Grit Lit

by Carpenter, Brian; Franklin, Tom

• ISBN13: 9781611170832
• ISBN10: 1611170834
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-15
• Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Pr

Summary

Drawing on storytelling traditions as old as southern literature itself, Grit Lit is the first anthology devoted to contemporary writing about the Rough South. From literary legends to emerging voices, the acclaimed writers featured in this collection view their hardscrabble South without romanticism or false nostalgia, not through moonlight and magnolia but moonshine and Marlboros. This is the dirty South as captured by those rooted in its land yet able to share its stories with candor and courage. Grit Lit guides readers through tales both tall and true, intoxicating stories of loss, violence, failure, feuds, family, and--above all--survival against the odds. Raw and raucous, Grit Lit gathers some of the most provocative writing to come out of the South in the last thirty years. With a preface by Edgar Award-winning author Tom Franklin and Brian Carpenter's introduction to the genre's origins and influences, this bold anthology lays bare the Rough South in all its battered glory and dares readers not to stare in awe.

Table of Contents

Preface: What's Grit Lit?	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Blood and Bone	p. xiii
Memoies
A Childhood: The Biography of a Place	p. 3
"Deciding to Live"	p. 16
On Fire: A Personal Account of Life and Death and Choices	p. 23
Keeper of the Moon: A Southern Boyhood	p. 34
Ava's Man and All Over but the Shoutin'	p. 46
"A Body in the River"	p. 56
Fiction
A Feast of Snakes	p. 65
"Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter"	p. 83
"The Scrapper"	p. 89
"Samaritans"	p. 101
The Acorn Plan	p. 110
"River of Names"	p. 125
"Pit"	p. 134
The Sharpshooter Blues	p. 145
"Your Daddy in Time"	p. 163
"Melungeons"	p. 169
"Jacksonville"	p. 179
"What It Cost Travelers"	p. 190
Saving Grace	p. 208
"Sleepy Gap"	p. 222
"Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?"	p. 232
"Kindred Spirits"	p. 246
"Sorry Blood"	p. 263
Winters Bone	p. 277
"Speckled Trout"	p. 283
"Atlas Towing"	p. 298
"Redneck Boys"	p. 313
"The Coal Thief"	p. 322
Notes	p. 339
References and Supplemental Materials	p. 349
Index	p. 357
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