Overview

To Arrive Where I Started-and Know It for the First Time For anyone raised in a forgotten place who has lost part of themself, for those from Appalachia labeled ""backward"" and blamed for America's ills, and for anyone who's ever whispered, Is this all there is?-the journey begins here. Entrepreneur and life-long Appalachian Joel Beverly, alongside his partner Fern, traces a path from the hollers of East Kentucky through Europe, Egypt, and beyond in search of something deeper. Along the way, he dismantles inherited myths about success, identity, and belonging-offering a raw, lyrical exploration of what remains when belief systems fall away. Part memoir, part travelogue, and part cultural manifesto, In the Absence of Belief calls us back to the sacred truth of presence and possibility. It offers not another ideology but an invitation to see clearly, to belong wholly, and to live freely. More than a story about reclaiming a place, it's about reclaiming ourselves.

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Joel Beverly is a writer, bat biologist, entrepreneur, and native son of the Appalachian mountains whose work weaves memoir, cultural critique, and spiritual inquiry into a singular voice rooted in both place and possibility. Raised in deep poverty in one of America's poorest and shortest-lived congressional districts, Beverly has spent his life challenging inherited narratives-from the personal to the political-and inviting others to do the same. In the Absence of Belief is his second book, a sweeping meditation on awakening, identity, and the future of Appalachia. His first book, born from a spiritual awakening in his late thirties, marked the beginning of a decade-long journey into presence, purpose, and regional transformation. Over the past two decades, Beverly has founded businesses in environmental consulting and hospitality, helping to reshape the story of rural America from the inside out. Born and raised in Perry County, he has resided in Letcher County, Kentucky, for the last twenty-five years and is currently restoring a 250-year-old log cabin on a 35-acre farm in the Kentucky River Palisades.

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