Dessa Rose (1986) by Sherley Anne Williams

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Dessa Rose (1986)

by Sherley Anne Williams

Marengo County, Alabama

Alabama: 7/18

  Dessa Rose was a genuine surprise from the Alabama chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project, a transgressive work of fiction about a white plantation wife and a band of escaped slaves she shelters- set in the 1830's.  It is the first book set in the 19th century in the South which depicts a sexual relationship between a male slave and a female mistress- which- if you just kind of described the outlines of the culture in this part of the country, you would think relationships between black men and white women would be, whatever else, an interesting subject for literary fiction.  But it is not, and I think that is because, unlike relationships between white men and black women, relationships between black men and white women were punishable by immediate extrajudicial murder.

  I'd like to say that this idea is either a myth or exaggeration, but the essential truth of this situation is revealed in cases like the murder of Emmett Till, an African American murdered for allegedly cat-calling a white woman in public.  I imagine there are still parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia where a black man/white woman couple would face trouble.  The relationship depicted here is a casual one, but the utter absence of any fully developed relationships between black men and white women across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana is enough to give one pause.  Really?  Not a single novel written on the subject.  Perhaps there is a work of science fiction out there that covers such a relationship in an alternate universe. 

Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2001) by Barry Hannah

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2001)

by Barry Hannah

Clinton, Mississippi

Mississippi: 2/18

  Both Mississippi and Alabama scored eighteen titles in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  That ties them for last place in this specific chapter, behind Florida, Louisiana and Georgia.  18 titles does put them both above the single digit states of the mid-Atlantic.  I've also moved away from the original 13 colonies of the Atlantic seaboard and into the first of the hinterlands that were settled (excepting those that lay within the original 13 colonies).  Here, the dynamic was first, the clearing out/removal of the Native tribes- most of whom were property holding and "civilized" within the usage of that term at the time.  Second, it was the cotton revolution which opened up huge swaths of Alabama and especially Mississippi for enormous, slave driven cotton plantations.   The need for slaves, exhaustion of the soil in the upper south from Tobacco farming and the ban on the importation of slaves from abroad drove a huge, forced population movement, as the slave holders of the Virginias and Carolinas sold their slaves "down the river" to work on the plantations of the newer south.

   Not that Yonder Stands Your Orphan, by moderately well-known southern author Barry Hannah, addresses any of that.   Instead, Orphan is a loosely assembled collection of eccentric and violent characters living around a lake.  It's not a great book- it was the author's last novel- but it, at least, interesting, and neither a work of chick-lit or a YA title.  I will say I've never read a book where so many people were sliced open by knives.

The Saints of Swallow Hill (2022) by Donna Everheart

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Saints of Swallow Hill (2022)

by Donna Everheart

Valdosta, Georgia

Georgia: 24/24

  I started the Georgia chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America back on April 15th of this year, meaning these twenty-four titles took over seven months to knock back.  The Saints of Swallow Hill is last because it's an Audiobook, and my time spent listening to Audiobooks is way, way down this year.  Also, I thought The Saints of Swallow Hill was mostly tedious, a depression-era work of historical fiction set on a Turpentine Farm in South Georgia.   One main character is a rootless jack-of-all-trades with a penchant for banging the wife of his immediate supervisor everywhere he goes.  The other is a childless widow who is forced to flee the Carolinas after a neighbor sees the immediate aftermath of her shotgun abetted mercy killing of her sick husband.   The plot is a conventional will they or won't they romance enlivened by the Southern Georgia swamp-forest setting- not an environment with which I am familiar.

  Looking through the 24 titles representing Georgia, a handful stand out- Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers, Tayari Jones and Honore Jeffers- all women.  The classics portion includes Cane and Gone With the Wind, which are both canon level American Lit.   Most of the "discoveries" were in the African American authored books- Appalache Red by Raymond Andrews was particularly memorable.   Bringing up the bottom, as always, the chick lit and YA titles.  Georgia is a solid mid-tier literary state- third in this chapter behind Florida and Louisiana, but if it had been in the prior grouping it probably would be a close second to Virginia, and maybe the number one state from that chapter.

Louisiana Lucky (2020) by Julie Pennell

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Louisiana Lucky (2020)

by Julie Pennell

445 East Main Street, New Iberia, Louisiana

Louisiana: 5/28

  A definite low point in my recent 1,001 Novels: A Library of America, I checked out the E-book from the library on vacation because it seemed like an easy job and indeed, I finished Louisiana Lucky in about an hour, mostly because I didn't read it very closely.  I try not to be a snob about my reading habits- this entire project is testament to my good intentions, but there is no denying that the three lottery winning sisters from this novel are some of the least interesting American's I've come across, and Julie Pennell is writing for an audience of suburban housewives- and not the interesting kind.

 The three sisters win a substantial lottery jackpot, rescuing them from lives among the lower bourgeois of this part of the world.  One sister spends the entire book upgrading her wedding from a ramshackle DIY affair to something worthy of a bridezilla episode.  Another sends her two kids to a snooty private school and suffers from a cold welcome.  The third- a respected local print (lol) journalist, takes advantage of her found fame to move to television journalism, which is a hard transition.   Louisiana Lucky is certain to be a bottom three title in this chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.

Show Review: Chappell Roan & Angie McMahon @ Corona Capital CDMX

 Show Review

 Chappell Roan & Angie McMahon

 @ Corona Capital CDMX

  I knew, after Chappell Roan drew 80,000 people to Pasadena and I didn't read a single complaint, that she was for real.  I'm not a Chappell Roan fan in the way I'm a Charli XCX fan- a topic which has gone unaddressed on this blog, but I, like everyone even tangentially aware of the market for popular music in America/UK/EU, have witnessed her rise in awe.  It's helped that Chappell shares a booking agent with Margo Price, so I've seen the Instagram stories and had conversations about it as it's been happening.  Surely, I would have gone to the Pasadena shows but my partner was travelling.  

  This was my first time in CDMX, and I'll spare readers the details.  Angie McMahon, who my partner manages, was on the bill and it was my partner's birthday week, so I was there.  The festival was top to bottom impressive, just as well run as anything in the United States.  The obvious comparison is with Coachella, if Coachella was the ONLY festival of its kind in the entire country.  The crowd was incredible- something I'd heard many times in the past but was witnessing for the first time.  Specifically, Angie McMahon, playing an early time slot that would have been a classic Coachella death trap, drew a respectably sized, rapturous crowd that left everyone feeling great. 

  After her set I caught some of Mogwai and half of the Alabama Shakes- a rare instance where insight gained from the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project gave me a real-time boost of appreciation for a different artist.   We watched the Chappell Roan set from her "family" box- I had a view of her very appreciative Dad for most of the set.  I am here to say that the Chappell Roan live show is flat-out incredible, and watching it being well received by a Mexican audience that shares few, if any of the same cultural influences was nothing short of astonishing.   The two major comparison I heard first timers making afterwards were to Queen and Lady Gaga....which seems like solid company.   All my questions were answered by this performance.  All Hail Chappell Roan!

Helm (2025) by Sarah Hall

 Book Review

Helm (2025)

by Sarah Hall

  The New York Times review of Helm by Sarah Hall was enough to get me to check out an E-book copy from the library.  I'm a fan of ANY novel that stretches the format of the novel in any direction and a novel about a specific, named wind in the northeast of England qualifies in that department.  Hall picks out different characters over time:  A prehistoric shaman-ess, a 19th century scientist, a contemporary teenage girl with a mental disorder, and places them in relationships with Helm, who has their own, distinct, narrative voice.  It makes for engaging reading.

The Twelve-Mile Straight (2017) by Eleanor Henderson

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Twelve-Mile Straight (2017)

 by Eleanor Henderson

Ben Hill County, Georgia

Georgia: 23/24

    All things being equal I'll always prefer a historical novel or whatever merit to a contemporary work of fiction within the precincts of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Even if I don't care for the novel, I frequently learn about the history, particularly in the rural and neglected (from a literary perspective) portions of the country.  In rural Georgia I'm reading about the intertwined system of turpentine camps and liquor stills- first, an area will be a turpentine camp and then, after the environment is degraded, you use the same area for a liquor still.  The Twelve-Mile Straight, set in the 1930's, revolves around the life of a rural producer of still liquor and his daughter, a whore.  When the daughter is impregnated by the grandson of the local bigwig, Dad takes the opportunity to conceal the paternity of the child of his African American servant (him.)

  This leads to a series of very unfortunate events that involves murder, small-town sensationalism and of course, race.  I listened to the Audiobook, it took forever.

Criminal Trespass (1985) by Helen Hudson

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Criminal Trespass (1985)

by Helen Hudson

Simms Quarter, Alabama

Alabama: 6/18

  Northern Alabama is the biggest geographic blank spot on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America map.  It doesn't have anything to do with a lack of potential titles- Huntsville, Alabama, the home of NASA is there, surely you could pick something that happened there.  Also, Muscle Shoals, home of a famous recording studio and well known "sound" has inspired at least a half dozen novels.  

  Criminal Trespass is that most suspect of categories, a book with a black protagonist written by a white woman.   I just read a book like this near the end of the Georgia chapter, Strange Fruit, by Lillian Smith.  However, Strange Fruit was published in 1944.  Criminal Trespass, on the other hand, was published in 1985.   It was also reviewed in the New York Times without a mention of the awkwardness of the author/protagonist relationship.  Not something that would be tolerated in 2025, a fact obviously known by editor Susan Straight, but here we are.  It's like the subject matter is extraordinary either, there are at least a dozen other books in this section of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project and another dozen in the last chapter.

Net of Jewels (1992) by Ellen Gilchrist

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Net of Jewels (1992)

by Ellen Gilchrist

Dunleith, Alabama

Alabama: 5/18

   Ellen Gilchrist figuratively burst upon the national literary scene from an unlikely source: the world of university publishing (her first publisher was the University of Arkansas press).  She solidified her national reputation in 1984, when she won the National Book Award (which had briefly been renamed the American Book Award) for her short-story collection, Victory Over Tokyo.  That was enough to secure the notice of the New York Times for the rest of her career, though the reviews are frequently dismissive and condescending towards her preferred subject matter:  the lost and winsome damsels of the mid 20th century landed gentry.   

  If she had written twenty years later, she would likely be known as a practitioner of "auto-fiction"- honestly, the tone of this book mostly reminded me of the warts-and-all confessional style of Karl Ove Knausgård and his "My Struggle" series.   The frequent and prolific abuse of prescription medication- the south of that period must have been the epicenter for speed/diet pills being prescribed for young women, goes unanalyzed in the book, and in the criticism, which I found refreshing.  In fact, I'd rate Gilchrist, who is badly out of fashion, a minor discovery within the context of this project.  Not sure I'd tackle another Gilchrist title, but I wouldn't rule it out.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

by Harper Lee

Monroeville, Alabama

Alabama 4/18

   No re-reading for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.

Published 3/15/16
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
by Harper Lee

    Harper Lee is the most successful artist of all time.  She wrote...one book...it's one of the most popular AND critically acclaimed novels of all time, and it is essentially taught in every school in the United States, and read world-wide.  The very idea that an author could write a single novel and be set for life is itself novel.  Even successful authors never sold enough books to never NEED to work again.  In that way, Harper Lee is the beginning of the rock star economy, the blockbuster economy, where single works of art could provide a livelihood for one or more people over a period of decades.

  Lee's recent death, and the nearly contemporaneous decision to publish what was essentially an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird as a "new" work, also represents an opportunity to look at the role of the publishing industry itself in the fashioning of Lee's tremendous success.  One revelation from Go Set a Watchman is that the original book that Lee wrote was a much darker iteration of To Kill a Mockingbird.  Specifically, Scout was not the narrator.   Having an admittedly precious nine-year-old girl narrate this dark tale of race and justice in the deep south was a decision that was forced by the publisher.   That is an excellent example of the positive role that the art-industrial complex played in the history of arts and letters.