King James Virgin: A Holiness Memoir

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"A luminous, richly textured portrait of family and faith, beautifully written and vividly remembered." 

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

 King James Virgin: A Holiness Memoir is set in eastern Kentucky during the last days of November 1963. Elaine Hatton is a nine-year old third grader, growing up in a poor, strict Pentecostal Holiness family. She is becoming more aware of her poverty and her outsider status as a member of a religious group that is often ridiculed. She longs to have nice material things and dreams of growing up to be rich and glamorous. The assassination of President Kennedy is the first world event to emotionally affect her, and the book explores her integration of the national tragedy into her reality. The primary focus is on her inner experience, strongly informed by the cultural milieu in which she lives. But her story also provides a unique perspective of the region’s poorest population before the implementation of the social policies of the War on Poverty. This book contributes to Appalachian literature a voice seldom heard. 

Elizabeth Hatton was born in Berea, Kentucky, and educated at Berea College and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She spent more than two decades on active duty as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army, followed by years caring for patients with severe mental illness in a state hospital. She has been married for over forty years and is the mother of two daughters and grandmother to one grandson. When she is not reading or writing, she tends her garden, cooks for family and friends, and photographs the quiet beauty of the natural world. King James Virgin: A Holiness Memoir is her first published book.