Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book, free of charge, from St Martin's Press/ Macmillan, via Netgalley, for review purposes. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it, all opinions are my own.
In considering the pleasures and absurdities of her native culture, Julia Reed quotes another Southern writer, Willie Morris, who said, “It’s the juxtapositions that get you down here.” These juxtapositions are, for Julia, the soul of the South, and in her warmhearted and funny new book, South Toward Home!
Synopsis:
In South Toward Home, Julia Reed chronicles her adventures through the highs and the lows of Southern life—taking us everywhere from dive bars and the Delta Hot Tamale Festival to an impromptu shindig on a Mississippi River sandbar and a coveted seat on a Mardi Gras float. She writes about the region’s music and food, its pesky critters and prodigious drinking habits, its inhabitants’ penchant for making their own fun—and, crucially, their gift for laughing at themselves.
With her distinctive voice and knowing eye, Julia also provides her take on the South’s more embarrassing characteristics from the politics of lust and the persistence of dry counties to the “seemingly bottomless propensity for committing a whole lot of craziness in the name of the Lord.” No matter what, she writes, “My fellow Southerners have brought me the greatest joy—on the page, over the airwaves, around the dinner table, at the bar or, hell, in the checkout line.” South Toward Home, with a foreword by Jon Meacham, is Julia Reed’s valentine to the place she knows and loves best.
Book Excerpt:
Read an excerpt off the publisher's website!
Review:
Julie know of what she speaks, having been born in Mississippi, writing for Garden and Guns magazine (which I ADORE, for its Southerness!) and living in New Orleans. Each chapter takes a look at different parts of the Southern history- both the good and the bad (which is why it's under History Corner today), and what remains to this day, and more importantly, WHY it does! The chapters can be read alone, but together, they give you an amazing look why Southerns always come home- amid the craziness, is a lot of truth and love, and Julia shows it in every chapter. True Southerners will find themselves in a quite a few chapters, for example, who hasn't done the 'point out the tourists and profile them' game when out in NOLA? It's just TOO easy!
This is the book to take with you on vacation, to remind you why you DO want to come home, to send to those expats who thinking living up North is better, and for those looking to move down here, why they really do want to! You may find this book on your gift giving list for quite awhile! It even makes a nifty graduation gift for those leaving college into the big wide world. It may just be the salve they need!
About the Author:
Julia Reed is a contributing editor at Garden & Gun, where she writes the magazine's "The High & the Low" column. Her books include But Mama Always Puts Vodka in Her Sangria; Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties; and Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena. Reed divides her time between New Orleans and Greenville, Mississippi
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