I recently returned from a trip to the southern U.S. and I thought it would be fitting to share some of my favourite southern reads of the past year.
Having experienced the history of Savannah, the beauty of the spring bloom of azaleas in Charleston and the tastes and sounds of New Orleans, I was prompted to read more about this extraordinary corner of the world. You too can delve into the magic of the South with the turn of each page of these books.
No One Is Coming to Save Us is a powerful first novel by Stephanie Powell Watts. J.J. Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, N. Carolina to build the home of his dreams and to woo his high school sweetheart, Ava. But he finds that the people he once knew and loved have changed, just as he has. Ava is now married and desperate to have a child. Her husband is distant and frustrated by the decline of the town’s once-thriving furniture industry. Then there is Ava’s mother, Sylvia, whose full-time job is meddling in the lives of those around her. J.J.’s newfound wealth forces everyone to consider what they want and deserve from life and how they might achieve it. This novel is an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family.
Daren Wang writes amazing historical fiction in his book The Hidden Light of Northern Fires. The novel follows Mary Willis, who has always been an outcast in the small town of Town Line, a place of bounty hunters and anti-union farmers. After college, she dreams of traveling but is obligated to take over the household duties and management of the family’s farm. Helping runaways during the American Civil War is the only thing that makes her life bearable. When escaped slave Joe Bell collapses in her father’s barn, Mary is determined to help him cross to freedom in Canada. This is a powerful and important novel about a lost piece of history.
Written by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, A Kind of Freedom is a brilliant mosaic of an African American family. Set in Sexton’s native New Orleans, this novel explores the legacy of racial disparity in the South. Evelyn, a Creole woman, finds herself trapped between family expectations and strained social boundaries when she falls in love during the Second World War. Together with her daughter Jackie, the story unfolds as they grapple with their relationships, life in New Orleans, and their family histories.
Dirt Road by James Kelman is a story about the strength of family ties. After his mother’s death, 16-year-old Murdo and his father travel from their home in rural Scotland to Alabama to be with his uncle and aunt. On his first visit to the United States, Murdo’s eyes are wide open, taking in everything he sees, from racial and religious tensions to guns and the threat of severe weather. As a musician, he makes a deep connection through the incredible music of the South and his newfound love of the blues. Kelman paints a portrait of a young man’s urgent need for connection in a time of grief.
Jack E. Davis writes a wonderfully readable exploration of the South’s favourite body of water in The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. From the Keys to the Rio Grande, one learns the stories, the marine seascapes and the personalities that have driven the history of the Gulf. The reader is given a glimpse into the water’s future and its lessons, namely the ramifications for how we consider and combat climate change. This is an astonishing work of environmental history.
Please visit your local library for more recommendations for great reads that can take you to the beautiful and historic South.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published on Wednesdays. Caroline Wandell works at Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Library.
