A study of Southern Gothic literature

Repost of an article from a former blog.

Faulkner. Welty. McCullers. These are some of the names that make be proud to be a Southerner. McCarthy. O’Connor. Tennessee Williams. All exaggerating the characters that live around me and have inhabited the South since the first plantation was established.

Rednecks. Slaves. Carpetbaggers. Ministers with a dark past and harlots with a heart of gold. Familial love and distress. All set in the dark beauty of the fields, valleys and mountains of the South. Beloved Appalachia, what a wealth of history and sometimes ignoble heritage.

Truman Capote was also a Southerner, an Alabaman. I’ve read a few excerpts this morning and am watching the film “Capote” as I type out this blog and wait for Julie to come home. Then it will be time to get the two kids still in the house ready to go where they’re going this afternoon so Julie and I can go Christmas shopping then out on a much-needed date. Sounds like good times.

This morning has brought me a time to regroup. Write a bit myself in honor of those great men and women mentioned above. A time to relax in the quiet of a half-full house and catch my breath after a busy week. Maybe it will help me prepare for another busy one that’s just around the Sunday bend.