Southern fiction is full of images, places and icons that our minds associate strongly with specific authors or novels. Think of the courthouse in To Kill a Mockingbird, William Faulkner's glass of whisky, Flannery O'Connor's peacocks. Margaret Eby made pilgrimages to Monroeville, Alabama; Oxford and Jackson, Mississippi; Milledgeville and Bacon County, Georgia; and New Orleans, Louisiana, to visit the stomping grounds and geographical inspirations of ten of her own personal favorite authors, chronicling each stop in a fascinating essay that is part homage, part literary criticism, part exploration of the question "What is it about this place {the SOUTH}, exactly" that has led to the creation of the concept of "Southern fiction". ( )

Jackson, Mississippi and Eudora Welty
Richard Wright.
Faulkner
Flannery O'Conner
Harry Crew
Harper Lee and Truman Capote
John Kennedy Toole
Larry Brown
Barry Hannah
There are a few of these authors whose books I never read. This book definitely made me want to read them, so I will be reading from the reading list the author kindly provided in the back of the book. Looking forward to this task. This gives such a wonderful insight into their novels, their lives and how the testaments of many of them have lived on. Quite some characters they all were, some admired each other, others didn't care for the some of them and found their books to be cop outs. Used their own small spaces of earth to write about things that they questioned or just brought to life their own small corner of space.

Harry Crew is not celebrated at all in his town, where he has a cousin who still lives. Nothing was preserved and the people don't like to talk about his books. He ins one of the authors I have never read and I found interesting what was revealed in this book about his non fiction offering [book:A Childhood: The Biography of a Place|24849] and his character as well.

A delightful read, revealing to me a different and fresh way of looking at these wonderful authors. She brought New Orleans, Bourbon street to life to life, following the path of the Confederacy of Dunces. Interesting to see how their legacies live on and how they are now perceived by readers.

ARC from publisher. ( )