In the Triangle this weekend? May I suggest heading over to Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books & Music on Sunday afternoon or Durham's Regulator on Monday where you will be able to see and hear Allan Gurganus, Kathy Pories, Quinn Dalton, Daniel Wallace and Luke Whisnant read and discuss this year's edition of New Stories from the South.
I've been slowly reading my way through the anthology and really like this year's selections. Gurganus did an admirable job taking over the reigns from long-time series editor and all-around nice person Shannon Ravenel. He won't be keeping the title of editor for long though. Next year, Edward P. Jones will take his turn picking and choosing.
This edition has been getting a lot of press of late, including a review in this week's Independent Weekly:
What is it about the South that lends itself to an anthology like this? Why do we need Best New Stories from the South, but not Best New Stories from the Upper Midwest or Best New Stories from New Jersey? Gurganus is asked this question a lot.
"All stories are about resisting loss. All stories are about people in trouble. Having lost a war that we started, I think we're uniquely qualified to talk about what losing really means. In narrative, winning comes out of losing, and so we have an edge."
In addition, the continued importance of religion in Southern life should not be overlooked, he says. "For better or worse, religion is still very important in the South, and religion has the benefit of making stories seem urgent and central, and making parables out of human life. It helps us see actions as moral or immoral, which is the starting point for stories."
Race, of course, is also a crucial subject. "It may be the great subject of American life," Gurganus says, "beginning with how we treated the native population in order to get what we wanted, and then began to import other types of people to do work for us we didn't want to do. All of these things make Southerners uniquely qualified to tell the American story."
Comments