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Reading the South
 Cobb's Georgia Odyssey belongs in the welcome basket of every person who moves to Georgia -- and gets a welcome basket. It's described as "a short history of the state," and its brevity is smart and soulful. Cobb is a native son, and like native sons Roy Blount Jr. and Harry Crews (who he is fond of quoting), he is one of those clear-eyed souls who doesn't get all misty at the opening words of Lanier's "Song of the Chattahoochee" that he was probably forced to memorize as a school child ("Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall," and so on and so on).
Cobb covers a lot of ground, from debunking the myth that the state owes its orgins to being a dumping ground for criminals and debtors (it was actually the "noblest of social experiments" and eschewed slavery during its first years) to the predilection for double-wide trailers. And often as not, he's got the data to back up his case: "Wide or narrow, mobile homes accounted for at least 25 percent of the housing units in sixty-five counties in 1990. Modular living and multichannel viewing seemed to carry revolutionary sociological implications, but Georgians quickly clasped these innovations to their cultural bosoms." He also mixes in a lot of good old jokes that say as much about the lives of Georgians as the empirical data: "What do a tornado and a South Georgia divorcee have in common? . . . Sooner of later, they're both gonna get the double-wide."
Readers who spend a few hours with this informative, entertaining little book will walk away with all sorts of handy insights. For instance, did you know forty-six cents of every dining-out dollar spent in Georgia goes for fast food (Georgia was ranked as the nation's twelfth-most obese state in 2007)? And if you really want to know what makes the rest of Georgia (the part outside of Atlanta) tick, you'll probably find no better explanation than the one he quotes from Crews: "The world that circumscribed the people I come from had so little margin for error, for bad luck, that when something went wrong, it almost always brought something else down with it. It was a world in which survival depended on raw courage born out of desperation and sustained by a lack of alternatives."
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The novels listed below are from my "Reading the South" column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (2001-2006). To make it easier for readers to find what they're looking for, I've organized reviews by geographical settings and subject areas (as well as by the date the reviews appeared in the AJC).
Novels indexed by states
Mississippi | North Carolina | South Carolina | Tennessee | Virginia
Subject Areas
Civil Rights
Church Folk, Michele Andrea Bowen (2001)
Fire in the Rock, Joe Martin (2001)
Growing Up Nigger Rich, Gwendoline Fortune (2002)
Home Across the Road, Nancy Peacock (2001)
Out of the Night That Covers Me, Pat Cunningham Devoto (2001)
The Persia Café, Melany Neilson (2001)
This Side of the Sky, Elyse Singleton (2002)
In a Temple of Trees, Suzanne Hudson (2003)
Historical South
Civil War-era
Distant Flame, Philip Lee Williams (2004)
Ghost Riders, Sharyn McCrumb (2003)
My Old True Love, Sheila Kay Adams (2004)
mid-1800s-
Home Across the Road, Nancy Peacock (2001)
1880s
The Cock's Spur, Charles F. Price (2000)
Just Doll, Janice Daugharty (2004)
1890s
Devotion, Julia Oliver (2006)
Hell at the Breech, Tom Franklin (2003)
early 1900s-
A Cabinet of Wonders, Renee Dodd (2006)
Chasing the Devil's Tail, David Fulmer (2001)
Chicken Dreaming Corn, Roy Hoffman (2004)
The Heaven of Mercury, Brad Watson (2002)
Music of Falling Water, Julia Oliver (2001)
A Parchment of Leaves, Silas House (2002)
Rampart Street (early 1900s), David Fulmer (2006)
River Rising (1920s), Athol Dickson (2006)
Tyrus, Patrick Creevy (2003)
1920s
Behold, This Dreamer, Charlotte Miller (2000)
The Clearing ,Tim Gautreaux (2003)
This Rock, Robert Morgan (2001)
1930s
The Bridge, Doug Marlette (2001)
Goodbye to the Buttermilk Sky, Julia Oliver (orig. 1994)
By Way of the Forked Stick, Billy C. Clark (2000)
1940s
Prisoners of War, Steve Yarbrough (2004)
Prodigals, Mark Powell (2002)
Terminal Bend, Patricia Mayer (2000)
This Side of the Sky, Elyse Singleton (2002)
Sophie and the Rising Sun, Augusta Trobaugh (2001)
Walking Through Shadows, Bev Marshall (2002)
Winter Run, Robert Ashcom (2003)
1950s-1960s
Church Folk, Michele Andrea Bowen (2001)
Eden, Olympia Vernon (2003)
Every Good & Perfect Gift, Brenda Jernigan (2001)
Fire in the Rock , Joe Martin (2001)
One Foot in Eden, Ron Rash (2002)
Out of the Night That Covers Me, Pat Cunningham Devoto (2001)
No Place, Louisiana, Martin Pousson (2002)
The Persia Café, Melany Neilson (2001)
The School of Beauty and Charm, Melanie Sumner (2001)
Towns without Rivers, Michael Parker (2001)
When the Finch Rises, Jack Riggs (2003)
1970s
Rides of the Midway, Lee Durkee (2001)
Slow Way Home, Michael Morris (2003)
Girl Gets Boy (or visa versa)
Alison's Automotive Repair Manual, Brad Barkley (2003)
On Bear Mountain, Deborah Smith (2001)
Between, Georgia, Joshilyn Jackson (2006)
Big Cherry Holler, Adriana Trigiani (2001)
Clay's Quilt, Silas House (2001)
The Cost of Doing Business, John S. Tarlton (2001)
Diary of a Blues Goddess, Erica Orloff (2003)
Ella in Bloom, Shelby Hearon (2001)
Every Good & Perfect Gift, Brenda Jernigan (2001)
Flood Summer, Trenton Lee Stewart (2005)
Goodbye to the Buttermilk Sky, Julia Oliver (orig. 1994)
How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things, Joe Jackson (2004)
The Language of Good-bye, Maribeth Fischer
Love Is the Drug, Sarahbeth Purcell (2004)
Married But Still Looking, Travis Hunter (2002)
Moon Women, Pamela Duncan (2001)
The Myth of You and Me, Leah Stewart (2005)
The Night She Died, Jennifer Patrick (2004)
Savannah Blues, Mary Kay Andrews (2002)
The School of Beauty and Charm, Melanie Sumner (2001)
Sophie and the Rising Sun, Augusta Trobaugh (2001)
The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me, Suzanne Kingsbury (2002)
Towns without Rivers, Michael Parker (2001)
Southern with an Edge
All Saints' Day, Brent Benoit (2002)
Alternative Atlanta, Marshall Boswell (2005)
Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You, Laurie Lynn Drummond (2004)
Approximately Heaven, James Whorton, Jr. (2003)
Bear Me Safely Over, Sheri Joseph (2002)
Bitter Milk, John McManus(2005)
The Big Bust at Tyrone's Rooming House, James Gallant (2004)
Born on a Train, John McManus (2003)
Buddy Cooper Finds a Way, Neil Connelly (2004)
A Cabinet of Wonders, Renee Dodd (2006)
Eden, Olympia Vernon (2003)
Elroy Nights, Frederick Barthelme (2003)
Georgia Under Water, Heather Sellers (2001)
The Gospel According to Gracey, Suzanne Kingsbury (2003)
Head, William Tester (2000)
The Heaven of Mercury, Brad Watson (2002)
Hell at the Breech, Tom Franklin (2003)
Here in the World, Victoria Lancelotta (2000)
Hollow Ground, Stephen Marion (2002)
How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things, Joe Jackson (2004)
How the Sun Shines on Noise, Matthew Deshe Cashion (2004)
If You Want Me to Stay, Michael Parker (2005)
Love Is the Drug, Sarahbeth Purcell (2004)
No Place, Louisiana, Martin Pousson (2002)
Polar, T.R. Pearson (2002)
The Problem With Murmur Lee, by Connie May Fowler (2005)
Pulpwood, Scott Ely (2003)
Rides of the Midway, Lee Durkee (2001)
The School of Beauty and Charm, Melanie Sumner (2001)
Side Effects, Patty Friedmann (2006)
Sleeping Dogs, Kevin Hazzard (2002)
The Spider's Web, Wayne Greenhaw (2003)
Spikes, Michael Griffith (2001)
Swimming in Sky, Inman Majors (2000)
Tell Me, Mary Robison (2002)
In a Temple of Trees, Suzanne Hudson (2003)
Towns without Rivers, Michael Parker (2001)
True Cross, T.R. Pearson (2003)
The Watermelon King, Daniel Wallace (2003)
We Can Still Be Friends, Kelly Cherry (2003)
When the Finch Rises, Jack Riggs (2003)
Why Did I Ever, Mary Robison (2002)
Wonderdog, Inman Majors (2004)
Suburbia on the Rocks
A False Sense of Well Being, Jeanne Braselton (2001)
Captain Saturday, Robert Inman (2002)
Georgia Under Water, Heather Sellers (2001)
No Place, Louisiana, Martin Pousson (2002)
Swimming in Sky, Inman Majors (2000)
Suspense-Thriller
Atlanta Blues (1980s), Robert Lamb (2004)
Chasing the Devil's Tail (1920s), David Fulmer (2001)
Dead Sleep, Greg Iles (2001)
In the Forest of Harm, Sallie Bissell (2001)
The Gin Girl, River Jordan (2003)
Louisiana Hotshot, Julie Smith (2001)
A Minister's Ghost, Phillip DePoy (2006)
The Night She Died, Jennifer Patrick (2004)
The Past Is Never Dead, David Schulman (2004)
River Rising (1920s), Athol Dickson (2006)
Rampart Street (early 1900s), David Fulmer (2006)
A Thin Difference, Frank Turner Hollon (2003)
Wild Thorn, William Hoffman (2003)
Short story collections
The Alumni Grill, William Gay and Suzanne Kingsbury (eds.) (2004)
American Dreaming and Other Stories, Doris Iarovici (2005)
American Standard, John Blair (2002)
Best of the Oxford American (2002)
Best of the South (Volume II), Algonquin (2005)
Between Here and the Yellow Sea, Nic Pizzolatto (2006)
Born on a Train, John McManus (2003)
A Cast of Characters and Other Stories, Sonny Brewer (ed) (2006)
The Cry of an Occasion, Richard Bausch (ed) (2001)
A Dixie Christmas, Algonquin (2005)
Generations, George Strange (2002)
Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards, Robert Olen Butler (2004)
Here in the World, Victoria Lancelotta (2000)
How to Build a Tin Canoe, Robb White (2003)
It Wasn't All Dancing, Mary Ward Brown (2002)
Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia, Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson, editors (2004)
Narrow Beams, Kate Myers Hanson (2001)
New Stories From the South, Shannon Ravenel (ed.) (2004)
New Stories From the South, Shannon Ravenel (ed.) (2005)
New Stories from the South, The Year's Best, 2006, Algonquin (2006)
Pulpwood, Scott Ely (2003)
The Spider's Web, Wayne Greenhaw (2003)
Stories from the Blue Moon Café, Sonny Brewer (ed) (2002)
Stories From the Blue Moon Cafe, Sonny Brewer (ed.) (2004)
Tell Me, Mary Robison (2002)
Transgressions, Sallie Bingham (2003)
Who Is My Neighbor?, Minta Sue Berry (2001)
The Top Ten (or so...)
Approximately Heaven, James Whorton, Jr. (2003)
Chasing the Devil's Tail, David Fulmer (2001)
Clay's Quilt, Silas House (2001)
The Clearing ,Tim Gautreaux (2003)
Eden, Olympia Vernon (2003)
Georgia Under Water, Heather Sellers (2001)
The Heaven of Mercury, Brad Watson (2002)
Hell at the Breech, Tom Franklin (2003)
If You Want Me to Stay, Michael Parker (2005)
One Foot in Eden, Ron Rash (2002)
Wonderdog, Inman Majors (2004)
For more information on this site,
please contact hal@southerncurrents.com.
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