Grit lit A rough South reader

*Starred Review* Hats off to the editors and publisher who birthed this amazing and needed anthology representing the best of a provocative subsegment of southern American literature. These excerpts from memoir and fiction indicate the striking qualities of what has been dubbed grit lit, which is, as one of the editors expresses in the book's foreword, the South seen without romanticism or the false nostalgia of Gone with the Wind, or, as quoted in the introduction, in a statement by a bookseller, This is not your mother's southern fiction. There is lots of beer drinkin', fast drivin', and cussin' going on in these pieces by such rousing bright lights in the southern firmament as Dorothy Allison (one of very few women included here), Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, and William Gay. The book is inaugurated on the highest plateau with the late Harry Crews' opening segment, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, one of the best father remembrances you'll ever read. But that is not to say what follows in the rest of the anthology is a letdown. The lifestyles and lives all of these authors write about may not be sweet, but the ring of quality throughout the book is certainly sweet to the ear.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2010 Booklist

New York Times best-seller Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and freelancer Carpenter anthologize here for the first time Grit Lit-bleak, violent, and sometimes blackly funny stories of "poor southern white" folks-in an attempt to "refocus the attention back where it belongs-on 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-some of William Gay's best work, for example, has already been anthologized in the New Stories from the South series-these 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 precis, 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.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.