I read another blog today. The writer spoke directly to (I am assuming here) all southern writers, specifically guys, and more specifically guys who like to act tough, or ‘sit on a stool and sharpen a knife blade’ as they talk to a group of people about something they’ve written. I’ve not known many of these sorts of individuals, but I certainly won’t challenge that they do, in fact, exist.
Julianna Baggott is a well-known, well-established and well-represented writer. In my opinion, her writing is clear and sharp, but has a depth of feeling that surprised me. She also writes under pen names Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode. In other words, she’s the real deal.
Ms. Baggott’s blog of 1/02/11 is aimed at a group of writers she deems ‘The Good ole Boys of the Literary South’. Of course, this got my attention at once. I’ve only got a couple of hardly-noticed novels out there, but I am a Southern Writer (well, story-teller, truth be known) born in Georgia, raised in the Carolinas with summers in Florida, who now lives in Southeast Texas. Oh yeah, I’m one of the guys she is talking to, only I must assume that she’s really aiming her thoughts and words at those of us who have ascended into full notice; perhaps with reviews on the top of the NY Times' lists. Well, that’s not me, yet.
What must she want of us? Obviously, she would like to read the words of a new Hunter S. Thompson, or another Truman Capote (father of the modern American novel). She wants to hear what the next Faulkner has to say about his/or her land, and what Southerners do with the lives they have down in the Sun Belt. I don’t blame her at all.
In her blog Julianna complains about the stereotypical ‘southern writer’. The bravado, the self-imposed ban against acting too flashy, or the acting as if it all really doesn’t matter that much, as if such wordsmiths are above the notoriety they may, or may not induce.
She’s asking us to stop it…
After a lot of banter about the tough act, she implores us to reach down deep and pull out the real feelings; the ones everyone else would’ve made fun of you for when you were in grade school. She wants to hear about the times when we felt our vulnerability; when we found ourselves less than the chivalrous knights and cavaliers our pasts bequeathed unto us—simply because we were born where Spanish Moss drapes the limbs, and things just move a little slower, probably because of the constant heat.
Yet, Julianna wants to know more about us. She’s asking for less about hunting, scaling fish and firing off ammo at county line markers. She wishes to know just how deep we feel about things. Do we cry? Sure, but we seldom speak of it. Oh, I think she has our number better than we might like to admit.
Okay, Julianna. I’m with you, I suppose. If those few requests will add you to those who read the voices of the South, I’ll be happy to provide those darker, or softer depths. After all, the world we grew up and out of, even though we still stand upon it, is no longer the bedraggled wasteland of reformation. Those days have long since passed.
I write today about the New South. The South that belongs with the American flag, even if old resentments still color the thoughts of a few. As the North continues to freeze, the South continues to call out, like a beacon of warmth. C’mon down, y’all, and buy a book or two, will ya?
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