That's What I like (about the South), and Other New Southern Stories for the Nineties »

"Southern fiction is alive and kicking and going off in all kinds of directions as this old century staggers to an end." To prove their audacious pronouncement, George Garrett and Paul Ruffin have assembled thirty-one stories representing the best of recent Southern fiction. These stories weave together themes that underscore what being Southern is all about: the retelling of the past, the uncertainty of the future, the haunting presence of racial guilt, the inescapable influence of family - for better or worse, the struggle for survival, and the tragedy and humor of Southern life. As Fred Chappell writes in introducing these works: "Southern literature is almost as legendary a part of Southern history as the battles and politics." Born of a Texas Review competition to honor outstanding new writing, the collection snowballed as Garrett and Ruffin realized that Southern fiction of the 1990s merits a gathering all its own. The contributors hail from nearly every Southern state - Texas to Virginia; their subjects span the world; their styles fit no defined formulas; their works both praise and parody the literary legacy of their forebears. Some writers are well known while others are virtually unknown. Only two stories have appeared in previous collections. Unified by excellence as much as by region, these works comprise the most representative, comprehensive, and entertaining collection of short Southern fiction to be published in decades.

Publishers Weekly

A number of themes unify the otherwise varied works in this collection. R.H.W. Dillard playfully intercuts a list of these themes in the collection's title story; among them are ``deep involvement in place . . . family bonds . . . celebration of eccentricity . . . an inability to leave the past behind.'' Fred Chappell's funny, fantastic tale about a couple's flesh-and-blood (and tobacco-spit) encounters with their Civil War ancestors points out the dangers of living too intimately with history. Lolis Eric Elie examines another legacy of the South in a story about a jazz musician's attempt to pass on his musical heritage to a group of boys more interested in R&B and football. Some stories, such as Madison Smartt Bell's, about a woman fishing for hammerhead sharks, are more concerned with how the physical lay of the land contours the emotional terrain. Kelly Cherry sets her story in Wisconsin, but its family-oriented roots (``While I was in the mental hospital,'' it begins provocatively, ``my brother ran off with a Hungarian countess.'') are in the South. Garrett ( The Sorrows of Fat City ) and Ruffin, an editor of the Texas Review , offer a well-balanced arrangement of stories juxtaposed to flow and surprise, a sparkling collection that both illuminates and transcends its geography. (Apr.)