Download or read book The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-01-28 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl's journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings and The Book of Longings Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted Black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of Black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
Download or read book The Postsouthern Sense of Place in Contemporary Fiction written by Martyn Bone and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2005-06-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For generations, southern novelists and critics have grappled with a concept that is widely seen as a trademark of their literature: a strong attachment to geography, or a "sense of place." In the 1930s, the Agrarians accorded special meaning to rural life, particularly the farm, in their definitions of southern identity. For them, the South seemed an organic and rooted region in contrast to the North, where real estate development and urban sprawl evoked a faceless, raw capitalism. By the end of the twentieth century, however, economic and social forces had converged to create a modernized South. How have writers responded to this phenomenon? Is there still a sense of place in the South, or perhaps a distinctly postsouthern sense of place? Martyn Bone innovatively draws upon postmodern thinking to consider the various perspectives that southern writers have brought to the concept of "place" and to look at its fate in a national and global context. He begins with a revisionist assessment of the Agrarians, who failed in their attempts to turn their proprietary ideal of the small farm into actual policy but whose broader rural aesthetic lived on in the work of neo-Agrarian writers, including William Faulkner and Eudora Welty. By the 1950s, adherence to this aesthetic was causing southern writers and critics to lose sight of the social reality of a changing South. Bone turns to more recent works that do respond to the impact of capitalist spatial development on the South -- and on the nation generally -- including that self-declared "international city" Atlanta. Close readings of novels by Robert Penn Warren, Walker Percy, Richard Ford, Anne Rivers Siddons, Tom Wolfe, and Toni Cade Bambara illuminate evolving ideas about capital, land, labor, and class while introducing southern literary studies into wider debates around social, cultural, and literary geography. Bone concludes his remarkably rich book by considering works of Harry Crews and Barbara Kingsolver that suggest the southern sense of place may be not only post-Agrarian or postsouthern but also transnational.
Download or read book After Southern Modernism written by Matthew Guinn and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2011-06-14 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literature of the contemporary South might best be understood for its discontinuity with the literary past. At odds with traditions of the Southern Renascence, southern literature of today sharply refutes the Nashville Agrarians and shares few of Faulkner's and Welty's concerns about place, community, and history. This sweeping study of the literary South's new direction focuses on nine well established writers who, by breaking away from the firmly ensconced myths, have emerged as an iconoclastic generation- -- Harry Crews, Dorothy Allison, Bobbie Ann Mason, Larry Brown, Kaye Gibbons, Randall Kenan, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy, and Barry Hannah. Resisting the modernist methods of the past, they have established their own postmodern ground beyond the shadow of their predecessors. This shift in authorial perspective is a significant indicator of the future of southern writing. Crews's seminal role as a ground-breaking "poor white" author, Mason's and Crews's portrayals of rural life, and Allison's and Brown's frank portrayals of the lower class pose a challenge to traditional depictions of the South. The dissenting voices of Gibbons and Kenan, who focus on gender, race, and sexuality, create fiction that is at once identifiably "southern" and also distinctly subversive. Gibbons's iconoclastic stance toward patriarchy, like the outsider's critique of community found in Kenan's work, proffers a portrait of the South unprecedented in the region's literature. Ford, McCarthy, and Hannah each approach the South's traditional notions of history and community with new irreverence and treat familiar southern topics in a distinctly postmodern manner. Whether through Ford's generic consumer landscape, the haunted netherworld of McCarthy's southern novels, or Hannah's riotous burlesque of the Civil War, these authors assail the philosophical and cultural foundations from which the Southern Renascence arose. Challenging the conventional conceptions of the southern canon, this is a provocative and innovative contribution to the region's literary study.
Download or read book The Southern Novels written by Robert McCammon and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 2346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four chilling tales from the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song and the “true master of the Gothic novel” (Booklist). From rural Alabama to the Louisiana bayou to the North Carolina mountains, World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award–winning author Robert R. McCammon has made the American South his own Gothic playground in these four unforgettable novels. A Boy’s Life: “Strongly echoing the childhood-elegies of King and Bradbury, and every bit their equal,” McCammon’s World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award–winning novel takes place in 1964 Alabama, where a twelve-year-old boy’s idyllic life takes an abrupt turn into a dark world of mystery when he and his father witness a car roll into a lake—only to discover a corpse handcuffed to the steering wheel (Kirkus Reviews). “It’s McCammon’s The Prince of Tides. . . . Incredibly moving.” —Peter Straub Mystery Walk: Two boys with mysterious powers—a psychic who speaks with the dead and a faith healer—share a common bond and hold mankind’s fate in their hands in an epic showdown of good versus evil. “As finely a turned tale of horror as the best of them.” —Houston Chronicle Gone South: A veteran’s moment of rage leads to a grisly murder and a heated chase deep into the bayou, where he encounters a pair of bizarre bounty hunters—and a strange new friend, who might help him find redemption. “A gothic picaresque that mixes gritty plot and black comedy.” —The Wall Street Journal Usher’s Passing: Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tale, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is no fiction in this Gothic novel of ancestral madness in the mountains of modern-day North Carolina, as the heir to the Usher legacy—a horror novelist—confronts his terrifying inheritance. “A frightening pleasure.” —St. Louis Dispatch
Download or read book The Art of Southern Fiction written by Frederick J. Hoffman and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Upstate written by and published by Daylight Books. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Upstate" records the imprint of American industrial and agricultural history left on settings in and around Hudson, including the rural communities of Germantown and Livingston. Combining poetry with realism, the images express a quiet beauty and mystery in the vernacular architecture and artifacts reflecting the industrial era and rural settings in upstate New York and the shifting economic realities over time.
Download or read book Novel Sounds written by Florence Dore and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1950s witnessed both the birth of both rock and roll and the creation of Southern literature as we know it. Around the time that Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley put their electric spin on Southern vernacular ballads, a canonical group of white American authors native to rock’s birthplace began to write fiction about the electrification of those ballads, translating into literary form key cultural changes that gave rise to the infectious music coming out of their region. In Novel Sounds, Florence Dore tells the story of how these forms of expression became intertwined and shows how Southern writers turned to rock music and its technologies—tape, radio, vinyl—to develop the “rock novel.” Dore considers the work of Southern writers like William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and William Styron alongside the music of Bessie Smith, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan to uncover deep historical links between rock and Southern literature. Along with rock pioneers, Southern authors drew from blues, country, jazz, and other forms to create a new brand of realism that redefined the Southern vernacular as global, electric, and notably white. Resurrecting this Southern literary tradition at the birth of rock, Dore clarifies the surprising but unmistakable influence of rock and roll on the American novel. Along the way, she explains how literature came to resemble rock and roll, an anti-institutional art form if there ever was one, at the very moment academics claimed literature for the institution.
Download or read book The Oxford Book of the American South written by Edward L. Ayers and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathers short stories, journalism, and excerpts from novels, diaries, and memoirs by Southern authors.
Download or read book Race Mixing written by Suzanne W. Jones and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004-03-16 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employing a dynamic model of the relationship between text and context, Jones shows how more than thirty relevant writers -- including Madison Smartt Bell, Larry Brown, Bebe Moore Campbell, Thulani Davis, Ellen Douglas, Ernest Gaines, Josephine Humphreys, Randall Kenan, Reynolds Price, Alice Walker, and Tom Wolfe -- illuminate the complexities of the color line and explore problems in defining racial identity today.
Download or read book Any Good Thing written by Joy E. Rancatore and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witness a young man's battles of mind, heart and soul and follow his coming-of-age journey from selfishness to true sacrifice and from recklessness toward redemption in this contemporary southern fiction novel meant to reside on your heart's bookshelves. Jack Calhoun recovers from one tragedy and its consequential addiction enough to glimpse a shimmer of hope for his future--until the day of the second accident. Instead of heading to college with his childhood sweetheart, Rachael, Jack flees the rural southern town that blames him for every bad thing and leaves his loved ones behind. His journey for purpose, if not peace, brings Jack face-to-face with war in Iraq's desert, with his past's nightmares and with a deeper battle on a mountain peak. Along the way, he both finds and loses parts of himself. Perhaps it was never purpose he required but the ability to discern selfishness from sacrifice. Will he cast off a lifetime of crippling guilt to rest in redemption, or will peace remain as elusive as any good thing for Jack? This book lends itself to a lively book club discussion or shared read between couples and friends. While readers who remember 9-11 will have an instant bond with the story, anyone who enjoys a well-paced tale full of larger-than-life characters--with a dash of southern charm and a whole batch of tasty food--may just discover a new favorite book in Any Good Thing.
Download or read book A Question of Class written by Duane Carr and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rednecks" have long been subjects of scorn and ridicule, especially in the South because of an antebellum caste and class system, parts of which persist to this day. In A Question of Class, Carr probes the historical and sociological reasons for the descent of "rednecks" into poverty, their inability to rise above it, and their continuing subjugation to a stereotype developed by others and too often accepted by themselves. Carr also records the progress in southern fiction of this negative stereotype - from antebellum writers who saw "rednecks" as threats to the social order, to post-Civil War writers who lamented the lost potential of these people and urged sympathy and understanding, to modern writers who reverted, in some sense, to Old South attitudes, and finally, to contemporary writers who point toward a more democratic acceptance of this much maligned group.
Download or read book Violence in Recent Southern Fiction written by Louise Y. Gossett and published by Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press. This book was released on 1965 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lovers and Beloveds written by Gary Richards and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-05-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A challenge to traditional criticism, this engaging study demonstrates that issues of sexuality-and same-sex desire in particular-were of central importance in the literary production of the Southern Renaissance. Especially during the end of that period-approximately the 1940s and 1950s-the national literary establishment tacitly designated the South as an allowable setting for fictionalized deviancy, thus permitting southern writers tremendous freedom to explore sexual otherness. In Lovers and Beloveds, Gary Richards draws on contemporary theories of sexuality in reading the fiction of six writers of the era who accepted that potentially pejorative characterization as an opportunity: Truman Capote, William Goyen, Harper Lee, Carson McCullers, Lillian Smith, and Richard Wright. Richards skillfully juxtaposes forgotten texts by those writers with canonical works to identify the complex narratives of same-sex desire. In their novels and stories, the authors consistently reimagine gender roles, centralize homoeroticism, and probe its relationship with class, race, biological sex, and southern identity. This is the first book to assess the significance of same-sex desire in a broad range of southern texts, making a crucial contribution to the study of both literature and sexuality.
Download or read book Three Modes of Modern Southern Fiction written by C. Hugh Holman and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within the general region designated as "The South," there are three societies only shadowily defined at their outer limits but distinct and sharp at their centers. In these essays C. Hugh Holman suggests ways in which race, geography, climate, and religion have contributed to the formation of these relatively definite sub-regions. He also shows that continuing literary traditions and social attitudes have shaped, qualified, and, to some extent, defined the artistic methods and forms which writers in these regions used. To demonstrate his thesis he has chosen Ellen Glasgow as spokesman for the Tidewater South, Thomas Wolfe for the Piedmont South, and William Faulkner for the Deep South. A thorough scholar-critic, Holman approaches his subject positively, presenting the impact of these sub-regions on three great Southern novelists and showing the distinctively different views of the South which each novelist embodies in his work. These essays will prove a useful tool to any student who wishes to understand the nature, quality, and meaning of the South, both as a literary subject and as a personal and often tragic experience.
Download or read book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe written by Fannie Flagg and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who’s in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who’s telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again. Praise for Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe “A real novel and a good one [from] the busy brain of a born storyteller.”—The New York Times “Happily for us, Fannie Flagg has preserved [the Threadgoodes] in a richly comic, poignant narrative that records the exuberance of their lives, the sadness of their departure.”—Harper Lee “This whole literary enterprise shines with honesty, gallantry, and love of perfect details that might otherwise be forgotten.”—Los Angeles Times “Funny and macabre.”—The Washington Post “Courageous and wise.”—Houston Chronicle
Download or read book Southern Secrets Susan Gabriel Southern Fiction Box Set written by Susan Gabriel and published by Wild Lily Arts. This book was released on 2015-10-14 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Southern fiction lovers will enjoy this exclusive two book box set from acclaimed Southern author Susan Gabriel. It features two of her most popular novels, Temple Secrets and The Secret Sense of Wildflower (a Kirkus Review Best Book of 2012). Save 33% off the separate ebooks and 66% off the paperback prices! Temple Secrets Fans of The Help and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil will delight in this comic novel of family secrets by acclaimed writer, Susan Gabriel (The Secret Sense of Wildflower, a Best Book of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews). Every family has secrets, but the elite Temple family of Savannah has more than most. To maintain their influence, they've been documenting the indiscretions of other prestigious southern families, dating as far back as the Civil War. When someone begins leaking these tantalizing tidbits to the newspaper, the entire city of Savannah, Georgia is rocking with secrets. The current keeper of the secrets and matriarch of the Temple clan is Iris, a woman of unpredictable gastrointestinal illnesses and an extra streak of meanness that even the ghosts in the Temple mansion avoid. When Iris unexpectedly dies, the consequences are far flung and significant, not only to her family—who get in line to inherit the historic family mansion—but to Savannah itself. At the heart of the story is Old Sally, an expert in Gullah folk magic, who some suspect cast a voodoo curse on Iris. At 100 years of age, Old Sally keeps a wise eye over the whole boisterous business of secrets and the settling of Iris's estate. In the Temple family, nothing is as it seems, and everyone has a secret. “The secrets and lies of Savannah, Georgia’s upper crust come to light in Gabriel’s Southern Gothic novel. Gabriel unfolds her story deftly, with well-paced revelations about the complicated relationships between the mansion’s white and black inhabitants…Gabriel also evokes the Spanish moss–covered atmosphere of ghost-filled Savannah, and the Temple mansion in particular, with satisfying spookiness…The author’s thoughtfulness about masters and slaves, employers and servants, and family relations also contributes to a satisfying read. Savannah’s atmosphere, culture, and history flavor this engaging tale of intertwined families.” – Kirkus Reviews The Secret Sense of Wildflower The Secret Sense of Wildflower earned a coveted Starred Review from Kirkus Reviews and was named by Kirkus as a Best Books of 2012. Set in 1940s Appalachia, The Secret Sense of Wildflower tells the story of Louisa May “Wildflower” McAllister whose life has been shaped around the recent death of her beloved father in a sawmill accident. While her mother hardens in her grief, Wildflower and her three sisters must cope with their loss themselves, as well as with the demands of daily survival. Despite these hardships, Wildflower has a resilience that is forged with humor, a love of the land, and an endless supply of questions to God, who she isn't so sure she agrees with. When Johnny Monroe, the town’s teenage ne’er-do-well, sets his sights on Wildflower, she must draw on the strength of her relations, both living and dead, to deal with his threat. With prose as lush and colorful as the American South, The Secret Sense of Wildflower is powerful and poignant, brimming with energy and angst, humor and hope. "A quietly powerful story, at times harrowing but ultimately a joy to read.” - Kirkus Reviews Get two great southern novels for one great price!
Download or read book Deadheading Other Stories written by Beth Gilstrap and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the brokenhearted to the afflicted, the women in these often macabre stories fight like hell to find their voices and survive the darkness inherent in the modern South.
