A novel of West Virginia First of a trilogy This is an adventure story set in the upper Cheat River Country. The Cheat is a wild mountain river named, according to some sources, because it often cheated pioneers out of their lives and fortunes. Unlike James Dickey's novel "Deliverance," this novel is a sympathetic portrayal of mountain life. It is also a story of the love for the mountains and love among sons of coal miners who search for their identities in a place where the magnificent landscape and an old lifestyle mingle but are challenged by surface mining. Despite their nearness to the wilderness, the men's lives have been mostly fashioned by the lifestyle in a university city. Cast into the wild, their identities emerge after that are involved in a plane crash that leaves them lost and in danger of death in the high mountains. Their urban comfort is superseded by a wild testing as they discover their manhood or lack of it. The novel is set during the winter of 1976-77, the most severe on record in the Mountain State. It is based in part on real events which the author, a journalist, covered for his newspaper, "The Morgantown Dominion-Post." The usage level of language and its style have been compared to Jack London and Zane Grey. The first paragraph sets the scene and the mood: "Some men need mountains and some men don't. From the top floor of the tallest building in Morgantown, we could see their hulking forms to the east humped like great blue whales, endlessly replacing themselves in the misty distance but caught as if by a camera in place. It was like looking at them from a low-flying airplane, an experience we were to have in a time not distant."
About the Author: Norman Julian is a columnist at large for "The Morgantown Dominion Post" newspaper in West Virginia. The press associations of West Virginia and Pennsylvania named him "best columnist" in separate years in their annual contests. He has won prizes for his fiction, also. While he was writing "cheat", Julian lived in a house he built with his own hands on the lip of the ancient Cheat River gorge in northern West Virginia. He spent nearly three decades homesteading in the West Virginia mountains. His parents were immigrants from Europe and their lifestyle and work ethic influenced his own and inform his writing. His honors include being named a History Hero in his home state and the one he cherishes most, the "Eagle Award." It came from an alumni group of his Victory High School in his hometown of Clarksburg, West Virginia. "I was a troubled and trouble-making student in high school and my teachers and principal wondered if I even would graduate." To be honored for "my contributions to community, state and nation" exceeded their and my wildest expectations. He worked his way through West Virginia University, earning a degree in journalism and English. His five books include a history of WVU basketball, titled "Legends."