Kentuckiana

Payne's comic novel is a tour through a suburban slice of the working class. Set in a decidedly postmodern Appalachia, Kentuckiana focuses on the lives of the Miles family. Invented by a real-estate developer who is authoring a report on the neighborhoods he has created, the imaginary Mileses and their neighbors populate his Garden Springs subdivision in Lexington, Kentucky. Tracing the family's progress through the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s, Kentuckiana introduces us to the folkways, drugs, sex, schemes, bruises, and theatrics that color the everyday existence of the Mileses. Once the…