Dream a little Book

Along with Michael Kreyling's "Inventing Southern Literature," this is one of the most provocative and original critical studies of Southern Literature to date. It's refreshing to see narrowly-casted myths of the Southern writer--(i.e. Agrarian, Southern Renaissance-affiliated/influenced, white, bourbon-soaked males writing and responding to "intellectual" history(ies) of the South, etc.)--exploded and redefined to include writers who've been historically excluded or misread. As Yaeger argues throughout her book, for too many years, "Southern" has been conflated with "white/male," and has been pitched as a literature that is obsessed primarily with "community." Here is her pivotal response to this limiting notion that attempts to pigeonhole and marginalize "Southernness":

Yeager writes:

"Is Southern literature about family and community? Sometimes. But it is more likely to be about struggle, crisis, cultural emergence, and emergency" (44).

Yes!

This is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in Southern Literature.