Yes, you can… Read Like a Redneck

If you’re a Southerner whose magnolias have wilted… or a Yankee who thinks the South is one big Wal-Mart filled with Honey BooBoos – all y’all* need to get over it. How? Just READ LIKE A REDNECK. Just in time for Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter Solstice/Kwanzaa, here’s my list of books about the South and/or by Southerners which any self-respecting bookshelf would be nekkid** without. In no particular order:
1. BEING DEAD IS NO EXCUSE: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral by Gayden Metcalf and Charlotte Hays. If cooking makes you just want to throw a hissy fit, you need this book. The recipes are good enough to raise the dead and the narrative about funeral food and burial customs in the Delta is stitch-busting funny.
2. WE’RE JUST LIKE YOU, ONLY PRETTIER by Celia Rivenbark. This collection of essays by North Carolina’s unofficial humorist laureate contains chapters like “Stop Watching Your Plasma TV and Start Selling Your Plasma: How to Become Honest-to-Jesus White Trash.” If you can get through this one without laughing, you were the guest of honor at the festivity described in #1 above. Do be a dear and also check out Rivenbark’s other books such as “Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like A Skank,” which should be required reading for anyone pimping their kid on Toddlers and Tiaras.
3. ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN’ by Rick Bragg. Bragg grew up in a hardscrabble corner of Alabama in an achingly poor family. As an adult he turned painful, loving and memorable recollections into this magnificent, touching work. He’s a writer of rare artistry and clarity. When you finish with “All Over But the Shoutin’” and want more, you’re in luck. Dive into “The Prince of Frogtown,” “The Most They Ever Had” or even “Southern Living” magazine which runs a monthly column by Bragg.
4. THE LAST HAYRIDE and CROSS TO BEAR by John Maginnis. Is Louisiana politics as crawfish crap crazy as you’ve heard? You bet! “The Last Hayride” chronicles high-rolling real-life former Gov. Edwin Edwards in his first comeback gubernatorial bid against incumbent Gov. Dave Treen. Edwards, never a slave to modesty, once remarked that he could only lose a race if he was found in bed with “a live boy or a dead girl.” Guess who won. “Cross to Bear” is the saga of the later “race from hell” when Edwards (after beating a federal indictment and third term scandals) ran for a fourth term against former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke and the incumbent, New Age reformer Buddy Roemer. Even Celia Rivenbark couldn’t make this stuff up if she tried.
5. A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole. Think you’ve got problems? Whatever they are, Ignatius J. Reilly, the blustery, fragile, narcissistic protagonist of “Confederacy” has you beat. Grab youself a erster poboy and a mug a Barq’s and settle into this Pulitzer Prize winning manic tragicomic masterpiece set in New Orleans. If you’re from New Orleans, ever been in New Orleans, ever wanted to visit New Orleans or have a screwy family, this book is the Lucky Dog on your bun.

*”All y’all” is plural inclusive, meaning everybody within hearing/reading distance – like everybody in the restaurant (“All y’all get out now! There’s a fire!”). “Y’all” is plural on a smaller scale – like the people at your table (“Y’all want some escargot?”). “Y’all” is never singular. Never ever. Ever. ** “Naked” means bare. “Nekkid” means bare and up to no good. “Your bookshelf is nekked without the books I just recommended.”

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