Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Ten top Southern Gothic books

Jamie Kornegay lives in the Mississippi Delta, where he moved in 2006 to establish an independent bookstore, TurnRow Book Co. Before that he was a bookseller, events coordinator, and radio show producer at the famous Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. He studied creative fiction under Barry Hannah at the University of Mississippi.

Kornegay's new novel is Soil.

At Publishers Weekly the author tagged his ten best Southern Gothic books, including:
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor

I was first introduced to the notion of Southern Gothic in college when I read O’Connor’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Hazel Motes, the backwoods thinker of O’Connor’s only novel, is a darker and weirder anti-hero than another Gothic mainstay, Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces. Motes rides into town with a raw, wily anger that he appoints to an atheist street ministry, creating memorable sparks and dark comedy as he subjects a host of motley side characters to his blustering philosophy.
Read about another entry on the list.

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The Page 69 Test: Soil.

Writers Read: Jamie Kornegay.

--Marshal Zeringue