The She Writes Southern Writers 4th of July Countdown Blog Tour celebrating the Southern writers of the SheWrites community and the theme of "Southern Living" continues at The Full-Bodied (Book) Blog and guest blogger Dera Williams.


Be sure to follow the tour this week! It runs from June 27-July 4. 

Why? Because people who leave insightful comments on the blog post(s) during the tour will be entered into a random drawing to receive a special Southern Living-themed prize (worth $50) donated in part by me and JimandZetta.com Author/Publisher Services.
The more blogs you visit and the more comments you make throughout the tour, the more chances you get to win.


Other blogs are offering prizes too, but you have to visit them on the day and find out.
Click here for the full tour schedule.
Today Dera shares her feelings about that romanticized figure of the Southern belle with her views of the award-winning novel, Salvage the Bones: A Novel .

"Not Your Storybook Southern Belle"By Dera Williams
When one thinks in terms of Southern literature some of us may still have a picture of a story replete with a Southern belle; a damsel in distress, or a dainty woman girl who is surrounded by pursuant beaus, or women who are manipulative and self-centered, not unlike Scarlet O’Hara of Gone with the Wind. Most times these heroines of Southern lore are white women of means, fair maidens of acclaimed beauty, and they are known for their manipulative and contrary natures.
Yes, I have read plenty of these kinds of stories over the years. Those of us who have immersed ourselves in Southern literature have done so. Those are fun, light, “Calgon, take me away” guilty pleasures. But, I have found that the most memorable Southern heroines, the ones who stay with me and have me reflecting on the intricacies of Southern living and the complexities of the human spirit, are those women who are the furthest from your storybook Southern belle.
 Enter Esch Batiste, a fourteen-year-old black girl living on the edges of poverty in Bois Savage, Mississippi on the Gulf Coast days before Hurricane Katrina in the award-winning novel,  Salvage the Bones .
Esch is a motherless girl-child in a household of males, including an emotionally distant father who favors the bottle. In a temporary sober state, Claude Batiste begins the task of preparing his family for the upcoming storm. Esch, as an only girl with two older brothers and a younger brother she is raising after her mother dies in childbirth, is counting cans of potted meat and bags of Top Ramen and eggs from the few chickens that the family raises in preparation for yet another storm. But her problems are much more complex and troubling. Esch is pregnant, and the father of the child might as well be nonexistent. He is an unemployed, aimless no-count, someone who comes around every once in awhile.
Esch, a lover of Greek mythology—has visions of a parallel life with Medusa—has no women models, but she dreams of a better life for herself and her unborn child. She is there for her brothers, whether she is helping second oldest Skeetah ransack a neighboring farmhouse, or helping him secure food for his beloved, prized-fighting pit bull, China. Or supporting oldest brother Randall’s dream of obtaining a basketball college scout’s eye to for a scholarship out of rural Bois Savage.
What are Esch’s dreams, goals, and plans for the future? Poor, black, disenfranchised, motherless child that she is? Dare she dream of finishing school, making a life for herself and her baby? She already has the responsibility of raising her five-year-old brother, foraging meals on a day-to-day basis, and attempting to survive in a testosterone-filled household. Esch, like most residents, think the coming storm is just another nuisance to get through. Only when it becomes clear that Hurricane Katrina is much more than anyone imagined, does the moment of truth of her circumstances become a reality.
Not a storybook Southern belle, Esch is not fortified with finances to get herself and her family out of harm’s way but must stay and endure it. But strong and determined, a steel magnolia in troubled waters, she emerges whole, determined and hopeful because that is what her mother would have wanted her to be. Knowing there is a long road to recovery, Esch, her family, and her community come together and take care of one another, and though she is still poor, still motherless, and still with child, she can see the possibilities. Not your typical storybook Southern belle, but a woman of substance.



Dera Williams lives, works and plays in the Oakland/Bay Area where she has lived most of her life. She works in curriculum development at a local community college. Proud of her Southern roots, she is the family historian, a writer/editor/reviewer, and writing mentor. Her most recent publication is as co-author of MOTHER WIT: Stories of Mothers and Daughters . Dera is completing a Southern novel of epic proportions and working on an eBook novella. Visit her blog at  http://www.derarwilliams.blogspot.com


Visit today's next stop on the She Writes Southern Writers 4th of July Countdown Blog Tour:
Visit Melanie Pennington's blog, Musings & Meanderings: Thoughts on Life and Healing and read her post "The Flavors of My Childhood"


And don't forget to visit yesterday's stops:
"Evolution AND Creationism: The Birth of a Southern Novel" by Ramey Channell 
"Hospitality, Welcome to the South" by Charity Bradford