Reviews of 27 Views
Our State Magazine
September 2010
“What’s most surprising about 27 Views of Hillsborough is that it holds charms for those who may never set foot in the town.”
by Amber Nimocks
“Exploring the lure of Hillsborough is fertile ground for some of the town’s creative residents in a new collection from Eno Publishers called 27 Views of Hillsborough. The central Orange County town of about 5,600 is home to more than its share of writers, well-preserved architecture, and towering trees, but its appeal exceeds the obvious.
27 Views of Hillsborough expounds on the relationship between Hillsborough and those who love it, teasing out the reasons so many thoughtful people call the town home. The combined effect is a vivid tableau of how a community shapes the lives of those who heed its call.
While each of the 27 authors clearly finds Hillsborough enchanting, this is not a collection of Chamber of Commerce tracts. The writers include poets, journalists, singers, and thinkers. They praise and cajole, celebrate and lament the past and present of the town in poetry, fiction, and prose.”
North Carolina Books
Summer 2010
by Margarretta Yarborough
“The back cover blurb for 27 Views of Hillsborough may in fact be the twenty-eighth view. Frances Mayes—
herself a part-time Hillsborough resident when not in Tuscany—writes: “If there are hot spots on the globe, as the ancients believed, Hillsborough must be one of them. I can’t count the number of historic markers in the gracious old town. More recently, some ground force is attracting an astonishing number of writers, artists, photographers, and musicians . . . Say hello. The natives are friendly.” In his introduction, Michael Malone goes so far as to state that Hillsborough contains “more novelists, poets, essayists, scholars, and historians per square foot than any other small town since, well, Concord, Massachusetts.”
Despite such observations, 27 Views is no work of chamber of commerce puffery. A mélange of commentary and literary tribute, the “views” paint a many-faceted, layered portrait of the Orange County seat. Essays, fiction, and poetry range from the earliest Trading Path days to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Voices include whites, African Americans, Native Americans, southerners, and new arrivals. Entries run the gamut from local color to realism, with the emphasis on realism.”
Read more: http://www.ourstate.com/articles/27-views-of-hillsborough
Raleigh, The News & Observer
23 May 2010
“Hillsborough, the One They Love”
by Dave Hart
“...[the town’s] diversity is reflected in "27 Views of Hillsborough: A Southern Town in Prose & Poetry," the third book from Hillsborough-based Eno Publishers.
The book is a collection of essays, excerpts, short stories and poems by 26 local authors (poet Elon G. Eidenier has two entries).
Some of the writers are well-known - Lee Smith is in the book, and so are Allan Gurganus, Michael Malone, Jill McCorkle and more - and others somewhat less so, such as Aaron Vandemark, the owner and chef at Panciuto restaurant, and musician Katharine Whalen, a former member of Squirrel Nut Zippers.
"It was not a great leap of imagination to think of doing a book like this in this town," said Elizabeth Woodman of Eno Publishers, who conceived of and edited the book. "When you look around Hillsborough you see a wellspring of creativity. We have so many writers here, I was pretty sure we could come up with 27 on a pretty short deadline."
The pieces cover a range of topics, styles and voices but they all touch on the facets of a small town that has managed to preserve its history and evolve.
"I think it's a wonderful collection, one that captures the spirit of the town's amply diverse character and at the same time its shared sense of community," said Malone, who wrote the book's introduction and contributed a short story.
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/05/23/493751/hillsborough-the-one-they-love.html#ixzz0qqnsglu4
Durham, The Herald-Sun, 6 June 2010
“Hillsborough, Written by Those Who Know It Best”
by Dawn Vaughan
The new local book “27 Views of Hillsborough: A Southern Town in Prose & Poetry” is just that. Readers will see the town — almost always prefaced by “historic” — from more than two dozen viewpoints, most of them residents of the Orange County seat.
Published in Hillsborough, of course, by Eno Publishers, the book brings together writers of every vocation, from author Allan Gurganus to journalists to Piedmont poet laureate Jaki Shelton Green. It also features those not writers by trade, like a chef and the rector of the Episcopal church.
Gurganus, who brings us the first reflection of the town with “Old House & Young Men: Notes on Renovation & Survival” tells his view of Hillsborough through the historic house where he lives. His ownership begins with acquisition of a ramshackle home in utter need of repair and restoration, and as he describes the process, he also lets readers into his own life.
