John Edge photo (center) by Yvonne Boyd. Faulkner (left) & Wolfe (right) photos by Carl Van Vechten
An admirable number of writers have called the South home, and although their work can be universally enjoyed, a special pride sets in when reading another Southerner’s essays, short stories or novels. The best of these writers reveal deep truths in dark and light humor, highlight our strong cultural identity, and force us to ask difficult questions about our assumptions. Here are seven of our favorite Southern writers, past and present.
What happens when an unexamined life never challenges consumption, technology and celebrity culture? A new book claims we build up a veneer that insulates us from true beauty, honesty and freedom. We asked Jason Locy, co-author of Veneer, his thoughts on living deeply in a surface society.
Over the past ten years, everything from our TVs to our modes of communication, have been digitized, and while this comes with obvious advantages, it also comes with intense interpersonal and business challenges. That blinking smartphone light makes it challenging to get away from work; the onslaught of information from “friends” on Twitter and Facebook makes us feel vaguely connected rather than deeply fulfilled. Wired devices, laptops and tablets serve as constant distractions to family life and authentic time with friends.
For the next few days, golf’s elite will have one thing on their mind: a green jacket. Yet as the world watches the 2011 Masters, there’s another side of the historic course you probably haven’t seen. Freddie & Me, a book written by Tripp Bowden, the first white caddy at Augusta National, recounts his life working at the exclusive club under his mentor, the late Freddie Bennett.
We have a way of labeling people as a means of being polite, an undercutting, but fully accepted sort of social mores. People called Mark Richard “special,” not because they recognized in the boy a brilliant spark, or because they glimpsed what he would one day become – a highly acclaimed author and screenwriter – but because they needed a nice way to say they thought he must be a little bit slow. Born in Louisiana with crippling hip deformities that relegated him to a childhood marked by painful surgeries and social alienation, Richard was simply imperfect on the outside, and in the American South in the 1960s, that was no good way to be.
