The Oxford Book of the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction
Ayers (history, Univ. of Virginia) and Mittendorf, a writer and political consultant, here delve into both Southern fiction and nonfiction, trying to create a unified book rather than a series of unconnected writings by Southerners about the South. Diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays from over 50 writers from the Colonial period to the present represent a variety of social, racial, and gender groups. The anthology is divided into four sections that correspond to major periods of Southern history. A brief introductory essay by the editors relates the history of the era and establishes the emotional and philosophical mood of the times. Within each section, the editors have attempted to present the period as an unfolding drama, with eyewitness accounts followed by writers of subsequent generations who view the era. The editors acknowledge that several genres such as poetry, folklore, and professional history have been omitted because they could find no effective way to integrate them with the remainder of the volume. For a more specialized view, the multivolume Georgia Voices (Vol 1: LJ 11/1/92; Vol 2: LJ 7/94) offers the reader an excellent anthology. The Oxford Book of the American South is an ambitious publication that the general reader will find useful.?Charles C. Hay III, Eastern Kentucky Univ., RichmondCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.