South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature

Nonfiction, Travel, United States, South, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Adventure & Literary Travel
Cover of the book South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature by Margaret Eby, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Margaret Eby ISBN: 9780393248265
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: September 8, 2015
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Margaret Eby
ISBN: 9780393248265
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: September 8, 2015
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

A literary travelogue into the heart of classic Southern literature.

What is it about the South that has inspired so much of America's greatest literature? And why, when we think of Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner or Harper Lee, do we think of them not just as writers, but as Southern writers? In South Toward Home, Margaret Eby—herself a Southerner—travels through the South in search of answers to these questions, visiting the hometowns and stomping grounds of some of our most beloved authors. From Mississippi (William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright) to Alabama (Harper Lee, Truman Capote) to Georgia (Flannery O'Connor, Harry Crews) and beyond, Eby looks deeply at the places that these authors lived in and wrote about. South Toward Home reveals how these authors took the people and places they knew best and transmuted them into lasting literature.

Side by side with Eby, we meet the man who feeds the peacocks at Andalusia, the Georgia farm where Flannery O'Connor wrote her most powerful stories; we peek into William Faulkner's liquor cabinet to better understand the man who claimed civilization began with distillation and the "postage stamp of native soil" that inspired him; and we go in search of one of New Orleans's iconic hot dog vendors, a job held by Ignatius J. Reilly in John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. From the library that showed Richard Wright that there was a way out to the courtroom at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird, Eby grapples with a land fraught with history and mythology, for, as Eudora Welty wrote, "One place understood helps us understand all places better."

Combining biographical detail with expert criticism, Eby delivers a rich and evocative tribute to the literary South.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A literary travelogue into the heart of classic Southern literature.

What is it about the South that has inspired so much of America's greatest literature? And why, when we think of Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner or Harper Lee, do we think of them not just as writers, but as Southern writers? In South Toward Home, Margaret Eby—herself a Southerner—travels through the South in search of answers to these questions, visiting the hometowns and stomping grounds of some of our most beloved authors. From Mississippi (William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright) to Alabama (Harper Lee, Truman Capote) to Georgia (Flannery O'Connor, Harry Crews) and beyond, Eby looks deeply at the places that these authors lived in and wrote about. South Toward Home reveals how these authors took the people and places they knew best and transmuted them into lasting literature.

Side by side with Eby, we meet the man who feeds the peacocks at Andalusia, the Georgia farm where Flannery O'Connor wrote her most powerful stories; we peek into William Faulkner's liquor cabinet to better understand the man who claimed civilization began with distillation and the "postage stamp of native soil" that inspired him; and we go in search of one of New Orleans's iconic hot dog vendors, a job held by Ignatius J. Reilly in John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. From the library that showed Richard Wright that there was a way out to the courtroom at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird, Eby grapples with a land fraught with history and mythology, for, as Eudora Welty wrote, "One place understood helps us understand all places better."

Combining biographical detail with expert criticism, Eby delivers a rich and evocative tribute to the literary South.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book When the World Was Steady: A Novel by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (Issues of Our Time) by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book The Teacher's Guide to Student Mental Health by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book The Dark and Other Love Stories by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book Picnic Comma Lightning: The Experience of Reality in the Twenty-First Century by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book White Truffles in Winter: A Novel by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book The Hundred Days (Vol. Book 19) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book Upstairs at the Strand: Writers in Conversation at the Legendary Bookstore by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book The Lobster Kings: A Novel by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism by Margaret Eby
Cover of the book The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students by Margaret Eby
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy