That's What I Like (About the South : And Other New Southern Stories for the Nineties) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0872498638 ISBN 13: 9780872498631

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 1993

Synopsis

Features thirty-one stories capturing the flavor of the modern South, with contributions by Bobbie Ann Mason, Jill McCorkle, Larry Brown, and Fred Chappell

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Thirty-one stories, seven previously published, are sandwiched between a long, generous introduction by Fred Chappell and a short afterword by Madison Smartt Bell. The pieces range from novella- length to short-shorts; the writers include established figures and newcomers alike; and the quality, though uneven, is generally high. Chappell and Bell contribute their own stories to the mix: Chappell's (``Ancestors'') is a slick science-fiction satire about a couple who join a program that brings Civil War-era ancestors back for visits, while Bell's (``Hammerhead'') is a slight portrait of a woman who projects her sense of anger and betrayal onto fish, killing them viciously. The better pieces here include: Kelly Cherry's ``The Hungarian Countess,'' the relationship between the female narrator and a dying alcoholic brother; David Madden's ``The Last Bizarre Tale,'' a story-within-a-story about the reburial of a man murdered decades previously as a town is restored for historical reasons; and Jill McCorkle's ``Final Vinyl Days,'' about a record-store clerk who unwillingly gives in to CDs. There are also typical minimalist offerings from Richard Bausch (``Billboard'') and Bobbie Ann Mason (``Weeds''), sketches by Mary Lee Settle (``Dogs'') and Larry Brown (``Sleep''), plus accomplished pieces from lesser-knowns like Ellen Douglas (``About Loving Women''). An ambitious collection (first published in 1990 as a special issue of The Texas Review) that makes a good supplement to Algonquin's annual anthology of new southern writing. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A number of themes unify the otherwise varied works in this collection. R.H.W. Dillard playfully intercuts a list of these themes in the collection's title story; among them are "deep involvement in place . . . family bonds . . . celebration of eccentricity . . . an inability to leave the past behind." Fred Chappell's funny, fantastic tale about a couple's flesh-and-blood (and tobacco-spit) encounters with their Civil War ancestors points out the dangers of living too intimately with history. Lolis Eric Elie examines another legacy of the South in a story about a jazz musician's attempt to pass on his musical heritage to a group of boys more interested in R&B and football. Some stories, such as Madison Smartt Bell's, about a woman fishing for hammerhead sharks, are more concerned with how the physical lay of the land contours the emotional terrain. Kelly Cherry sets her story in Wisconsin, but its family-oriented roots ("While I was in the mental hospital," it begins provocatively, "my brother ran off with a Hungarian countess.") are in the South. Garrett ( The Sorrows of Fat City ) and Ruffin, an editor of the Texas Review , offer a well-balanced arrangement of stories juxtaposed to flow and surprise, a sparkling collection that both illuminates and transcends its geography.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0872498638
• ISBN 13: 9780872498631
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 409
• Editor: Garrett George, Ruffin Paul