LOCAL NOVELIST EVOKES APPALACHIA IN DEPRESSION ERA

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Thank Ye, Mister Sun by Bob Riffenburgh
 
Reviewed by Pennell Paugh
 
June 5, 2025 -- Award-winning San Diego resident Bob Riffenburgh has written a charming historical fiction novel about Appalachia, 1939-40. 
 
Thirteen-year-old Ronson Allen stays hungry after dinner because there isn’t enough food to go around. Nevertheless, he feels carefree, loves his family, and is happy playing with his best friend, Harry. 
 
Everything changes when Ronson’s beloved sister is assaulted. 
 
The book focuses on the stark realities of social class. The Allens are poor and fear retribution by the town’s wealthy because members of the privileged have victimized their daughter. When his parents don’t seek justice, with Harry’s help, Ronson takes that goal upon himself.

The boys slowly evolve a risky plan. Though scared, they pursue their scheme to exact revenge. 
 
The story is written in the dialect used by the poor; however, the book is readable and optimistic. Rich with life lessons, the story Riffenburgh tells is a gem. 
 
Below is an excerpt from the novel:
 
“’What’s for dinner, Ma?”
 
“’Tater soup, Ronson boy, just like yestiddy.” I wasn’t surprised.
 
Elliedine—she’s my big sister—piped up. “I found some huckleberries already ripe along the railroad track. Ma put them in. It’ll make it taste different from yestiddy.”
 
“Elliedine is always tryin’ to make things better. I think I look up to her even more than I do Ma and Pa.
 
“Ma cleaned off the kitchen table and we all sat around it: my pa and my ma and Elliedine—she’s near fifteen—and Uncle Sedgwick and me, and Ma dished us up a ladle of soup each. I wished I could have two, but there was hardly enough to go around as it was. They always sat me at the corner of the table cuz I was the youngest. It made me wonder why tables all had four sides. Why couldn’t they make a table with five sides so I could have one? Maybe table makers can’t count bigger’n four.
 
“…[Later that night Ronson and his sister talk outside.] Everthing had gone so quiet ye could hear the cloth of our shirts crinkle when we moved.
 
“Elliedine snuggled her shoulders up around her neck and looked so happy I had to feel happy, too. She pushed her pretty lips out like she was kissin’ the air. 
 
“I jes’ love this time of night, Ronson,” she whispered. “It’s the just-right time when you feel woke up from the heat and feel so alive. I feel like I could do anything when it’s like this.”
 
“Yeah, Ellie,” I said. “I feel it, too.” 
 
“I stood up and called out to it so it would know we was glad it had come to see us today and would come back tomorrer.
 
“The sun had got big and red as it neared the tops of the mountains. I waited for it to hit the highest mountain. I imagined how the sun might go all flat when it did. Or maybe how it would knock the top off the mountain or light it on fire or somethin’. We watched it go lower and lower and then touch the top. But nuthin’ happened. It just slipped behind the mountain like always.
 
“When there was only a little sliver of it left, I stood up and called out to it so it would know we was glad it had come to see us today and would come back tomorrer.
 
“ 'Good night, Mister Sun,' I said real loud so he could hear. Elliedine giggled at my little game and stood up too.”
 
The award-winning author R. H. Riffenburgh was born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia. Prior to writing Thank Ye, Mister Sun, he published short stories and poetry. 
 
Riffenburgh is a retired professor emeritus with a PhD (statistics and mathematics) from Virginia Tech, where this story takes place. Also, he has been a company CEO, government scientist, oceanometrician, Navy undersea diver, ocean sailor, NATO officer in Europe and medical research planner/analyst.
 
Before retiring, he published four editions of a medical textbook used worldwide and 165 scientific articles, and he edited two journal series.
 
Visit his website here.

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