Chosen by Southern Literary Review as Read of the Month (March 2025) and as a finalist for Book of the Year 2025. Thank you, SLR!!
Beyond Buffalo has been released! As of November 2024, it’s available as paperback, hardcover, and e-book on Amazon. Amazon link
I hope you enjoy this fast-paced story based on the 1972 tragedy of Buffalo Creek. I also hope the suffering and courageous resilience of those involved is never forgotten.
I’m honored to announce that Donna Meredith, editor of Southern Literary Review, chose Beyond Buffalo as one of her picks for the 2024 Gift Guide for Book Lovers. Thank you, Donna!
Here is the book-jacket description:
By 1972, many residents of the sixteen coal camps along West Virginia’s Buffalo Creek had become alarmed by three dams impounding coal slurry at the head of their valley. In particular, the newest and largest loomed as a hastily constructed heap of slag holding back more than a hundred million gallons of water.
The fears were well founded. On a February morning, four thousand people became homeless, over a thousand sustained injuries, and more than a hundred died.
The novel Beyond Buffalo is a suspenseful account based on historic events of the Buffalo Creek Disaster. It follows Ellie McCrae and her family as they face profound trauma and loss, followed by the challenge of rebuilding their shattered lives. It also traces the course of an epic lawsuit against what was then the largest coal company in the country.
Praise for Beyond Buffalo
Beyond Buffalo is the story of Ellie and her family, of their forever-altered lives following the Buffalo Creek disaster in southern West Virginia. Reeder’s extraordinary achievement is to reveal the long-term psychological impacts on survivors who witnessed the horrifying flood that destroyed their community and livelihoods, and erased any sense of security they had cherished before the flood.
—Donna Meredith, Editor of Southern Literary Review and author of Buried Seeds
Betsy Reeder’s new novel Beyond Buffalo is a coming-of-age story from 1970s West Virginia that is entirely relevant to the present day. A girl and her family have their lives totally disrupted through a flood directly caused by the negligence of a large mining company. With more and more “natural” disasters being enlarged through the effects of climate change, the parallels are clear. Ellie, the main character, is extremely traumatized, yet follows her instincts as she slowly heals. The story is a testament of resilience. The characters and their plight seem real, and their journeys can be models for the many who suffer similar fates.
—Jon Averill, historian and documentary filmmaker
Here is a link for the 3/6/25 review in Southern Literary Review (or see the Reviews tab in the main menu).
https://southernlitreview.com/reviews/beyond-buffalo-by-betsy-reeder.htm
Betsy Reeder, Writer 