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In this helpful study, Richard J. Callahan, Jr. offers a survey of religious life and work in the Kentucky coal fields. Callahan notes that earlier studies, while important, have focused largely on religious institutions and the “differentiation between religion and other aspects of life” (p. 8). His concern is to “give greater attention to the interaction between religion and life as well as the way in which tradition and innovation intersect in the lives of real people” (p. 9). In addressing the coal-mining culture, Callahan explores the role of space, place, and body in shaping the way workers understood their environment and the religious activities that developed within it. The book begins with a fine survey of “Appalachian Mountain Religion” that reflects the work of Deborah Vansau McCauley, Howard Dorgan, Samuel S. Hill, and Charles H. Lippy, among others. Succeeding chapters offer excellent descriptions of the nature of work in the Appalachian region and the evolution of the coal mining culture in the mountains. In a chapter entitled “It's About as Dangerous a Thing as Exists,” Callahan examines the relationship between religious imagination and the environment of the coal camps. He cites miner and Primitive Baptist preacher Frank Fugate, one of the indigenous individuals who captured the culture wonderfully. Noting the coal dust that pervaded every community, Fugate commented: “It was something you lived with day and night as long as you was [sic] in around the mines or the coal camp, either one. They were subject to dust” (p. 122). The latter sentence serves as an appropriate subtitle for the book.
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