“Over the past couple of decades, Appalachian literature has developed a strong and close relationship with independent publishing, showing the latter to be an important medium for the expression for Appalachian voice,” writes Kristopher Clifford in a master’s thesis in 2007. A new release, Former Things Forgotten, by Thomas Trezise, published by the hybrid Redemption Press, shows that in 2023 this trend shows no signs of weakening.

Written by Appalachia-born retired lawyer, now ministry director Thomas Trezise, Former Things Forgotten tells the story of red-headed and determined Tessa Gibbs, who feels deeply she was born for a different life. When her once-alcoholic father becomes religiously judgmental, she is desperate to escape her home in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Created for a kingdom of which she has no earthly memory and always reaching for something beyond, Tessa doesn’t know she was part of a failed rebellion against God in heaven and sent to be born on fallen earth. As she continues to choose her own way and resists all efforts to bring her back to the kingdom, an intense battle to return her soul to God wages in heaven and on earth.

This story of love at the intersection of heaven and earth, where relationships are eternal and hard choices determine destinies, examines the consequences of life lived for self or for God. Thomas Trezise, also a Methodist lay preacher who proudly calls himself a “hillbilly at heart,” says his goal for the book is that it reaches the eyes of the people Christ intends. He adds, “Christ is relentless in his pursuit of us and nothing we can do will stop him.”