A Confederacy of Letters

Abstract

American hview Ferrer continuedfrom previous page-----------------genres , having grown out ofthem. And in those lazy, pat, spiceless, typecastformulas ofour private lives, we find—to give Michael Chabon the penultimate word—that we have "lost the sense of mystery, of mysteries and in the short form in general. the Mystery that redeems the whole sad production." BAMS 2005 is a robust and intriguing collection that goes some way in recovering the Mystery, both in Hugh Ferrer is the program coordinator for the International Writing Program andfiction editor at The Iowa Review. A Confederacy of Letters Tom Williams New Stories from the South 2005 Edited by Shannon Ravenel Algonquin http://www.algonquin.com 328 pages; paper, $13.95 Recently, the editor ofanother southernjournal asked me how long I had lived in the region. "Ifyou count my five years in Houston," I replied, "I've lived, off and on, for over ten years in the South, the last half in Eastern Arkansas." "And," I added, "I've no plans ofleaving." "But you'll neverbe a Southerner," my colleague said, and he was absolutely right. While one can emigrate to the US from anywhere in the world and become an American citizen, the Old Confederacy might allow transplants like us to take advantage of their low tax burdens, abundant sunshine, temperate weather—along with barbecue, catfish, and sweet tea by the gallon—but we will always be considered outsiders by natives. Why this occurs requires much more time than I have here, but let it be said that members of the Old and New South still view outsiders suspiciously, as if the only reason we're here is to spy upon primitive practices and report back to Manhattan about how little Dixie has changed since 1965—or, for that matter, since 1865. Yet, in my case, what drew me to this part ofthe world was the world of southern letters. And whether it was Flannery O. or William F. or Richard W. who first beckoned them, non-southern lovers of southern literature are common, far more common—to my mind—than what one finds with the other regional literatures of the United States. In fact, a case could be made that southern literature is the only regional literature we have. All one need do is look at Algonquin 's New Storiesfrom the South series, now in its twentieth year. Is there an equivalent for stories from the East, Midwest, or West? Occasionally, one finds such a volume, but not an annual, and not one with the consistent quality found in this series, started in 1986 by the indomitable Shannon Ravenel. The first issue's contributors (the latest volume, 2005, lists titles and authors from each year in the series) included Madison Smartt Bell, James Lee Burke, Mary Hood, and Max Apple, among others. A perusal of other volumes shows such names as Lewis Nordan, Richard Bausch, Larry Brown, Ellen Gilchrist, and Bobbie Ann Mason, notables always on the top of my list for bestAmerican writers as well as southern writers. The newest volume ofNew Storiesfrom the South will once again show the need for such an annual—there is so much good stuff published in journals and magazines every year. And the reader, whether southern (as the bumper stickers claim) "by the grace of God" or by choice, will find another sampling ofwonderful stories varied enoughtoplease just about anyone. Unlike the Best American Short Stories or O'Henry annuals, there is no celebrity judge for New Storiesfrom the South. Since 1997, such writers as Robert Olen Butler and Lee Smith have written prefaces, but have not participated in assembling the collection. This year's preface writer, Jill McCorkle —herself represented several times in the series—offers a fairly tame and lightly interesting take on the differences between the South and other regions; but once again it is Ravenel who selected the stories. I find it fairly impressive that New Stories has remained surprising and fresh over the years and hasn't fallen into a predictable aesthetic. Granted, one rarely encounters formally innovative fictions, but this is to be expected when one considers that, in the wake of Faulkner's daring experiments, most southern fiction...