I Can't Be Dead is a collection of creative non-fiction vignettes as MaryAnn discovers the beauty and the beasts hidden in the ridges and the culture of the Appalachian Mountains. For centuries the Appalachian people remained almost invisible to the American mainstream. The mountains kept the people of Appalachia so isolated from the rest of the country that they developed a distinctive culture and a lifestyle of their own. MaryAnn's parents came straight from the Appalachian Mountains. They did not leave their ways behind, but rather packed them alongside their most valued possessions, and brought them up the road known as Hillbilly Highway, establishing their own Appalachian Mountains in the flatlands of southeastern Michigan. Journey with MaryAnn as she takes a treacherous, heartbreaking, heartwarming, and sometimes humorous path out of these invisible mountains.