Writers of the American South: Their Literary Landscapes

Flannery O'Connor, Peter Taylor, Thomas Wolfe. The South has long revered its literary luminaries. Their talent for evoking a sense of place in their settings and in their characters reflects an elemental connection to their home soil. William Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha County, Eudora Welty and the Delta, Pat Conroy and the Low Country. Renowned author and photographer team Hugh Howard and Roger Straus III set out to examine the imaginative link between Southern authors and their geography and the impact on their writings. The result is an intimate, engaging, and poignant look at twenty-two of the South's most important contributors to the pantheon of great American literature. We learn, for example, that three generations of writers, Faulkner, Shelby Foote, and Ann Patchett, share the same dreamscape: the battlefield at Shiloh. The compelling tension in Carl Hiaasen's life is the ruthless development around him in the fragile Florida Keys. And when asked who influenced them, most of the living writers profiled came up with the same three names: William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O'Connor. Through vibrant, evocative, and intimate photographs and a mix of prized storytelling and interviews, Writers of the American South offers an exhilarating opportunity to visit with Southern literary royalty and deserves a permanent place on the bookshelves of every American literature library.