New member looking for suggestions/discussion

Hey Everyone,
I just found out about your group and think that it's FANTASTIC!!!! Though I am from Boston, my fascination with Southern literature and history has grown to obsessive amounts over the years.
What is everyone reading? What's good that's new?
I love William Faulkner, O'Connor, Tennessee Williams...but I would adore to hear what other people are reading or have read.
I know that I may be stating this prematurely...but this is a great group!!

We did a group read a year or so ago on Tobacco Road. I thought it would be lurid trash, but boy was I wrong. It had a little of both O'Connor and Faulkner in it. It was a great read. If you haven't read that you should give it a try.

BTW, when this group is active, it is a good group. It's been kind of dead lately.

For a contemporary author, check out William Gay.

fto find olut if you like what the pundits call "southern gothic," read anythikng by harry c rfews, and then search out a couple of books that have been out of print but which are still available on amazon and abebooks -- wyatt wyatt's (yes, that's his name) DEEP IN THE HEARTand CATCHING FIRE. You may be one okf the few who have read them, but they rfepresent the essence of lsouthern writing, at least as well as TOBACCO ROAD.

and i can not leave you tonight withoiut suggesting Andy Ray's A CANDLE IN THE RAIN.

T. S. Stribling's Vaiden trilogy - The Forge, The Store, and Unfinished Cathedral. (And his Birthright is readable online via Project Gutenberg.)

And James's Agee's A Death in the Family.

Anything by Tim Gautreaux or Larry Brown and Elizabeth Spencer is wonderful as well.

I love Larry Brown too. There was something about the way he wrote ... just grabbed me and did not let go. His people and stories are real, gritty, intense. It sounds trite, but I recently read Gone With the Wind and for Civil War ear Southern fiction, I still think it's one of the best.

It seems Florida is almost a Southern sect of its own (or maybe I've just been reading a lot of fiction by Floridian authors), but Shadow Country sure is good, very long and at times slow though.

I'm sure I'll think of 100s more after I send this!

I'll resurrect this thread and suggest a couple of additional authors you should check out...Brad Watson and John Dufresne are two favorites of mine. Other notables include Steve Yarbrough, particularly his early stuff, and T.R. Pearson. There are certainly many others out there to enjoy. I'll give it some thought and post here again.

I miss Larry Brown. I'm hoping for a Collected Stories of Larry Brown sometime, with some new, unpublished stuff.

Here are a few suggestions of Southern authors with new books to read:

Fiction:
Connie May Fowler — How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly
Steve Yates — Morkan’s Quarry
Becky Hagenston — Strange Weather
Barb Johnson — More of this World or Maybe Another
Tom Franklin — Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Lorraine López — Homicide Survivor’s Picnic
Wayne Caldwell — Requiem by Fire

Poetry
Sean Hill — Blood Ties, Brown Liquor
Beth Ann Fennelly — Unmentionables
Shirlette Ammons — Matching Skin
Mitchell Douglas — Cooling Board

Nonfiction
Ellis Anderson — Under Surge, Under Seige

All will be speaking at this year's Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium, October 21-23, 2010, Mississippi University for Women, Columbus MS.

Yes, this is a shameless plug! But the Symposium is free and open to the public, so come on over if you can! More information at our website: http://www.muw.edu/welty/

Check out past years on our History page or past Programs for more ideas on great Southern writers.

I also love all of Larry Brown...especially Fay and the Rabbit Factory. Mark Childress also tickles my funnybone.

I just reread The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I had read 50 years ago in college. What a difference a little or a lot of time makes.The physician in the story (if you have read it) anticipates ML King's march on Washington, I now have more appreciation for issues of the adult deaf. It was read as an Oprah book club selection and there are a lot of review in LT, but the readers tended to focus on the young girl as though it were a teenage coming of age book. She it turns out is so much less important. I was amazed that O'Conner wrote it in her early 20s. She was lucky to find such mentors in NYCity then.

new book coming out set in Georgia on Tuesday, Sept 6th....The Califfs of Bahgdad Georgia....funny.

Not to put too fine a point on things, but The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was written by Carson McCullers, not, and I'm assuming here, Flannery O'Connor.

I'm going to put some of these on my list.

The folks over at Abebooks shared a list they named "Southern Discomfort" today. It's a solid list with a few that I had not seen on Southern Lit lists before. But the comments are just as good as the Abebooks post.

Thought I'd pass it along:

http://www.abebooks.com/books/american-south-deliverance-faulkner/southern-disco...

Where have the fans of southern writing gone? Anything new in the way of recommendations? I am about to delve into a couple anthologies of New Stories from the South.

If you are looking for a good anthology, I highly recommend Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader.

#19> Thanks for the recommendation. Our libraries share a number of books so I believe I'll like it. Putting it on my wish list.

I'm so glad this group is back with recommendations. I thought "The Dry Grass of August" by Anna Jean Mayhew was good.

I got to have dinner with her a couple years ago when that book had just come out. She's super. (And a great writers group moderator if you happen to be in her area and are looking for one). Here's a fun fact. When she was a single mom in need of a job, she taught herself to be a stenographer by sitting down in front of the television during the Watergate hearings and typing everything as it was spoken.

That is an interesting piece of info - thanks.

I second the Grit Lit recommendation!

> 18 I always enjoy New Stories from the South, and recommend Literary New Orleans, Literary Savannah, and Literary Charleston .

Don't laugh, but, I just love Jan Karon's Father Tim series. She is from North Carolina and now lives in Virginia if I'm not wrong. So, I think she qualifies as a good southern author. I know her series might be considered lite reading, although I think that is the type of reading most of us would like during these uncertain times in which we are living. She gives us a lighter side of life and a peaceful side of life.

Oh I love the Jan Karons, very relaxing and comforting!

Don't miss these authors-

Ron Rash
Pat Conroy
Clyde Edgerton
HisWalking Across Egypt and Raney are two of the funniest books I've ever read.

I loved Mudbound by Hillary Jordan, set in post-WWII Mississippi

Kathy Reichs is a NC author who writes forensic crime mysteries.
TV series Bones is based on her books.

I have a new one called Palmetto Moon by Kim Boykin on hold at the library.
It's set in Charleston, 1947

I would HIGHLY suggest the Witching Savannah series by J. D. Horn. Paranormal/ urban fantasy, the series follows Mercy, a young woman whose family is part of the Line, a barrier that protects the earth from demonic powers.
Mercy has somehow missed out on power, living in the shadow of her powerful twin, who will soon be installed as the next anchor.
But a sudden decision throws Mercy and the Line into confusion
and revelation.

I also love Joshilyn Jackson, Susan Boyer, Kendell Lynn, Karen White, and Mary Alice Monroe, among others.

>10 rufustfirefly66: rufustfirefly66 See Tiny Love: The Complete Stories of Larry Brown: https://www.librarything.com/work/23415877/book/201060794

>9 vincentvan:
I second John Dufresne and (the now, alas, late) Brad Watson.
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For a little bit of old school southern fiction how about Ellen Glasgow -- The Romantic Comedians, The Sheltered Life, and They Stooped to Folly or James Branch Cabell's The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck. Cabell is known mostly as a fantasist but Rivet makes a good non-fantastic companion to those three Glasgow novels, and it was well thought of by William Faulkner.