Ollie McSweeny, Contributing Writer
The Mills Distinguished Lecture of the 2026 SUNY Oneonta Common Read occurred on the 5th of October at 7 p.m. in the Hunt Union Ballroom, given by David Joy, the author of When These Mountains Burn. Joy’s novel received the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing, and it was selected for the 2026 Common Read a year and a half prior to Joy’s lecture.
When These Mountains Burn is an Appalachian noir novel set in Western North Carolina in 2016. The narrative mainly follows the stories of Joy’s characters Raymond Mathis and Denny Rattler, along with a couple of DEA agents. The novel explores the effects of addiction and cultural displacement on rural communities through Joy’s beautifully written and gritty prose.
The president of SUNY Oneonta, Alberto Cardelle, introduced Joy and explained the goal of the Common Read, which emphasizes themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion across the schools and city of Oneonta. Cardelle described Joy’s novel as a “powerful illustration of this broader theme. Joy was then interviewed by Caroline Wilson, a professor in Communication Studies at SUNY Oneonta. There was a brief Q&A with questions from the audience after the interview.
Joy began his novel with Raymond and Denny as characters first, before building the story around them. The novel is set in North Carolina because Joy lived in Asheville, so he is familiar with the area. A frequent theme across all of Joy’s work is that of cultural loss, and it is seen clearly in the excerpt he read from the book from the final chapter, which includes the lines; “Nowadays, people didn’t even know their neighbors’ names, and what was worse was they didn’t want to. They sold off their heritage and bought it back in the form of bumper stickers.”
The addiction narrative comes from Joy’s experience witnessing the effects of the opioid crisis in his local area. The most difficult part of writing the novel for him was writing from the perspective of someone in active addiction. He felt that this was necessary, and he emphasized providing moments of humanity during dark parts of the narrative for this. Joy mentioned that readers with family members who struggle with addiction have told him that his novel helped them understand their loved ones.
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