His first four novels—The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, and Suttree—are all set in East TN. I’d highly recommend Suttree. It’s superb. Child of God is also quite good, especially for a novel about a necrophiliac serial killer. ;)
Suttree is maybe my favorite of all his novels. If, as others here have suggested, you regard Blood Meridian an epic. Suttree is a picaresque, like reading Pickwick Papers on salvia.