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Recommended Books
This region is particularly identified with its great writers, especially Thomas Wolfe (1900-38) of Asheville, North Carolina, and (Mary) Flannery O'Connor (1925-64) of Savannah, Georgia. William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize-winning Mississippi novelist, once said about Wolfe, "He tried the hardest to say the most." Wolfe's four long, hauntingly beautiful novels bespeak his realism, lyricism, and brutal views of family life in the Deep South: Look Homeward, Angel (1929), Of Time and the River (1935), The Web and the Rock (1939), and You Can't Go Home Again (1940). O'Connor explored such themes as evil, sin, and the religious outlook of the Old South in A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955), Everything that Rises Must Converge (1965), and The Habit of Being (1979).
No mention of Southern writers is complete without reference to Georgia's own Carson McCullers, whose The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was cited in 1998 by Modern Library as being one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century. Her Member of the Wedding became a Broadway play, and Elizabeth Taylor portrayed the heroine in the film version of Reflections in a Golden Eye. McCullers wrote a strange, powerful kind of fiction -- tender and grotesque at the same time, and peopled by characters who always bore some mark of psychic or environmental deformity. All these titles are still in print.
The late Charles Kuralt, another famous North Carolinian, was an Emmy Award-winning journalist known for his insightful yet folksy "On the Road" books and TV reports about America's heritage, and for his nationally broadcast CBS News show Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt. He made the bestseller list in 1996 with Charles Kuralt's America.
Need we remind you that there's no better introduction to the story of the antebellum South, the Civil War, and the early years of Reconstruction than Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone With the Wind?
Other Fiction
Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina (New York: Penguin/Plume, 1993). Set in Greenville County, South Carolina, this is the tale of an illegitimate girl growing up in the wrong era to be illegitimate. It evokes memories of Southern Gothic writing: hard-hitting, effective, and written in tough, terse prose in the style of Carson McCullers and Truman Capote. Allison's later work, Cavedweller (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1998) details the life of a woman determined to give her children the good life in spite of their deadbeat father. The book is set in Cairo, Georgia.
Ansa, Tina McElroy. Ugly Ways (Orlando: Harcourt Brace, 1994). One of the major breakthroughs in African-American literature was the publication of this novel by a St. Simons Island writer. It was named Best Fiction of 1994 by the African-American Blackboard List. The novel challenged the stereotypical image of the African-American mother as a superwoman of unlimited compassion and wisdom.
Dodd, Susan. The Mourner's Bench (New York: William Morrow, 1998). It takes place on the Albemarle Sound and is very much in the genre of Reynolds Price of North Carolina. The story of a long-lost love, the book brings together the memories of two women who have different voices, the sharp New England Yankee accent contrasting with the molasses-thick Southern drawl.
Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain (New York: Atlanta Monthly Press, 1997). Hailed as the best Civil War novel since Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, this novel (after you finally work your way through the long, dull opening) is spare and eloquent. It evokes a portrait of Inman, a soldier returning home from war across a devastated landscape. Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author's great-great grandfather, it is also an evocative love story. Frazier received the National Book Award in 1997.
Price, Reynolds. The Promise of Rest (New York: Knopf, 1995). Price, one of the most sensitive writers of the South, tells the story of a young man with AIDS who has come home to his parents' house to die. The book concludes a trilogy about the Kendal-Mayfield clan that began 15 years ago. Price himself was diagnosed with spinal cancer in 1984 (confining him to a wheelchair), and this remarkable book shows his continued dedication to writing.
Sparks, Nicholas. The Notebook (New York: Warner Vision, 1996). This novel, which evokes the coastal Carolinas, is a Great Gatsby-like tale of post-World War II love set in New Bern, North Carolina, just inland from the southern Outer Banks.
Biography
Goldberg, Robert and Jay Gerald. Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of An American Tycoon (Orlando: Harcourt Brace, 1995). This controversial book was written by a father-and-son team. The title is a takeoff on the Orson Welles movie Citizen Kane. In it, we learn that launching Cable News Network almost ruined Ted Turner financially and that he cheated on his first two wives. The book explodes some of Turner's favorite myths about himself -- for example, that he was a poor underdog, when in fact he grew up rich.
Stump, Al. Cobb (Algonquin Books, 1994). The press hailed this book as being the story of a "psychotic at the bat." Ty Cobb, a good ol' Georgia boy, died of cancer in 1961, at the age of 74. According to this insider's biography, he viewed both his life and baseball as being a "blood sport." Cobb's 24-year major-league career began in 1905.
Wilder, Effie Leland. Out to Pasture (But Not Over the Hill) (Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1995). At 85, "Miss Effie" published her first novel, a lighthearted but poignant story of growing old in a Southern retirement home.
Cookbooks
Deen, Paula. Paula Deen & Friends: Living It Up, Southern Style (Simon & Schuster, 2005). The popular Food Network personality and owner of a Savannah restaurant shares 24 party menus in this cookbook, featuring recipes culled from her own family and friends who are good cooks. Learn to prepare a classic Southern fried chicken and more sophisticated dishes such as pecan-coated fish with rémoulade sauce. Oh, that buttermilk pound cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream!
Neal, Bill. Southern Cooking (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985) and Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie (New York: Knopf, 1990). As much a social historian as a celebrated cook, the late Bill Neal elevated such standards as shrimp and grits and fish muddle to culinary heights in his too-short lifetime.
General
Berendt, John. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (New York: Random House, 1994). This is the book that put Savannah on the tourist map -- with a little help from Forrest Gump. Characters such as the Lady Chablis (a wickedly funny black drag queen) and Danny Hansford (a hustler) are introduced in this brilliantly conceived and seductive story of murder (or was it self-defense?) in the steamy Old South. It has been called both a travel book and a murder mystery. Berendt's book -- called "The Book" in Savannah -- was a bestseller, but the sappy movie of the same title, directed by Clint Eastwood, didn't fare as well with viewers.
White, Bailey. Mama Makes Up Her Mind (New York: Vintage, 1994). The best-yet depiction of life in a small Georgia town, this book made the bestseller list of the New York Times Book Review.
History
Butler, Lindley. Pirates, Privateers, and Rebel Raiders of the North Carolina Coast (University of North Carolina, 2000). A tale of the region's rascals, this saga paints eight compelling sketches of the rogues and Confederate ship captains who operated in North Carolina's coastal waters. Even Blackbeard springs to life along with 1812 commerce raiders, and most definitely Confederate commerce raiders operating out of the port of Wilmington.
Kennett, Lee. Marching Through Georgia (New York: HarperCollins, 1995). Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman pledged "to make a trail that would be visible for 50 years" -- 250 miles long and 60 miles wide, from Atlanta to Savannah. This carefully researched book, the story of both soldiers and civilians, tells how he did it.
Ready, Milton. The Tar Heel State: A History of North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 2005). In 3 decades, the state has become the 10th most populous in America, and this tome traces its storied past, a tale of pioneers, soldiers, tobacco tycoons, and farmers, including contributions of African Americans and women. The myriad stories and episodes end with a perceptive survey of recent events.
Shaara, Jeff. Gods and Generals (New York: Ballantine, 1998). Jeff Shaara has completed the sequel to the 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning work The Killer Angels, written by his late father, Michael. The younger Shaara's book complements his father's work on the Battle of Gettysburg by turning back the clock and portraying the days leading up to the epic battle. It accurately depicts two sides, both of which felt that they were right and were prepared to die to defend their beliefs. Unfortunately, most of them did.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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