11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Anthology, Sep 23 2007
By Okla Elliott - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Surreal South (Paperback)
This anthology is a must-have. It explodes/expands surrealism (by grounding it), and it explodes/expands southern literature (by freeing it).
Also, the line-up is first-rate: Andrew Hudgins, Joyce Carol Oates, Lee K Abbott, Laura and Pinckney Benedict, along with William Gay, Robert Olen Butler, Chris Offutt, and Rodney Jones. All rock stars, to my mind.
But then there's the up-and-comers: Kyle Minor, Benjamin Percy, and Jacinda Townsend.
Buy this anthology. Assign it to your students, if you teach. Buy it for friends and family. Stand on top of a very tall hill and yodel its praises until everyone hears you.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From literateyourself.blogspot.com, Oct 19 2009
By Cat Bird - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Surreal South (Paperback)
SURREAL SOUTH is everything I love about being Southern. There's an inherited creepiness in the grotesque beauty, the strange motivations, and the dogs, because be honest, we're strange over our dogs. There are a lot of details to draw a reader to crack the binding of SURREAL SOUTH: the creepy little girl and the circling murder of crows on the cover, Rodney Jones' quote on the back, "Our Southern reality hatched as surrealism," and the editor's names, Laura and Pinkney Benedict. Not to be prejudicial, but don't you know a man with a name like Pinkney Benedict must know a good story? Just like you know a Daughtry is a politician or a Ruby can make a pie.
There are a lot of stories and poems in here one could pass out as treats to the tricksters. Right off the bat, the reader takes the side of a murderer in the opening tale, Daniel Woodrell's "The Echo of Neighborly Bones." Laura Benedict sneaks up from behind with unhinged madness in "Witches, All." I think I once waited tables with the Wonder Bread truck driving come elephant wrangling magician in Jon Tribble's poem, "Cactus Vic and His Marvelous Magical Elephant."
Press 53 is publishing a second edition of SURREAL SOUTH, again edited by Laura and Pinkney Benedict, to be released on Halloween 2009. Just in time to build a fire, pour a big glass of red, and read aloud.
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