Tell Me a Story: The Soul of Southern Literature

The love of storytelling is deeply embedded in the Southern Soul. A rich and varied heritage including African roots and Celtic influences has given the South a legacy of oral history. From traditions of story telling, a rich lore of Southern literature has evolved to the highest levels of writing.  Three outstanding women authors have enriched this tradition of stories with their work.

Flannery O'Connor refined the art of the short story by using all the drama and intensity of a great oral teller of tales. Her work is said to be rooted in Southern Gothic, and she is widely considered the best American short story writer.

Eudora Welty's descriptions of place, time and character are second to none. Her photographs and word paintings have captured for all time her Mississippi. Eudora writes in her introduction to ACROBATS IN A PARK:

"...there could be no source of honest writing that has been unable to make itself known, in the last analysis, from within." Eudora writes of human interactions making them universally identifiable but also uniquely Southern. Opening to any page of a Welty story will demonstrate.

From THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER:

"You can't curb a Baptist," Mrs. Pease said. "Let them in, and you can't keep 'em down when somebody dies. When the whole bunch of Chrisoms got to going in concert, I thought the only safe way to get through the business alive was not to say a word, just sit as still as a mouse."

Lee Smith writing currently of her Appalachian and North Carolinian South continues the tradition. Lee simply tells the tale with the good and bad character traits all demonstrated without moral judgment. Because her people act and talk just like a Southern next door neighbor or the reader himself, they have the reader convulsing with laughter. Nothing is funnier than unvarnished Truth. In her short story, "Bob, A Dog", her forty-something male character decides the time has come to simplify his life. He accomplishes this by leaving his wife and four partially raised children and moving in with a redhead who doesn't shave under her arms.

You can expect many hours of reading pleasure over the next few months whether you choose one of these authors or sample the spellbinding artistry of all three. There could be no better way to expand your knowledge of Southern literature than enjoying the tales spun by these outstanding story-tellers.

Copyright 1996 - 2001 C. Dickens Fine, Rare and Collectible Books, Atlanta, Georgia