Misrepresentations or Misconceptions of the South in Literature

Any ones that particularly grate on your nerves? Or just a popular one that eats you up in general? Or just one that's wrong that you really are indifferent to but thought it was worthy of posting here?

The one that jumps out in my head as being blatantly wrong is Locked in Time and its description of gumbo as a "tomato-based soup." I feel bad for the reader who tries to make any of that.

No literary examples are popping into mind, but, as a Birminghamster who knows a little bit of local history, I'm frequently shaking my head at journalist's assumptions about the childhoods of Condoleezza Rice and Freeman Hrabowski, both products of a secure and hopeful African-American middle class that had very conflicted feelings about the Civil Rights Movement as the SCLC and ACMHR conducted it. The mythology of the Civil Rights era is fast erasing the complexity of history.. a history that is barely two generations past.

Gumbo isn't just misrepresented in literature! I saw a recipe book the other day that (I swear I'm not making this up) had multiple recipes for it, none of which contained file or okra.

Honestly. How is it gumbo if it has no file or okra? And green peppers weren't even involved. Astonishing.

Etymologically, gumbo HAS to have okra in it, since "gumbo" is merely the name for okra in a different West African language (Yoruba?).

One time I saw a gumbo recipe that had coffee grounds in it. That one had me scratching my head.

We take gumbo pretty seriously where I come from! (I'm in Texas now but all my family is from East Texas and, well, all over Lousiana.) I'm not Cajun enough to eat it with squirrel, I'm afraid, causing portions of my family to wonder if I'm actually related to them.

I can't really imagine what the coffee grounds would do to gumbo.... That sounds like an "emptying out the fridge for stock" kind of thing gone horrifyingly too far!

Gumbo talk!
I am in New Orleans.
I have had Gumbo with chicken and sausage,
with seafood, and at a relatives house with bologna and boiled eggs floating in it.

Have had it without okra but never without fil'e

Priscilla

Ha- seeing the word bologna reminds me of my own misconception. OK, it wasn't just Southern novels, but I think I read more novels set in the SW and South than the northern States. Well, I kept reading about these bologna or boloney sandwiches people were eating. And I made my Texan boyfriend-of-the-time roll on the floor in hysterics when I revealed that I'd always thought it meant sandwiches made of bolognese sauce - and wondered how on earth they managed that!

*blush*

For those wanting an illustration:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bwalsh/147571849/

Wonderful! I'd still never actually *seen* one!

Other misconceptions that irritate me:

I'm a Texan. While I have ridden a horse, I do not own one. There are trees where I leave. Also, grass. I live in a suburban house with a backyeard, not a ranch. I do not own livestock of any kind, nor do the vast majority of my family members.

So many representations in literature are Dust Bowl era! So many others are westerns!

And ever since Huey Long built some roads and schools in Lousiana (yes I know there could be more, but that was a start), people there really do speak coherently, and a lot of them don't have to slog through swampland any more.

I do, however, say y'all. A lot. And "I reckon".

Haha... yeah, there really isn't much accent in Louisiana, especially around where I live.

In my experience the LA accent is a generational thing. All my grandmother's siblings sound like they're from another planet, especially the older ones. Everybody my age talks about the way I do, slang and all. My grandmother's older siblings also once made fun of her for her poor French--now their kids make fun of them for poor English. They're pretty backwoods though (Ville Platte and Pine Prairie area, if you're curious--a little ways south of Alexandria)

I like them, but they all eat squirrel. I shudder at the thought.

Yeah, there are about two people in my town that still speak Cajun French, but we're pretty suburban.

My grandmother eats squirrel brains, though. They live in northern Louisiana.

I feel you, Eumenides. Having come from WV originally, I find myself having to defend and prove my ability to speak coherently, as well as continually having to disprove the assumption my parents were blood relatives or that I have a passion for farm animals.

I find almost ALL modern/recent depictions of the South in literature to be way too folksy and perfect-peachy-keen. Too many "local color" characters and food depictions stand out as alien rather than a matter-of-fact food or common people. Characters have become so stock, situations so syrupy that I want to puke. I guess that's how the publishing industry wants the South depicted so that New Yorkers and Bostonians can have their own mythologies about us reinforced.

Mind you, it happens to all regional groups. According to one book I recently read by an American who lived in England for - ooh, about 4 months - we *all* have bad teeth, our newspapers are rubbish and our houses very small. Hm.

Sorry if this is OT but it seemed worth saying!

That does appear to be a generic problem. People writing about what they don't really know and / or understand easily leads to these misconceptions. Of course, there's also the opposite problem of people being too in love with a place to represent it accurately. I'm sure regional literature, in the south and elsewhere, suffers in part from both.

That's a pity. Many English have fine teeth. And there are several large houses and one or two reasonable newspapers in that country.

One of my favorite books is A Tall Man in a Low Land by tall Englishman Harry Pearson. The book is comprised of good-natured ridicule at the expense of the Belgians. It is very funny, and also clearly unfair. If a similar book were written about Turkey or Uganda, it would not be so easy to take it in good humor.

It is not that stereotypes have no truth - but that they have been extracted from the soil that gives them life and held in front of reality to keep it from penetrating our own zone of safety.

Anyone familiar with George Singleton? He's got a couple story collections and you can find him in journals like The Georgia Review pretty regularly. He lives in South Carolina and certainly has some chops as a writer, but he also tends to perpetuate those Southern stereotypes. Some of it falls under the umbrella of comedy, but he often reads like a slap-stick Flannery O'conner, all the color (maybe more color) and half the heart. Any thoughts on the responsibilites of those us writing from the South?

#18:
yes.
i call myself on my website "a writer of the times" and i chronicle in fiction (and in non-fiction) the actual stories of the south circa 1960 thru today.

i find the lure of the south (for me) is that mystical ethereal flavor of eccentricity. "Fried Green Tomatoes"; and "Steel Magnolias" could NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN by John Irving or any northern writer. Their eccentric is more socially adapted.

It is this spiritual mysticism that i mean when i say "southern gothic", not a reference to gabled houses or ghost-strewn haunts.

i try to write about the born and bred southerner, complete with the (increasingly rare) regional things such as grits, red gravy, the stressed vowels, and the acceptance of others as they relate to an unwritten southern code. (some of which is definitely anti-social).