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Title: Queen of the Turtle Derby: And Other Southern Phenomena by Julia Reed ISBN: 0-679-40904-1 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 April, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Tremendously Fun Read, HOWEVER...
Comment: I LOVED this book. It was so much fun to read, and it was educational in places. Unfortunately, it was also VERY MISLEADING to anyone who does not have personal knowledge of the South. (I speak from the vantage point of being a native of Memphis, Tennessee for fifty-five years.)
The author repeatedly makes blanket statements about the South as though we were all just alike. Over and over she begins with "Southerners...." and then she goes on to imply we all carry or at least own a gun, set our tables with a gun, have very little regard for the ideals of truth and justice, and have no intellectual curiosity. Granted, there are many Southerners who do indeed fit this profile, but neither I, nor many of my friends, deserve this description. In addition, unlike the author, we consider cock fighting to be cruel and inhumane.
I shudder to think what someone from another region of the country will think when reading this book. I only hope they are wise enough to realize this is just one aspect of the South, not a balanced picture of all its people. Julia Reed has given the impression that we are ALL a bunch of ignorant rednecks. I fully understand that in order to write an entertaining book such as this one, one must focus on the nuts and the crooks, but the continued practice of stating that "Southerners......" and going on to write about only the least enlightened Southerners, is hardly what one would expect from someone who claims to love the South.
Read this book and enjoy it, but please remember it's just one aspect of a complicated region.
Rating: 5
Summary: Shocking, funny, wry, and accurate
Comment: Talk about your "hitting the nail on the head." Julia Reed's wry and witty observations about THE most colorful region of our nation is by far one of the best books I've encountered. Upon first reading (yes, I actually read it twice), I thought to myself, "This is not so---we don't all carry guns." Then I gave it a little more thought. We all DO carry them! Even my eighty-three year-old aunt has one in her purse. But Reed's observations don't stop there, for she delves into the "why" of things and in some instances, touches a nerve. Perhaps her unique perspective on the south comes from actually living there AND the north. The only other writer who has tackled these issues and the sort of "north/South current debate" on this level is Jackson McCrae in his "Bark of the Dogwood--A Tour of Southern Homes and Gardens." In fact, some commentaries in Reed's book were remarkably similar, but the McCrae is a work of fiction. Then again, this is what binds Southerners to the South: the fact that we're all share common interests and backgrounds, yet can all be unique. It's something you can't understand unless you're from that region or have lived there for an extended period of time. Truly, it is another country and Reed has captured this perfectly. Would also recommend Flagg's "Fried Green Tomatoes" for anyone interested in good Southern literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: Southern Amusements
Comment: It used to be thought that media, especially television, would produce a homogenized America, with accents becoming neutral and local color all blending into one American norm. It's true that a McDonald's here is pretty much the same as one there, and suburban sprawl seems the same everywhere. The South, however, is a truly peculiar place that will not be culturally assimilated, and if you don't believe it, check out _Queen of the Turtle Derby: And Other Southern Phenomena_ (Random House), a collection of comic essays by Julia Reed. Reed, a senior writer at _Vogue_ and a contributing editor at _Newsweek_, grew up in the Mississippi Delta, in Greenville, and now shuttles between New York and New Orleans. Naturally, as comic essayist, she does not concentrate on the problems of the South, but her funny reporting on the startling eccentricities and insistent traditions of her homeland is a joy to read.
The darkest part of the South she covers, even if she does so with a grin, is the violence. A third of the nation's population lives in the South, and they commit 42% of all homicides. Serious crime has risen in the South, where it has gone down nationally. A simple explanation: "We shoot more people because we have the most guns." Elvis Presley took guns when he visited the White House. "I'm sure he didn't even think about it. He's going out, he's got his guns." When her father visited her in her apartment in New Orleans, he failed to mention the high ceilings or the fancy plasterwork or mantels. His one housewarming comment: "You need to get a gun." The title of the book comes from a turtle race, an annual event known as the Lepanto Terrapin Derby. Turtles race on a sixty foot course for an exciting fifteen minutes. There is a festival surrounding the event, and the climactic crowning of the Turtle Derby Queen. The South has such royalty all over, not just the traditional beauty pageant queens, but the Catfish Queen, Poultry Princess, Miss Pink Tomato or monarch over some other local point of pride. Southerners drink, and there is a chapter here on the bizarre history of Mississippi prohibition which included bootleggers of illegal whiskey paying legal taxes to ply their trade. Southerners eat. Personifying Southern hospitality, Reed gives here the recipes for George Jones Sausage Balls, which she got from the country singer himself, for that strange Southern misnomer the frozen tomato, and for fried chicken, although it won't be as good fried chicken as that from her own cook, Lottie Martin.
There is, appropriately, a good deal about religion, too, including the story about the Arkansas governor who refused to sign a tornado relief bill because it referred to the tornado as an "act of God," and his God would never have done anything like that. Perhaps, as Reed points out, he needed refreshing on the earlier books of the Bible. Reed herself says that in New Orleans, there are mosquitoes, caterpillars with spines that are toxic even when the caterpillar is dead, feral hogs digging up the levees that protect the city, and indestructible Formosan termites that have bigger colonies and bigger appetites than the normal ones and can eat through mortar. She used to say that living there is like living in the Old Testament. She has realized, though, that "the plagues of Egypt lasted only seven days. Ours never end." And may the South as she so amusingly describes it here, silly, tradition-bound, patrician, vicious, and gracious, never end as well.
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Title: We're Just Like You, Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle by Celia Rivenbark ISBN: 0312312431 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Bergdorf Blondes : A Novel by Plum Sykes ISBN: 1401351964 Publisher: Miramax Pub. Date: 07 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Bless Your Heart, Tramp by Celia Rivenbark ISBN: 1928556221 Publisher: Coastal Carolina Press Pub. Date: November, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Turn South at the Next Magnolia : Directions from a Lifelong Southerner by Nan Graham ISBN: 192855623X Publisher: Coastal Carolina Press Pub. Date: 20 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Essentially Lilly: A Guide to Colorful Entertaining by Lilly Pulitzer, Jay Mulvaney ISBN: 0060577495 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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