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A Collection of Classic Southern Humor: Fiction and Occasional Fact by Some of the South's Best Story-Tellers
Essays and short stories by authors such as Eudora Welty, Larry King, and Harry Crews provide a humorous view of life in the American South
272 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1984
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April 15, 2017
Let's admit that the South's best story-tellers are some of the country's best story-tellers; let's accept that now. Cats like Faulkner won the Nobel Prize... These stories here are prickly. This book is from the early '80s and these stories reflect earlier decades... what I am trying to say is that these characters, and especially these narrators, are not what you'd call politically correct. Also, see, it says "Southern" and "The South" and that is just to be assumed they only mean white people, right? The black authors must be in some other book, clearly identified as black and with no white authors in it, right? If there is a collection like this that is more up to date and more integrated: PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
Just as notes to myself:
Eudora Welty The best story in here.
Flannery O'Connor Obviously...
Barry Hannah is someone apparently only good in small doses
John Kennedy Toole -- people have been telling me to read Confederacy of Dunces since it was published... I really really need to get on that!
Lee K. Abbott had the most intelligent laughs per paragraph in this volume. Practically a prose poem.
Mark Steadman was okay.
Lewis Grizzard's was reprinted from They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat. Somehow, I've always avoided this guy, put him in the same basket as Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry, stuff you read while sitting on other people's toilets, but reading him here, in the same basket as capital L literature like Flannery O'Connor causes me to reconsider. This bit was short and sweet and right on.
William Price Fox was enjoyable.
Harry Crews belongs to an earlier phase in my life, when the drinking was much worse and the gender less examined. It was nice to bump in to him again, but I can only stay for one or two drinks... can't have another all-nighter.
Marion Montgomery great story. Not funny though.
Ferrol Sams genius! Excerpted from Run with the Horsemen.
Roy Blount Jr. can just go on without me. Nice to meet you.
Florence King ... I felt like she needs to just own the feminism ... felt like the stuff she doesn't like about women... like the blame was half misplaced, if that makes any sense. No, that ain't right either. I can't quite put my finger on it. I mean she was blaming society or whatever, for how tweaked the (southern) women are, but, then laughing at the women anyway, too damn dumb or too damn southern to recognize the roots of their own tweakedness. Also this is as good a place as any to quote Charles Barkley about the South starts at the Canadian border. Like Southern white women are so different from white women in the rest of the USA. Just look at how most of the white women voted for that misogynist Trump...
Lisa Alther is cool.
Franklin Ashley No. I don't mean to be rude, but, no. Acting like bowling is slumming it.
Last one was the Larry King who wrote Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. That was cute. He seems to be down with Kinky Friedman (who is conspicuously absent) so that's a plus. I kept getting the other Larry King when I looked for him to insert him here and I don't think they are the same person, so...
Just as notes to myself:
Eudora Welty The best story in here.
Flannery O'Connor Obviously...
Barry Hannah is someone apparently only good in small doses
John Kennedy Toole -- people have been telling me to read Confederacy of Dunces since it was published... I really really need to get on that!
Lee K. Abbott had the most intelligent laughs per paragraph in this volume. Practically a prose poem.
Mark Steadman was okay.
Lewis Grizzard's was reprinted from They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat. Somehow, I've always avoided this guy, put him in the same basket as Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry, stuff you read while sitting on other people's toilets, but reading him here, in the same basket as capital L literature like Flannery O'Connor causes me to reconsider. This bit was short and sweet and right on.
William Price Fox was enjoyable.
Harry Crews belongs to an earlier phase in my life, when the drinking was much worse and the gender less examined. It was nice to bump in to him again, but I can only stay for one or two drinks... can't have another all-nighter.
Marion Montgomery great story. Not funny though.
Ferrol Sams genius! Excerpted from Run with the Horsemen.
Roy Blount Jr. can just go on without me. Nice to meet you.
Florence King ... I felt like she needs to just own the feminism ... felt like the stuff she doesn't like about women... like the blame was half misplaced, if that makes any sense. No, that ain't right either. I can't quite put my finger on it. I mean she was blaming society or whatever, for how tweaked the (southern) women are, but, then laughing at the women anyway, too damn dumb or too damn southern to recognize the roots of their own tweakedness. Also this is as good a place as any to quote Charles Barkley about the South starts at the Canadian border. Like Southern white women are so different from white women in the rest of the USA. Just look at how most of the white women voted for that misogynist Trump...
Lisa Alther is cool.
Franklin Ashley No. I don't mean to be rude, but, no. Acting like bowling is slumming it.
Last one was the Larry King who wrote Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. That was cute. He seems to be down with Kinky Friedman (who is conspicuously absent) so that's a plus. I kept getting the other Larry King when I looked for him to insert him here and I don't think they are the same person, so...
Displaying 1 of 1 review