences growing up in Kentucky. I researched to double-check memories. In addition, I did background reading to learn more about the area and the time period covered by my story.
There's just one problem - most people's image of Kentucky differs from the one I'm seeking to convey.
Ask people their idea of Kentucky, and you're likely to get an answer that mentions horse farms or coal mines. These images tend to be associated with eastern Kentucky. Neither describes my fictional town of Hartsend, which is located in western Kentucky.
Regions of Kentucky
This will be easier to envision if you have an image of the state and its regions.
First, let's take a look at the Bluegrass regions in northeast Kentucky. The Bluegrass regions get their name from the appearance of the seed heads of a local grass in the sun. The Outer Bluegrass has slopes and valleys, while the Inner Bluegrass is flatter. A large number of Kentucky horse farms are located in the Inner Bluegrass region. Louisville and Lexington are both located here.
The coal mining most often associated with Kentucky takes place in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field, which is located in Kentucky's part of the 450-mile-long Cumberland Plateau. Parts of Eastern Kentucky can be quite dramatic, with broad ridges, intermountain valleys, and lush forests. Towns associated with coal mining, such as Harlan, Cumberland, Benham, and Lynch, are all located in the Cumberland Plateau.1
Hartsend is in the Mississippi Plateau, also called the Pennyroyal (or Pennyrile) Plateau. The region is named for a type of mint that grows in the area. Rolling hills lend the Pennyroyal Plateau an air of gentle beauty. Overall, though, it is flatter than eastern Kentucky. This part of Kentucky has karst topography, primarily due to an abundance of limestone. As a result, it is subject to caves, sinkholes, and underground streams. Its largest city, Bowling Green, is located west of Hartsend.
The Main Character's POV
Main character Jodie Cantrell is a fan of classic films. As such, she can't help noticing the way her home is depicted by them. In one scene, she watches John Huston's 1950 heist film The Asphalt Jungle. It ends with Sterling Hayden’s fatally wounded character fighting to get back to his home in Kentucky. Jodie recognizes the ending scenes as the area around Lexington.
Another time, she watches Billy Wilder's 1951 film Ace in the Hole. The film mentions Floyd Collins at the beginning; Jodie would know this name, since Collins died exploring a cave close to Hartsend2. She’s baffled, though, when the story takes place in New Mexico. Of course, Jodie would have no way to know about the lawsuit that arose between Wilder and another man over the storyline3. She shrugs and thinks, "nobody ever makes movies about Hartsend".
The Town's POV
At the beginning of the story, Hartsend has few day-to-day interactions with the rest of Kentucky. There are no major highway connections to the town, no bus station, and only a local freight train. The pace of life is unhurried, which suits most Hartsend residents. This is a place where people like their routines and their traditions.
A large number of the traditions are defined by the Hart family. They donated the land for the original town square, and the town is named for them. A member of the Hart family has sat on every city board since the town's founding. Hart Boulevard, an elaborate road dotted by well-tended tulip poplars, crisscrosses the town. No one could imagine any of this changing.
But this is exactly what happens in the summer of 1970. The Harts and their allies lose a protest to a court order for desegregation of Hartsend's secondary schools. Change is coming to Hartsend, whether certain people like it or not. The resulting conflicts shape the narrative of A Death In Hartsend. Some residents of Hartsend find they didn't know their place as well as they supposed.
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1 Coal from the Western Coal Fields has a different chemical composition from that found in the Cumberland Plateau. This type of coal has a higher sulfur content and lower heating value, making it less commercially viable in many instances.
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