Rough South, Rural South
Region and Class in Recent Southern Literature
Published on 29. February 2016
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-4968-0233-0 (ISBN)
Description
A critical companion to the striking variety of contemporary southern literature.
Contributions by Barbara Bennett, Thomas AErvold Bjerre, Erik Bledsoe, Linda Byrd Cook, Thomas E. Dasher, Robert Donahoo, Peter Farris, Richard Gaughran, William Giraldi, Rebecca Godwin, Joan Wylie Hall, Marcus Hamilton, Gary Hawkins, David K. Jeffrey, Emily Langhorne, Shawn E. Miller, Wade Newhouse, L. Lamar Nisly, bes Stark Spangler, Joe Samuel Starnes, and Scott Hamilton Suter.
Essays in Rough South, Rural South describe and discuss the work of southern writers who began their careers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They fall into two categories. Some, born into the working class, strove to become writers and learned without benefit of higher education, such writers as Larry Brown and William Gay. Others came from lower- or middle-class backgrounds and became writers through practice and education: Dorothy Allison, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Silas House, Jill McCorkle, Chris Offutt, Ron Rash, Lee Smith, Brad Watson, Daniel Woodrell, and Steve Yarbrough. Their twenty-first-century colleagues are Wiley Cash, Peter Farris, Skip Horack, Michael Farris Smith, Barb Johnson, and Jesmyn Ward.
In his seminal article, Erik Bledsoe distinguishes Rough South writers from such writers as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. Younger writers who followed Harry Crews were born into and write about the Rough South. These writers undercut stereotypes, forcing readers to see the working poor differently.
The next pieces begin with those on Crews and Cormac McCarthy, major influences on an entire generation. Later essays address members of both groups--the self-educated and the college-educated. Both groups share a clear understanding of the value of working-class southerners. Nearly all of the writers hold a reverence for the South's landscape and its inhabitants as well as an affinity for realistic depictions of setting and characters.
Contributions by Barbara Bennett, Thomas AErvold Bjerre, Erik Bledsoe, Linda Byrd Cook, Thomas E. Dasher, Robert Donahoo, Peter Farris, Richard Gaughran, William Giraldi, Rebecca Godwin, Joan Wylie Hall, Marcus Hamilton, Gary Hawkins, David K. Jeffrey, Emily Langhorne, Shawn E. Miller, Wade Newhouse, L. Lamar Nisly, bes Stark Spangler, Joe Samuel Starnes, and Scott Hamilton Suter.
Essays in Rough South, Rural South describe and discuss the work of southern writers who began their careers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They fall into two categories. Some, born into the working class, strove to become writers and learned without benefit of higher education, such writers as Larry Brown and William Gay. Others came from lower- or middle-class backgrounds and became writers through practice and education: Dorothy Allison, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Silas House, Jill McCorkle, Chris Offutt, Ron Rash, Lee Smith, Brad Watson, Daniel Woodrell, and Steve Yarbrough. Their twenty-first-century colleagues are Wiley Cash, Peter Farris, Skip Horack, Michael Farris Smith, Barb Johnson, and Jesmyn Ward.
In his seminal article, Erik Bledsoe distinguishes Rough South writers from such writers as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. Younger writers who followed Harry Crews were born into and write about the Rough South. These writers undercut stereotypes, forcing readers to see the working poor differently.
The next pieces begin with those on Crews and Cormac McCarthy, major influences on an entire generation. Later essays address members of both groups--the self-educated and the college-educated. Both groups share a clear understanding of the value of working-class southerners. Nearly all of the writers hold a reverence for the South's landscape and its inhabitants as well as an affinity for realistic depictions of setting and characters.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Jackson
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
26 black & white photographs
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
587 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4968-0233-0 (9781496802330)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2016
Penguin Random House South Africa
€24.49
Available for download
Persons
Jean W. Cash, Broadway, Virginia, is professor emerita of English at James Madison University, USA. She is the author of Flannery O'Connor: A Life; coeditor with Keith Perry of Larry Brown and the Blue Collar South: A Collection of Critical Essays; and author of Larry Brown: A Writer's Life, which won the Eudora Welty Prize and the C. Hugh Holman Award.
Keith Perry, Ringgold, Georgia, is associate professor of English at Dalton State College, USA. He is the author of The Kingfish in Fiction: Huey P. Long and the Modern American Novel.
Keith Perry, Ringgold, Georgia, is associate professor of English at Dalton State College, USA. He is the author of The Kingfish in Fiction: Huey P. Long and the Modern American Novel.