Otto Wood The Bandit: The Freighthopping, Thief, Bootlegger, and Convicted Murderer behind the Appalachian Ballads by Trevor McKenzie

Forgive me, but one tune (not an Appalachian ballad) keeps coming into my head as I think about this book and Trevor McKenzie – “I polished up that handle so carefully that now I am the ruler of the queen’s navy.” Trevor McKenzie has been working diligently for years with Fred J. Hay at the W. L. Eury Special Appalachian Collection in the Belk Library at Appalachian State University. Now, in August 2021 he has been selected to be the new Director of the region’s most celebrated Appalachian Center there at Appalachian State and he has published a book with the region’s most prestigious university press. Otto Wood (1893-1930) was best known for having escaped from five state penitentiaries eleven times!  Notorious in his own time, his legend only grew as Doc Watson popularized a ballad that told his story. “Trevor McKenzie has crafted a fascinating history of Otto Wood, a complex and outlandish North Carolinian. Not only is this an engrossing tale of Wood's short yet eventful life; it al