Abstract
In a 1977 review-essay, Walker Percy: Not Just Whistling Dixie, Richard Ford seconded subject of his article by asserting that regionalism a factor in impulse that makes us write novels . . . has had its day.l At time, Ford must have felt especially strongly about taking such a stand. He had recently published A Piece of My Heart (1976), a debut novel in which, Ford later observed, thought I was writing about South in a way that nobody would ever recognize being southern. heartbreaking thing, he recalled, was that critics still wrote about A Piece of My Heart as a piece of, if not Gothic, at least southern r i t i ng . ~ In The New York Times Book Review, Larry McMurtry cited Ford's neo-Faulknerism and opined that South dadgumrnit has struck again, marring what might have been an 'excellent first n v e l . Pace McMurtry's review, A Piece of My Heart can in fact be seen opening salvo in Ford's ongoing fictional interrogation of the South, especially region has been represented in literature. Towards end of A Piece of My Heart, reader bears witness
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