The Storied South - by William Ferris (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The Storied South features the voices -- by turn searching and honest, coy and scathing -- of twenty-six of the most luminous artists and thinkers in the American cultural firmament, from Eudora Welty, Pete Seeger, and Alice Walker to William Eggleston, Bobby Rush, and C. Vann Woodward. Masterfully drawn from one-on-one interviews conducted by renowned folklorist William Ferris over the past forty years, the book reveals how storytelling is viscerally tied to southern identity and how the work of these southern or southern-inspired creators has shaped the way Americans think and talk about the South.
The Storied South offers a unique, intimate opportunity to sit at the table with these men and women and learn how they worked and how they perceived their art. The volume also features 45 of Ferris's striking photographic portraits of the speakers and a CD and a DVD of original audio and films of the interviews.

Review Quotes

"The Storied South is a book you could read on and on and on." -- Flycatcher

"[A] comprehensive collection of accounts by these foundational southern artists. . . . Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers." -- CHOICE

"[A] rich collection developed over 40 years. . . . [A] moving and eloquent book." -- Publishers Weekly

"[A] wonderful work. Required for viewers and readers interested in Southern folkways and culture." -- Library Journal starred review

"An immensely important book that is passionate and keenly insightful and that is a crucial addition to the growing body of work on the South." -- Journal of Southern History

"Ferris offers a collection of his interviews with writers and artists he has come to know personally during 40 years of tramping around his native land." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Ferris' idea of an essential South, layered by a narrative sensibility in music, literature and the visual arts, sings to the better angels of our nature. . . . Yet reading this remarkable book one realizes, too, that a brooding, unsettled nature about the South is still sadly with us." -- New Orleans Magazine

"Intimate and moving. . . . Undoubtedly a volume that should be included in the personal library of every Southerner or lover of the Southern storytelling tradition. When the final page of The Storied South is turned, readers will truly feel like they have been sitting on the front porch listening to the voices and stories of these legendary Southern icons." -- Click Magazine

"The book is a one-of-a-kind trove." -- Visual Communication Quarterly

"With Ferris as a guide, readers will get a revealing look at [the south] before air-conditioning and chain businesses, smartphones and corporate monoliths changed it forever." -- Raleigh News & Observer

About the Author

William Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris is author of Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, among other books, and coeditor of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.