South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature

Margaret Eby

$15.95

Publication Date: September 13th, 2016

Publisher:

W. W. Norton & Company

ISBN:

9780393353297

Pages:

240

Bear Pond Books of Montpelier

1 on hand, as of Apr 27 3:08pm

On Our Shelves Now

Description

"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.

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.

Praise for South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature

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

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

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

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

A delightful love letter to the South and…an apt reminder that the South is no literary backwater but a world of letters all its own.

An illuminating journey to the homes, towns, and landscapes that nurtured ten Southern writers…. Eby brings a fine sensibility to her readings…and, in polished prose, offers a fresh look at their lives and literary legacies.

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