South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature

by Margaret Eby

Overview

"Fascinating…Eby lyrically uncovers a bit of the magic that makes a Southern writer Southern." —Josh Steele, Entertainment Weekly

What is it about the South that has inspired so much of America’s greatest literature? And why do we think of the authors it influenced not just as writers, but as Southern writers? In South Toward Home, Margaret Eby goes in search of answers to these questions, visiting the stomping grounds of ten Southern authors, including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, and Flannery O’Connor. Combining biographical detail with expert criticism, Eby delivers a rich and evocative tribute to the literary South.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393248265
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/20/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	855 KB

About the Author

Margaret Eby has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Paris Review Daily, Bookforum, Salon, Slate, and the Los Angeles Times. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she now lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction 11

1 Eudora Welty's Garden Jackson, MS 19

2 Richard Wright's Schoolhouse Jackson, MS 35

3 William Faulkner's Liquor Cabinet Oxford, MS 55

4 Flannery O'Connor's Peacocks Milledgeville, GA 69

5 Harry Crews's Hurricane Creek Bacon County, GA 97

6 Harper Lee and Truman Capote's Courthouse Monroeville, AL 123

7 John Kennedy Toole's Hot-Dog Carts New Orleans, LA 157

8 Barry Hannah and Larry Brown's Fishing Spot Oxford, MS 197

Coda 217

Acknowledgments 221

Notes 223

Suggested Reading 237

Editorial Reviews

…[Eby] demonstrates apt critical insights and offers biographical tidbits from a thorough reading of the authors' life stories…The astute chapters on those two paradigmatic spinster/recluses of the Old Confederacy, Welty and O'Connor, show that Eby has a critical sensibility that is well informed and lively…

The New York Times Book Review - Howell Raines

05/11/2015
In this literary tour of the American South, Eby focuses on the places and things central to Southern writers: meditating on Eudora Welty’s garden, peeking into William Faulkner’s liquor cabinet, and spending an afternoon with Flannery O’Connor’s peacocks (or their replacements—O’Connor’s actual peacocks are long gone), among other stops. Eby travels to Oxford, Miss.; Natchez, Miss.; Milledgeville, Ga.; New Orleans; and several other stops on the tourist circuit of preserved homes, mini-museums, and bookish gift shops. Some writers tower over the communities they immortalized, while others are barely recognized or mentioned. Jackson, Miss., for instance, clearly prefers the easy sainthood of Welty to Richard Wright’s more complex legacy. Eby writes thoughtfully about each author’s books—especially John Kennedy Toole’s beloved A Confederacy of Dunces—and, in a section about Harper Lee’s reclusiveness, insightfully reflects on the meaning of and potential downsides to literary fandom. She occasionally falls back on flattering, idyllic tributes to her favorite authors. Nonetheless, these essays form a delightful love letter to the South and serve as an apt reminder that the South is no literary backwater, but a world of letters all its own. Agent: Brandi Bowles, Foundry Literary + Media. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Margaret Eby brings an enviable ease and intelligence to this exploration of ten essential Southern writers and the landscapes from which their books were formed. Her travels should offer you either an excellent introduction to these authors or a bracing reminder of their worth, and indeed, turning these pages, I recalled why I first fell in love with those whose books I know well and was persuaded to reinvestigate those whose books I don't."

Kevin Brockmeier

"Well-informed and lively…. This young author is unafraid to hunt big game…. [Eby] demonstrates apt critical insights and offers biographical tidbits from a thorough reading of the authors’ life stories…. This reviewer would happily read a sequel."

Howell Raines

"[A] fascinating paean to the people and places that inspired some of the most revered chroniclers of life below the Mason-Dixon line…. Eby lyrically uncovers a bit of the magic that makes a southern writer southern."

Entertainment Weekly - Josh Steele

"As Elif Batuman did for Russian literature in The Possessed and Olivia Laing did for alcoholic writers in The Trip to Echo Spring, so Margaret Eby does for Southern writers in South Toward Home."

Michael Bourne

"[An] engaging journey…. Eby offers something you can’t get on tours."

Oxford American - Anushah Jiwani

"A sweetly personal yet embracingly informative book…. Eby entices us to enjoy their work either for the first time or once again."

Starred review Booklist

A sweetly personal yet embracingly informative book…. Eby entices us to enjoy their work either for the first time or once again.

Booklist (starred review)

Well-informed and lively…This young author is refreshingly unafraid to hunt big game.

Howell Raines - New York Times

So just-right that you wish you’d written it yourself.

Danny Heitman - Christian Science Monitor

As Elif Batuman did for Russian literature in The Possessed and Olivia Laing did for alcoholic writers in The Trip to Echo Spring, so Margaret Eby does for Southern writers.”

Michael Bourne - The Millions

06/01/2015
Eby, who has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times, and who is originally from Birmingham, AL, has turned her love for Southern literature and the artifacts in the homes of Southern writers into a travelog of the places Southern writers lived and worked. The author visits William Faulkner's liquor cabinet and comments on Eudora Welty's mass of papers and love for gardening, Harper Lee and Truman Capote's courtrooms, and other areas that sparked the author's imagination or offered a quiet place to meditate. The resulting book is a gentle reminder of the many styles of writing labeled as "Southern." VERDICT Eby's collection provides a fine introduction to writers and their homes and will be appreciated by readers of older literature (the book ends with Barry Hannah and Larry Brown).—Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence

Library Journal

2015-05-13
Seeking the heart of Southern writing. Essayist and journalist Eby (Rock and Roll Baby Names: Over 2,000 Music-Inspired Names, from Alison to Ziggy, 2012) pays homage to 10 Southern writers in this illuminating journey to the homes, towns, and landscapes that nurtured them. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, the author came to understand her identity as a Southerner by reading Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, and, of course, William Faulkner. Besides these usual suspects, she includes the "harsh and haunting" Harry Crews, memoirist Richard Wright, Lee's irascible friend Truman Capote, and fiction writers Barry Hannah, John Kennedy Toole, and Larry Brown. Eby embarked on this odyssey, she writes, "to see the places they had lived in and written about, to breathe the same air, to hear the same accents and meet the same people." Many homes have been preserved for visitors. Being in Welty's, Eby reports, feels "like dropping into one of her stories." At O'Connor's Andalusia Farm in Milledgevile, Eby imagined her surrounded by her peacocks, writing in a "small, almost monastic" room with a single bed and plain wooden desk. Both Welty and O'Connor felt cowed by Faulkner's reputation. He was like "a big mountain, something majestic," Welty said. "I keep clear of Faulkner so my own little boat won't get swamped," O'Connor told a friend. Visiting Faulkner's home in Oxford, Mississippi, Eby particularly noted his bookshelves, "custom made to store his shotgun shells along the sides," and his liquor cabinet, replete with bottles of whiskey. She also traveled to Monroeville, a town that finds myriad ways to celebrate Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. She traces Crews' painful childhood in Bacon County, Georgia, and sensitively evokes Toole's New Orleans as well as his posthumous novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. Eby brings fine sensibility to her readings of all her subjects' works and, in polished prose, offers a fresh look at their lives and literary legacies.

Kirkus Reviews