1,001 Novels Chapter Five: Blues & Bayous, Deltas and Coasts

 1,001 Novels Chapter Five: 

Blues & Bayous, Deltas and Coasts

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida

   I'm running so far ahead on Audiobooks vs. Physical books that I thought it made sense to open up the next two chapters at the same time to take that into account.  Chapter five is distinctly the Southeast.  I'm surprised that Chapters Four and Five aren't reversed, since it makes sense to finish off the Atlantic United States before moving inland, which is what editor Susan Straight did.  I think that there is a strong argument for an alternative arrangements which would have gone from Chapter 2, New York/New Jersey to Chapter 3, Pennsylvania/Delaware/Maryland/DC instead of doing Delaware/Maryland/DC/Virginia /North Carolina/South Carolina.

  Besides stops at the Miami airport, brief trips to the Atlanta area to see family as a child and a post-graduation college road trip that saw a stop in New Orleans (where I got food poisoning and spent all night throwing up), I have no experiences with any of these states.  During visits to Nashville I've pondered a drive to northern Alabama, home of Muscle Shoals and NASA, but that is a tough sell.  Similarly I've thought about driving south from Nashville to Mississippi and non-New Orleans Louisiana but it doesn't seem likely to happen in my current lifetime. 

   Maybe this chapter will change my mind!

1,001 Novels Chapter Four: Mountain Home & Hollows, Smokies & Ozarks

 1,001 Novels Chapter Four:

 Mountain Home & Hollows, Smokies & Ozarks:

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas

   I have finished all the available Audiobooks for 1,001 Novels Chapter Three (Delaware, DC, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina).  Now I'm opening up the next chapter, which covers Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.  It's the first chapter in the 1,001 Novels: A Library in America project that doesn't feel organic.  Chapter one was New England, chapter two was New York/NJ and chapter three handles the Southern Atlantic up to Georgia.   Chapter four, on the other hand, blends the Northeast Urban center of Philadelphia with the heavy Appalachian vibes of West Virginia and Kentucky and then appends Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.  On the map, it makes sense, I guess but culturally it seems far from distinct.  Looking ahead I do see the very first repeat author- Tobias Wolff, who represented New Jersey with The Final Club and remerges in Pennsylvania with Old School.  It is hard to figure how Wolff would be the first and not Colson Whitehead or Philip Roth, but here we are.     

  I don't have very strong connections to any of these locations.  Both my parents come from St. Louis, Missouri, so I travelled back there a decent amount as a young child but only twice since college.  I've been to Nashville escorting my partner, who had a client there for close to a decade.  As part of that experience we've rented a car and driven around the area, up to and over the Kentucky border.  I went to Philadelphia as part of my junior high trip to the Washington DC area, then we drove through Amish country on the way to DC, but that is the extent of my experience in PA.   I have never been to Arkansas.  I have a plan that involves a trip to Arkansas and Oklahoma via flying into Dallas, but I'm not sure I'll ever make it.

  It looks like the Audiobooks are going to be running months ahead of the physical books, so it makes sense to expand in two directions at once.