Any Southern Literature fans out there?

[Alelou]

So, in addition to my usual comp courses at community college this fall, I just got hired to teach a course about Southern literature at a local liberal arts college. I'm trying to put together my reading list, and wondering if anyone here has a recommendation for a really powerful Southern novel other than To Kill a Mockingbird, which usually gets read in high school, and those I'm already considering (Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Member of the Wedding, Bastard Out of Carolina, As I Lay Dying, or anything by Flannery O'Connor).

What am I missing?

[Distracted]

You could do "A Lesson Before Dying" or "A Gathering of Old Men". Ernest Gaines is an author in residence at the university where I work.

[Alelou]

Hmm, I'll check those out. That would provide some nice balance.

[WarpGirl]

Is it bad that I believe it doesn't get more perfect than To Kill A Mockingbird? Hmm... Well, to tell the truth William Faulkner has always been on my "to read eventually" list, and it hasn't happened yet. But there was a collection of short stories that were eventually (and loosely) cobbled together to make The Long Hot Summer. I guess that if such a collection of stories could make a great movie chopped up by Hollywood the actual stories must be 1,000,000 times better!

But I will keep thinking about this. Does it have to be books? Can plays count? Because I happen to love Tennessee Williams. When we did The Glass Menagerie in college it rocked my world!

[Silverbullet]

Alelou, a bit before your time:Erskine Caldwell. God's Little cre; tobacco road. He wrote a number of others but those two were his most well known. both were turned in to films.

SB

[panyasan]

An question from an ignorant European, but what exactly makes literature Southern literature? Literature written by writer grown up in the South of the States or that take place there? And what is the South exactly? For me, Texas is as far south you can get in the States, but it doesn't looks "Southern" to me. Texas seems like a country of his own. So what states are Southern states? Georgia? Alabama? Tennessee? Virginia?

BTW, To kill a mockingbird is on my list of books to read!

[Alelou]

Basically, the South in terms of "Southern Literature" would be writing by authors from and set in the states that were part of the Confederacy during the Civil War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederat ... of_America), but you could debate that quite a bit further. Maryland, for example, stayed in the Union. Missouri and Kentucky were only partially represented in the Confederacy, and West Virginia formed specifically to avoid being part of the CSA, but I would consider all of them Southern. And yes, Texas is definitely considered part of the South although Texans would say they are also a culture all their own.

Or you could say Southern Literature is literature about what it means to be Southern, or dealing with typical Southern themes. So Jane Austen in Boca might be set in Florida but I wouldn't count it as Southern literature in any way, shape or form.

I anticipate that in class we will have quite a few discussions about just what it means, actually, much as with any label. I was reading an essay yesterday by a guy from rural North Carolina who was questioning whether there is really any such thing as "being black" in a cultural sense (because he sometimes catches grief from other black people for not being 'black' enough). You could probably say the same about "being Southern." And although I feel I'm a Southerner, I'm sure plenty of Southerners would look at someone like me who's lived all of her adult life up north, attended northern universities, and pretty much lost whatever accent she once had, and reasonably suggest that I can no longer claim any such thing.

Thanks for the suggestions, WG and SB. Including a play is definitely a possibility.

[Silverbullet]

Caldwell's "God's little Acre" was considered pretty racy in its day. Usual pounding of pulpits,,etc.

Basically I believe the people in it would be called "Poor white trash" today.

However, I also believe it had an authentic southern flavor to it.

SB

[Alelou]

I think my parents both mentioned that author from time to time, possibly in connection to one of their favorite pejoratives for a homestead littered with dead cars and rusted out washing machines and the various other markers of poverty and ignorance (or hoarding): "Well now, isn't that God's little acre?"

He hasn't exactly enjoyed a lasting critical reputation, though. I like how this guy describes Tobacco Road:

Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road, published in 1932, is a greasy hairball of a novel—one of the sickest and most lurid books to have emerged from the literature of the American South. It's about as nutritious as a plate of pork cracklings. You're going to feel a little ill when you get up from this table.

(http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... ine_2.html)

Probably not one of the keepers for a college course, though now I'm curious to read it just for amusement.

[WarpGirl]

Glad I didn't sound dumb or something. In my exremely short, but absolutely amazing College experience I had the most wonderful English Lit Professor a girl could possibly dream of. Because of him, I learned to love all sorts of things I never would have thought of. Including Tennessee Williams. If you consider an author's roots to be a major part of Southern Lit, maybe throwing in some Capote might work as well.

[Alelou]

Yeah, he would count in terms of roots, especially given his friendship with Harper Lee. I haven't found him in any of the anthologies, though. I think he tends to get slotted into other categories.

Kaye Gibbons is another one to consider. Students are reassured when they find an "Oprah's Book Club" label on a book. Also, I love the first line of Ellen Foster: "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy."

That's one of those things that is very much associated with Southern lit. Can I say something dark and kind of horrifying and yet get away with it because it's funny and true? I've given up on True Blood on HBO, but early on it had that same darkly comic tone going for it.

[WarpGirl]

I saw the Hallmark movie of Ellen Foster, I didn't realize it was also a book, I'll have to look out for it. You know The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood might be good. It's more than an Ashley Judd Movie. Or The Help is more current, therefore familiar.

[Alelou]

Both of those are so popular and accessible I don't think I'd want to use them in a college course, but then again I haven't read them. (I tried to read the Ya-Ya one years ago, but couldn't get interested in it) I suppose I ought to add them to my own reading list if only because students are likely going to bring them up, especially that last one (which has some controversy attached). I think The Secret Life of Bees is in that same category of popular and accessible enough not to need to take any teaching time, if that makes sense. I'd recommend it as a good read, but with every confidence that just about anyone could fully appreciate it on his or her own.

[WarpGirl]

Oh my dear Alelou I'm just thinking through my keyboard Actually, I'm still waiting for my friend to lend me her copy of The Help.

Probably way too long, but there's always Gone With the Wind.

[Alelou]

Yeah, definitely too long. I haven't read that one either. I have to admit my favorite thing about Gone With the Wind is Carol Burnett's take on it. That curtain rod made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe.