Steve Yarbrough: Transplanted Mississippian

This chapter discusses Steve Yarbrough's fiction, which is often set in Mississippi, particularly in Indianola, where he grew up, or in the fictional town of Loring, its fictional near twin. Yarbrough fills his work with people who, if they ever leave home, must return to it. They don't necessarily return to the Eden they may think has been waiting for them, but they do return. In many ways they have never left, of course, for their home creates the context for the rest of their lives. This is evident in Yarbrough's first novel, The Oxygen Man (1999). Yarbrough's other novels include Visible Spirits (2001), The End of California (2006), and Safe from the Neighbors (2010).

A Country for Old Men: The South of Clyde Edgerton’s Early Novels

This chapter discusses Clyde Edgerton's early novels, whose characters define themselves and the essential nature of contemporary life in the South. If we accept Erik Bledsoe's description of the Rough South as “a world of excess—excessive alcohol, excessive sex, excessive violence,” the works of Edgerton hardly seem to qualify. Indeed, Yvonne Mason, in Reading, Learning, Teaching Clyde Edgerton, declares his work “infinitely suitable” for “young readers in the English Language Arts classroom”—an appraisal difficult to imagine for the fiction of Harry Crews or Larry Brown. Edgerton's first three novels—Raney (1985), Walking Across Egypt (1987), and The Floatplane Notebooks (1988)—offer a way to understand his South, a world that increasingly belongs to and is defined by aging and death. This chapter considers Edgerton's other works, including the novel The Night Train (2011), the memoir Solo: My Adventure in the Air (2005), and the nonfiction Papadaddy's Book for New Fathers: Advice to Dads of All Ages (2013).

Lee Smith: A Diamond from the Rough

This chapter discusses Lee Smith's fiction, which consistently probes the crises of identity that plague so many contemporary Americans, particularly women. Born on November 1, 1944, in the southwestern Virginia coal-mining town of Grundy, Lee Smith was an only child and a voracious reader. Smith recalls that growing up in Grundy, she consciously tried to conform to the image of an aspiring southern “lady.” Initially Smith wrote about romantic and foreign subjects, but after encountering Eudora Welty's work in a southern literature course, she realized the importance of writing from one's experience. Like other members of her generation of southern writers, Smith creates a full, complex world of characters who confirm some stereotypes and transcend others. Her novels include The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed (1968), The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed— Something in the Wind (1971), Fancy Strut (1973), Black Mountain Breakdown (1980), Family Linen (1985), Fair and Tender Ladies (1988), Saving Grace (1995), and On Agate Hill (2006).

The Rough South of Ron Rash

This chapter discusses the fiction of Ron Rash, who sets almost all of his work—poems, short stories, and novels—in the Carolinas and focuses on the people who live or have lived there. Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina, in 1953, and grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. While not a direct heir to the “Southern Redneck and White Trash” tradition, Rash fills his work with characters firmly embedded in the Rough South—mostly lower-class whites from Appalachian North and South Carolina. Rash's work illustrates his concern with working-class characters and their struggles, with poor whites and their violent conflicts. His interest in the working class reflects his own family background. Rash published his first collection of poetry, Eureka Mill, in 1998. He also wrote novels that depict violence, such as One Foot in Eden, The World Made Straight, and Serena.

From “The Rise of Southern Redneck and White Trash Writers”1

This chapter discusses the emergence of a new generation of southern writers who are giving voice to a different group of southerners, forcing their readers to reexamine long-held stereotypes and beliefs while challenging the literary roles traditionally assigned poor whites. According to Linda Tate, “traditionally, southern literature has been understood to be that written by white men and, on rare occasions, by white women—and, in almost all cases, by and about white southerners of the upper middle class.” This chapter looks at three new voices who write about the Rough South and the southern poor whites from within the class: Dorothy Allison, Larry Brown, and Timothy Reese McLaurin. The term “Rough South” refers to as the world of the redneck or white trash. The terms “redneck,” “white trash,” “cracker,” and “poor white” have all been used to describe certain white southerners.

Trash or Treasure? Images of the Hardscrabble South in Twenty-First-Century Film

This chapter focuses on twenty-first-century films that depict the hardscrabble South. Divisive images of the American South have appeared throughout the history of film, for example, in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) or in Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind (1939). However, there have also been benign, even sympathetic films on poor southerners, including Jean Renoir's The Southerner (1945) and Debra Granik's 2010 adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone (2006). This chapter discusses films that portray the Rough South, such as George Washington (2000), Shotgun Stories (2007), and That Evening Sun (2009). The trend outlined by these and other filmmakers suggests that a conscious revision is underway: an attempt to bring the rough characters to the fore, to reexamine the conditions that give rise to “redneck,” “hillbilly,” and “white trash” stereotypes.

Twenty-First-Century Writers: The Rural Southern Tradition Continues

This chapter focuses on twenty-first-century writers who carry on the rural southern tradition in their work. Since 2000, several young southern writers, nearly all born after 1975 and from middle-class rural and lower-class backgrounds, have begun to publish fiction. Both portraying the areas where they were born and grew up and transcending those settings to address more universal themes, they have produced a significant body of praiseworthy work. Most were born into rural families but received the benefits of post-secondary education, but all seem committed to presenting the working-class South with realism and empathy. Among these new novelists are Joe Samuel Starnes, Peter Farris, John Brandon, Wiley Cash, Skip Horack, Barb Johnson, Michael Farris Smith, and Jesmyn Ward. Clearly, novels that address southern characters in southern scenes will continue to be written, whether of the Rough South variety from writers like Johnson or from writers like Ward, Horack, Brandon, Cash, and Smith.

“The Spiritual Energy of the Trees”: Nature, Place, and Religion in Silas House’s Crow County Trilogy

This chapter discusses Silas House's Crow County trilogy, which demonstrates binding connections to both family and place: Clay's Quilt (2001), A Parchment of Leaves (2002), and The Coal Tattoo (2004). All three novels trace four generations of several families in fictional Crow County, Kentucky, portraying their struggles and triumphs in one of the northwesternmost extremities of the mountain South. Raised in the Pentecostal Church, House places important metaphysical emphasis on spiritual relationships with nature and one's native land. A closer examination of his Crow County trilogy reveals the ties and disparities between Pentecostal Christianity and meaningful spiritual links to land. Emphasizing the spiritual and religious beliefs of his characters, House demonstrates the significant role the natural environment plays in Appalachian culture. While he explores the importance of traditional religion, he juxtaposes those customary expressions with the spiritual significance of the natural surroundings.

Kaye Gibbons: Tough Women in a Rough South

This chapter discusses Kaye Gibbons's work, which portrays wise and hardworking women whose gumption improves the lot of the suffering lower class. Born Bertha Kaye Batts on May 5, 1960, Kaye Gibbons grew up in a Nash County, North Carolina, farming community named Bend of the River. When Gibbons was ten, her mother committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills; her father drank himself to death soon thereafter. Orphaned at age twelve, Gibbons lived briefly with an aunt and then in a foster home, before moving in with her married older brother. Gibbons learned early to love the written word, a key to her survival. Her first novel, Ellen Foster, was published in 1987, and its sequel, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, in 2006. Gibbons's second novel, A Virtuous Woman (1989), features a character whose inner conflict highlights the tension between the Rough South and the working-class South her family represents. Gibbons's other novels include A Cure for Dreams (1991) and Charms for the Easy Life (1993).

“Everything Worth Doing Hurts Like Hell”: The Rough South of Tim Gautreaux

This chapter discusses the work of of Tim Gautreaux. Born in 1947, Gautreaux grew up in Morgan City, Louisiana, which during his childhood was “an oil-patch town with kind of a Wild West flavor” and a large collection of barrooms and churches. His experiences in Morgan City, along with the stories he heard from his father, a tugboat captain, and his grandfather, a steamboat engineer, led him to identify that world as his “territory as a writer.” Although he moved away from it as an adult, choosing to become a college professor, Gautreaux's appreciation and understanding of the grittier side of his upbringing remain evident. Most of Gautreaux's fiction fits within the general Rough South designation. Among his works are two short story collections, Same Place, Same Things (1996) and Welding with Children (1999). His first novel, The Next Step in the Dance, appeared in 1998. Gautreaux's more recent novels include The Clearing (2003) and The Missing (2009).