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1SeanLong Primer missatge
Greetings. I'm new here and still feeling my way around, but since I have an avid interest in Southern literature I thought I'd join the group. Favorites are Faulkner, Welty, O'Connor, Tennessee Williams, William Gay, Brad Watson, Tom Franklin and Larry Brown, and I love the essays of Hal Crowther.
2Dystopos
Tell me about Hal Crowther.
When you said "essays" I thought immediately of Kentuckian Wendell Berry, who is a favorite of mine.
When you said "essays" I thought immediately of Kentuckian Wendell Berry, who is a favorite of mine.
3SeanLong
Dystopos,
Crowther is a native of North Carolina and is a master of the personal essay. In his most recent book, Gather at the River, his array of topics range from Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Spencer to Marshall Frady, the Soggy Bottom Boys, Dolly Parton, the Branch Davidians, Trent Lott, Iraq, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Confederate flag. A couple of samples:
In "The Tao of Dixie," he notes that though the "vital, urban South, where unemployment is low and ringworm unheard of, has long since built museums for its myths and moved on," popular culture "persists in presenting Southerners as incestuous hillbillies, church-burners, mule-beaters and randy evangelists." Well aware of these misconceptions, Southerners "dip snuff and fly Confederate battle flags just to make New Yorkers wince."
In "Oral Misery: The Columbus Syndrome," Crowther skewers young Harvardite Pamela Petro's attempt to "discover" the South through its oral storytelling tradition in her book "Sitting Up With the Dead": "The South was never such an easy study, never such a seamless entity. ... We are no Samoans; she's no Margaret Mead. She is, arguably, the most clueless Outlander to write about the South since V.S. Naipaul's 'A Turn in the South.' But she's no V.S. Naipaul either."
His Cathedrals of Kudzu is another collection worth seeking out. By the way, his wife is novelists Lee Smith whose novel, On Agate Hill, was released a couple of weeks ago.
Crowther is a native of North Carolina and is a master of the personal essay. In his most recent book, Gather at the River, his array of topics range from Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Spencer to Marshall Frady, the Soggy Bottom Boys, Dolly Parton, the Branch Davidians, Trent Lott, Iraq, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Confederate flag. A couple of samples:
In "The Tao of Dixie," he notes that though the "vital, urban South, where unemployment is low and ringworm unheard of, has long since built museums for its myths and moved on," popular culture "persists in presenting Southerners as incestuous hillbillies, church-burners, mule-beaters and randy evangelists." Well aware of these misconceptions, Southerners "dip snuff and fly Confederate battle flags just to make New Yorkers wince."
In "Oral Misery: The Columbus Syndrome," Crowther skewers young Harvardite Pamela Petro's attempt to "discover" the South through its oral storytelling tradition in her book "Sitting Up With the Dead": "The South was never such an easy study, never such a seamless entity. ... We are no Samoans; she's no Margaret Mead. She is, arguably, the most clueless Outlander to write about the South since V.S. Naipaul's 'A Turn in the South.' But she's no V.S. Naipaul either."
His Cathedrals of Kudzu is another collection worth seeking out. By the way, his wife is novelists Lee Smith whose novel, On Agate Hill, was released a couple of weeks ago.
4NativeRoses
I agree -- Cathedrals of Kudzu is an absolutely fabulous read.
5CarolinaCatherine
Has anyone else read Janisse Ray's Ecology Of A Cracker Childhood? The book is an autobiographical account of Ray's childhood growing up in rural Southeast Georgia in the 1960s. Her home was in the junkyard her father owned and operated, and she is very candid about things her family went through, good and bad, particularly a pattern of mental illness on her father's side. I often wondered while reading the book how her family reacted to seeing their lives laid so bare.
Ray is an environmental activist as well, and also weaves into the story her position on the plight of the diminishing Southern longleaf pine, and how the "cracker" culture has to bear the blame to some extent.
I thought it was both exquisite and gritty, an overall remarkable book and one I highly recommend, as well as her other two: Wild Card Quilt: The Ecology of Home (2003) and Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land (2005).
Ray is an environmental activist as well, and also weaves into the story her position on the plight of the diminishing Southern longleaf pine, and how the "cracker" culture has to bear the blame to some extent.
I thought it was both exquisite and gritty, an overall remarkable book and one I highly recommend, as well as her other two: Wild Card Quilt: The Ecology of Home (2003) and Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land (2005).
