Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader

New York Times best-seller Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and freelancer Carpenter anthologize here for the first time Grit Lit%E2%80%94bleak, violent, and sometimes blackly funny stories of "poor southern white" folks%E2%80%94in an attempt to "refocus the attention back where it belongs%E2%80%94on the writing itself rather than on the alleged exploits of the contributors." Featured here are Rough South mainstays such as Harry Crews, Dorothy Allison, and Barry Hannah, as well as some lesser-known writers like Anne Pancake and newcomer Alex Taylor, whose coal thieves Luke and Ransom epitomize the region's best literature, worst poverty, and hyperbolic atmospheres of violence and love. Though not every story is the cream of the authors' crops%E2%80%94some of William Gay's best work, for example, has already been anthologized in the New Stories from the South series%E2%80%94these selections do reveal the genre's breadth, from realism to postmodernism, from Southern gothic to country noir. Each of the six memoir selections and 22 short fiction pieces (several of which are novel excerpts) are introduced with a pr%C3%A9cis, short bio, and a revealing quote from the author. Students, teachers, and Rough South devotees will also find helpful the critical and recommended reading, viewing, and listening sections hunkered in the back of the book. (Sept.)