If you're a Democrat who needs help getting the votes of rural white folks, the go-to guy is David "Mudcat" Saunders, a central-casting political consultant recently made famous by a parade of magazine writers led by The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash. But sometimes you can learn more about a people and their place through literature than by hiring consultants. So I called Ron Rash, poet, author and purebred Appalachian whose newest novel, Serena, should be at the top of Sen. Barack Obama's reading list. Sarah Palin might enjoy it as well. Described by one blurber as "an Appalachian retelling of Macbeth," the story features a strong woman who hunts rattlesnakes with an eagle. An Academy Award nomination awaits the woman who plays Serena, predicts novelist Pat Conroy. I asked Mr. Rash, with whom I've visited on occasion: What...
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