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Long Time Leaving Lib/E: Dispatches from Up South
The first collection of the beloved humorist's sly, dry, hilarious essays in more than a decade focuses on a perennially popular the South vs. the North. When [Northerners] ask me to explain grits, I look at them like an Irishman who's been asked to explain potatoes. When I was a boy in Georgia, college sports was Bobby Dodd versus Bear Bryant immemorial. Compared to that the Harvard-Yale game is a panel discussion. Anybody who claims . . . not to have 'a racist bone' in his or her body is at best preracist and has a longer way to go than the rest of us. Hard-working humorist Roy Blount Jr. lives in the North but he's from the South, a delicious tension that has always informed and shaped his work. In this new collection, he directs his acerbic wit and finely-tuned insight toward the persistent and colorful differences between the two. His essays treat every conceivable topic on which North and South misunderstand each other, from music to sports, eating, education, politics, child-rearing, religion, race, and language (remember when there was lots of discussion of 'ebonics'?). In this eminently quotable collection, Blount does justice to the charming, funny, infuriating facets of Southern tradition and their equally odd Northern counterpoints.
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First published May 1, 2007
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About the author
Roy Blount Jr.
71 books66 followersRoy Blount Jr. is the author of twenty-three books. The first, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, was expanded into About Three Bricks Shy . . . and the Load Filled Up. It is often called one of the best sports books of all time. His subsequent works have taken on a range of subjects, from Duck Soup, to Robert E. Lee, to what cats are thinking, to how to savor New Orleans, to what it’s like being married to the first woman president of the United States.
Blount is a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, an ex-president of the Authors Guild, a usage consultant for the American Heritage Dictionary, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, and a member of both the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the band the Rock Bottom Remainders.
In 2009, Blount received the University of North Carolina’s Thomas Wolfe Prize. The university cited “his voracious appetite for the way words sound and for what they really mean.” Time places Blount “in the tradition of the great curmudgeons like H. L. Mencken and W. C. Fields.” Norman Mailer has said, “Page for page, Roy Blount is as funny as anyone I’ve read in a long time.” Garrison Keillor told the Paris Review, “Blount is the best. He can be literate, uncouth, and soulful all in one sentence.”
Blount’s essays, articles, stories, and verses have appeared in over one hundred and fifty publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, the Oxford American, and Garden & Gun. He comes from Decatur, Georgia, and lives in western Massachusetts.
Blount is a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, an ex-president of the Authors Guild, a usage consultant for the American Heritage Dictionary, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, and a member of both the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the band the Rock Bottom Remainders.
In 2009, Blount received the University of North Carolina’s Thomas Wolfe Prize. The university cited “his voracious appetite for the way words sound and for what they really mean.” Time places Blount “in the tradition of the great curmudgeons like H. L. Mencken and W. C. Fields.” Norman Mailer has said, “Page for page, Roy Blount is as funny as anyone I’ve read in a long time.” Garrison Keillor told the Paris Review, “Blount is the best. He can be literate, uncouth, and soulful all in one sentence.”
Blount’s essays, articles, stories, and verses have appeared in over one hundred and fifty publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, the Oxford American, and Garden & Gun. He comes from Decatur, Georgia, and lives in western Massachusetts.
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December 8, 2009
The temptation in writing about someone as witty as Roy Blount Jr. is just to rear back and quote. So let’s put temptation before us, with a sample of what’s to be found in his latest book, “Long Time Leaving”:
• On Truman Capote: “his writing did over time tend to break up in the opposite but complementary directions of mistiness and nastiness (until all the romance was gone and he was reduced to a mode we might call desiccated indiscreet)”
• On pretentious academic studies of the blues: “the Garons have heaped upon the supremely no-nonsense Memphis Minnie, of all people, a load of flummery. They present us with an enormous wad of tulle and bubble wrap and tell us there’s a wildcat in there.”
• On religion: “I never heard anyone say ‘What would Jesus do?’ when I was growing up. We knew Jesus would most likely do what he did do – something crazy by community standards, some far-out-liberal, crucifiable offense, something we weren’t about to do.”
• On dogs: “I have been unable, so far, to find a very gratifying petting surface on a poodle. Where a poodle is fluffy, I can’t get any traction, and where it’s close-cropped it’s like petting a nubbly carpet. I prefer a dog that’s somewhere between a chicken and a baseball to the touch.”
• On Bill Clinton: “The big galoot still tugs at us personally, like a two-year-old trying to drag us over to the candy counter.”
If that’s not enough to persuade you that Blount might well be the finest American humorist since James Thurber, then you need to read this book anyway. Dave Barry might be more skilled at exploring the weirdness to be found in the flea markets and garage sales that constitute American culture, and David Sedaris (unless you are one of those who are shocked, shocked to learn that he makes stuff up) might be better at locating the hilarity behind the frequently painful episodes of his personal life. But no one has a finer ear, is a more talented listener, and is better at getting what he hears onto paper than Blount, whether he’s doing a spot-on parody in which William Faulkner plays mixed doubles tennis with Zasu Pitts, Clark Gable and Dorothy Parker, or he’s re-creating the kind of conversation you might hear at a Southern dinner table.
You might call Blount a deconstructed Southerner. His latest book is a collection of essays on some of his favorite things: food, music, books, movies, friends, places and politics. But because roughly half of it is made up of the columns slugged “Gone Off Up North” that he wrote for the Oxford American magazine, it’s largely about what it means to be from the South – in Blount’s case, Decatur, Ga. – but not of the South, or at least not the South as imagined by some Northerners and Left Coasters, a place largely inhabited by clones of Jerry Falwell, Snuffy Smith and David Duke.
Blount, who characterizes himself as “a pre-baby boom liberal Southern Democrat living in semirural Massachusetts,” has now spent about two-thirds of his life out of the South. “The Enlightenment is essentially what I left home looking for, and I found it,” he tells us. The South is a nice place to visit but he doesn’t want to live there. Yet he is ineluctably a Southern writer. “I maintain you can’t live in the South and be a deep-dyed Southern writer. If you live in the South you are just writing about folks, so far as you can tell, and it comes out Southern, For all we know, if you moved West, you’d be a Western writer. Whereas, if you live outside the South, you are being a Southern writer either (a) on purpose or (b) because you can’t help it. Which comes to the same thing in the end: you are deep dyed.”
Humorists don’t win Nobel Prizes in Literature, more’s the pity, even though the craft of being funny is far more arduous than that of being serious, as the labored examples of countless newspaper columnists and blathering bloggers show. As some actor or other is said to have proclaimed on his deathbed, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Blount’s special gift, the one he shares with such towering figures as Thurber and Mark Twain, is a kind of sprezzatura: He makes it look easy.
The greatness of Blount is not only that he’s witty, but also that he’s wise. “A book,” he tells us, “ought to be something that a person can read the way a person is meant to eat chicken: something with plenty of unabashed and also intimate flavor, ruddy and deep-dyed flavor, flavor hard to separate from the structure, flavor that is never really exhaustible.” “Long Time Leaving” is that kind of book. So pull up a copy and dig in.
• On Truman Capote: “his writing did over time tend to break up in the opposite but complementary directions of mistiness and nastiness (until all the romance was gone and he was reduced to a mode we might call desiccated indiscreet)”
• On pretentious academic studies of the blues: “the Garons have heaped upon the supremely no-nonsense Memphis Minnie, of all people, a load of flummery. They present us with an enormous wad of tulle and bubble wrap and tell us there’s a wildcat in there.”
• On religion: “I never heard anyone say ‘What would Jesus do?’ when I was growing up. We knew Jesus would most likely do what he did do – something crazy by community standards, some far-out-liberal, crucifiable offense, something we weren’t about to do.”
• On dogs: “I have been unable, so far, to find a very gratifying petting surface on a poodle. Where a poodle is fluffy, I can’t get any traction, and where it’s close-cropped it’s like petting a nubbly carpet. I prefer a dog that’s somewhere between a chicken and a baseball to the touch.”
• On Bill Clinton: “The big galoot still tugs at us personally, like a two-year-old trying to drag us over to the candy counter.”
If that’s not enough to persuade you that Blount might well be the finest American humorist since James Thurber, then you need to read this book anyway. Dave Barry might be more skilled at exploring the weirdness to be found in the flea markets and garage sales that constitute American culture, and David Sedaris (unless you are one of those who are shocked, shocked to learn that he makes stuff up) might be better at locating the hilarity behind the frequently painful episodes of his personal life. But no one has a finer ear, is a more talented listener, and is better at getting what he hears onto paper than Blount, whether he’s doing a spot-on parody in which William Faulkner plays mixed doubles tennis with Zasu Pitts, Clark Gable and Dorothy Parker, or he’s re-creating the kind of conversation you might hear at a Southern dinner table.
You might call Blount a deconstructed Southerner. His latest book is a collection of essays on some of his favorite things: food, music, books, movies, friends, places and politics. But because roughly half of it is made up of the columns slugged “Gone Off Up North” that he wrote for the Oxford American magazine, it’s largely about what it means to be from the South – in Blount’s case, Decatur, Ga. – but not of the South, or at least not the South as imagined by some Northerners and Left Coasters, a place largely inhabited by clones of Jerry Falwell, Snuffy Smith and David Duke.
Blount, who characterizes himself as “a pre-baby boom liberal Southern Democrat living in semirural Massachusetts,” has now spent about two-thirds of his life out of the South. “The Enlightenment is essentially what I left home looking for, and I found it,” he tells us. The South is a nice place to visit but he doesn’t want to live there. Yet he is ineluctably a Southern writer. “I maintain you can’t live in the South and be a deep-dyed Southern writer. If you live in the South you are just writing about folks, so far as you can tell, and it comes out Southern, For all we know, if you moved West, you’d be a Western writer. Whereas, if you live outside the South, you are being a Southern writer either (a) on purpose or (b) because you can’t help it. Which comes to the same thing in the end: you are deep dyed.”
Humorists don’t win Nobel Prizes in Literature, more’s the pity, even though the craft of being funny is far more arduous than that of being serious, as the labored examples of countless newspaper columnists and blathering bloggers show. As some actor or other is said to have proclaimed on his deathbed, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Blount’s special gift, the one he shares with such towering figures as Thurber and Mark Twain, is a kind of sprezzatura: He makes it look easy.
The greatness of Blount is not only that he’s witty, but also that he’s wise. “A book,” he tells us, “ought to be something that a person can read the way a person is meant to eat chicken: something with plenty of unabashed and also intimate flavor, ruddy and deep-dyed flavor, flavor hard to separate from the structure, flavor that is never really exhaustible.” “Long Time Leaving” is that kind of book. So pull up a copy and dig in.
March 12, 2020
Pseudo folksy collection of essays by a Harvard educated writer that focuses on politics, religion and the great chasm between urban and rural, north and south.
What is the unique take on these timeless issues? Blount used to live in Georgia. But not any more... now he lives in New England. Gullivers travels, part deux.
Highly recommend for Boomer Democrats from the South who believe themselves to have cornered the market on morality. Pass for everyone else.
What is the unique take on these timeless issues? Blount used to live in Georgia. But not any more... now he lives in New England. Gullivers travels, part deux.
Highly recommend for Boomer Democrats from the South who believe themselves to have cornered the market on morality. Pass for everyone else.
January 1, 2016
I've read essays of Blount Jr. before and enjoy hearing him on "Wait, wait...Don't Tell Me," and I thought I would enjoy this book much more than I did. He is very effective at explaining some of the nuances of southern food, speech, reading, music, etc. and even more effective at explaining why some of those fine southern touches are so important to him. But it just seems as if there is just too much throughout most of the book. He says something funny in a sentence and then adds on another funny. As someone who is northern-born perhaps I never will get the infant baptism Joke on p. 45, but I think ultimately I do get it and it's just not that funny. To make matters worse, he goes on for several pages explaining the feedback from people over that joke, from the pee-in-my-panters to the knuckle-draggers like myself left who are left scratching our brows with our non-opposing thumbs.
I did very much enjoy enjoy his explanation for taking umbrage at the word "redneck" and his literary doubles with Faulkner and ZaSu Pitts teamed against Clark Gable and Dorothy Parker.
But when Blount Jr. waxed on about southern foods--exactly what is shortening bread?, chicken, corn bread, etc.--I again felt overwhelmed, as though all those items were placed in one serving bowl and mashed up and then served, a dollop of things all mixed together on my plate. It was for my palates--both gustatory and literary--to make sense of it all.
I did very much enjoy enjoy his explanation for taking umbrage at the word "redneck" and his literary doubles with Faulkner and ZaSu Pitts teamed against Clark Gable and Dorothy Parker.
But when Blount Jr. waxed on about southern foods--exactly what is shortening bread?, chicken, corn bread, etc.--I again felt overwhelmed, as though all those items were placed in one serving bowl and mashed up and then served, a dollop of things all mixed together on my plate. It was for my palates--both gustatory and literary--to make sense of it all.
January 5, 2016
Long Time Leaving didn't keep me in nonstop stitches, but when the anecdotes weren't laugh-out-loud funny, they were always interesting, touching, or poignant, and the audiobook as a whole made my lengthy daily commute enjoyable.
As a born Southerner who has long lived in the northeast, Blount has a keen eye for the idiosyncracies of denizens of both regions and a gift for colorful description and commentary. Vocally, he reminds me a lot of Andy Griffith and Jerry Clower, but he is easily as subtle and cantankerous a satirist as Mark Twain. Justifiably or not, some of his commentary comes across as overly sensitive, particularly when he narrates an interlocutor's reaction when he fails to act according to their preconceptions, but it's easy enough to dismiss that as being played for comic effect, which he does masterfully.
As a born Southerner who has long lived in the northeast, Blount has a keen eye for the idiosyncracies of denizens of both regions and a gift for colorful description and commentary. Vocally, he reminds me a lot of Andy Griffith and Jerry Clower, but he is easily as subtle and cantankerous a satirist as Mark Twain. Justifiably or not, some of his commentary comes across as overly sensitive, particularly when he narrates an interlocutor's reaction when he fails to act according to their preconceptions, but it's easy enough to dismiss that as being played for comic effect, which he does masterfully.
August 13, 2007
Pretty funny in a my-dad-would-love-this kind of way, which was great because my dad's a pretty funny, insightful guy. As a transplant to the Northeast myself, I appreciated his insistence on the complexities origin and identity, never being fully comfortable with the label "Southern writer."
January 10, 2010
Not Blount's best book, but hell, his mediocre writing is better than many other people's best work.
January 31, 2015
He expresses exactly what it's like to be a proud and apologetic Southerner.
June 27, 2023
Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South by Roy Blount, Jr. (Alfred A. Knopf 2006) (975) (3823).
This book is a collection of Dixie-centric essays from one of the thinking man’s favorite Southern humorists. Roy Blount has an endless supply of hilarious one-liners, and the essays featured herein are chock full of them.
As to the essays themselves, Blount reminds me a great deal of a Southern P.J. O’Rourke. Blount’s humor is both witty and biting, but 393 pages of his essays was too many by a long shot.
At his best, he is very funny. Here is his take on college sports outside of the South:
“[I] make a point of taking no interest whatsoever in what passes in the North for college sports. When I was a boy in Georgia, college sports was Bobby Dodd versus Bear Bryant immemorial. Compared to that, the Harvard-Yale game is a panel discussion. When all the college sports you can follow in the local media are Nehi or Lehigh or whatever against Hofstra or Colgate or somebody, why bother? You know what they call the team at Williams College? The Ephs. Let me repeat that: the Ephs. Pronounced eefs. Do you think that anybody who is willing to be called an Eph is capable of playing any sport at a level anywhere near root-hog-or-die? Caring about college sports in the Northeast is like caring about French food in South Carolina.” (p.25-6).
He has this to say about Southern cooking:
“These days people worry so much about their hearts that they don’t eat hearty. The way folks were meant to eat is the way my family ate when I was growing up in Georgia. We ate till we got tired. Then we went “Whoo!” and leaned back and wholeheartedly expressed how much we regretted that we couldn’t summon up the strength, right then, to eat some more.” (p.80).
And I was gratified to learn this pertinent fact about dogs: “Unless they’re overbred, dogs are essentially Southern.” (p.81). But I already knew that.
Finally, Roy Blount also had nothing good to say about Elvis (The King) (may he rest in peace) or about author Albert Goldman after Blount digested Albert Goldman’s memoir-expose of The Legend.
My rating: 7/10, finished 6/25/23 (3823).
November 8, 2017
I'll allow that I might could read, work, eat, sleep, sell on eBay, scrutinize Garcia lyrics, walk the dogs, micro-farm, write and do most things a site too much. But there is nary enough time in life to drink in the pure truth that Mr. Blount offers. It's like Ken Kesey said during Dark Star on 10/31/91, "Nobody else reaches across the distance and puts their hand on your shoulder and talks to you about this S. That's what the Dead have been doing for a long time, reaching across. When you guys played Broken Down Palace at that gig, I knew, S, this is the Grateful Dead telling me about my son. It's a big a time as it gets. And old Bill knew it, you know he knew it." I work with a young man who has a symptom I am quite fond of and wish more people had called alogia. One time a judge asked him why he never talks. He thought for a moment, looked sideways at the judge and then mumbled, "Because mostly what people say is *bullshot*" (Amazon will sell you books entitled 12 inches: A Secret Baby Dark Romance; however they will not allow reviews to have naughty words in them). Thankfully there are still a few real people left who are reaching across.
May 18, 2017
I listened to this as an audiobook, and definitely enjoyed hearing Roy read his own words. Truly, how would anyone else do them justice, when he's comfortable in front of a microphone?
That said, I did not finish this book. If I had it in print, it is one I would return to now and again for another taste of Blount's humor. But listening to essay after essay was just too much - a taste was more satisfying than the whole cake. I can see borrowing this from my library again in the future for further samplings, but for now, I'm satisfied.
That said, I did not finish this book. If I had it in print, it is one I would return to now and again for another taste of Blount's humor. But listening to essay after essay was just too much - a taste was more satisfying than the whole cake. I can see borrowing this from my library again in the future for further samplings, but for now, I'm satisfied.
August 21, 2017
I listened to the audiobook as the author was the reader. I think that was a good choice.
Some of the stories did not hold my interest. But others were pretty funny.
Yes, Virginia, there are proud liberal Southerners.
Some of the stories did not hold my interest. But others were pretty funny.
Yes, Virginia, there are proud liberal Southerners.
January 14, 2019
This book was an enjoyable, almost train-of-thought commentary on all sorts of Southern foods, experiences, and life. All in all, it was a lighthearted book and a welcome relief from all of the struggle currently listed in the nightly news.
Read
February 9, 2020An acquired taste. Not mine.
August 3, 2020
Mildly amusing stories--maybe a little too often about food. Best listened to in Blount's own reading and not taken too serious.
May 23, 2021
"It's like a turtle on a fencepost. You know he didn't get there by himself."
October 22, 2022
I don't follow his humour.
October 4, 2012
Long Time Leaving is an interesting read about the life of one Southern liberal man from the 90s to the beginning of the 21st century. Roy Blount Jr. is a humorous columnist who is best known now for being a regular host on the radio program, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, but he is a very capable journalist, and writes in prose as well as poetry for his articles.
Most of his articles are about trying to understand his own Southern heritage and the consistent bias against Southerners everywhere else in the country. He is part of a large cohort of Southern intellectuals, but for whatever reason, his Northern friends and acquaintances have trouble distinguishing this from the popular culture depiction of uneducated Southern poor folk that still resides in the common imagination.
Roy Blount Jr writes a good deal about his understanding of Bill Clinton (hint: he had less moral outrage about Bill's philandering) and he wrote a biography of Robert E. Lee, and a lot of the articles in this book are related to that work. While he apparently wrote about Jimmy Carter, there is surprisingly little in the book about the former President, except some curious asides that prove that Roy really does know a lot about it.
If you're curious what interests the mind of a Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me judge, this is the best place to do it. If you're curious about the mind of intellectual white Southerners, this might be a good place to go. It's a little too dated in places or a little too obscure to give a full hearted recommendation for everyone.
Most of his articles are about trying to understand his own Southern heritage and the consistent bias against Southerners everywhere else in the country. He is part of a large cohort of Southern intellectuals, but for whatever reason, his Northern friends and acquaintances have trouble distinguishing this from the popular culture depiction of uneducated Southern poor folk that still resides in the common imagination.
Roy Blount Jr writes a good deal about his understanding of Bill Clinton (hint: he had less moral outrage about Bill's philandering) and he wrote a biography of Robert E. Lee, and a lot of the articles in this book are related to that work. While he apparently wrote about Jimmy Carter, there is surprisingly little in the book about the former President, except some curious asides that prove that Roy really does know a lot about it.
If you're curious what interests the mind of a Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me judge, this is the best place to do it. If you're curious about the mind of intellectual white Southerners, this might be a good place to go. It's a little too dated in places or a little too obscure to give a full hearted recommendation for everyone.
October 11, 2011
I'll be straight with you, content wise I wouldn't rate the book as a 5 star. It's not exactly what you'd call 'meaty' or 'deep.' You don't really come away from it with any thoughts. And some of it is repetitive. But you will NOT regret the ride. I listened to this on audiobook because I enjoy his voice so much, which was worth it on one hand for the sheer relish and joy he packs into every sentence, and for the accents I wouldn't be able to pull off in my head. It made long drives short, and long hours of database entry bearable.
But on the other hand I regret it because I can't go back and find a page, and highlight my favorite passages. Like the one about the Jack Russel Terrier being a dog in concentrate, and that maybe if you steeped him in molasses for awhile you'd get a Black Lab. And you can't really pass along an Audible download to your friends. In fact, I had to go buy another copy just because I knew a friend who's taking a nonfiction class right now, who could get a lot of technique out of it.
I can't think of a much better way to sum up a good book than this. I got to the end, and I was sad, because there wasn't any more.
But on the other hand I regret it because I can't go back and find a page, and highlight my favorite passages. Like the one about the Jack Russel Terrier being a dog in concentrate, and that maybe if you steeped him in molasses for awhile you'd get a Black Lab. And you can't really pass along an Audible download to your friends. In fact, I had to go buy another copy just because I knew a friend who's taking a nonfiction class right now, who could get a lot of technique out of it.
I can't think of a much better way to sum up a good book than this. I got to the end, and I was sad, because there wasn't any more.
July 8, 2008
Roy Blount, Jr. is one of my favorite panelists on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, which I listen to religiously every week. Naturally, I was interested in reading his writing.
This collection of short essays and humorous pieces, however, is hit and miss. Most of its failings, however, could have been relieved by a good editor. There are far too many pieces that go over the same themes, same issues, same ground. If some tough choices had been made, this could have been an excellent 200+ page book. As it stands, though, we get around 400 pages, leaving the reader with the unfortunate impression that the book was just thrown together in a hurry without a guiding editorial intelligence.
It's a shame, really, because when Blount is funny, he is really funny. I laughed out loud at many points, but I have to admit that I didn't technically finish the book. There's something wrong when both those things are true.
And what's wrong here is lack of editing.
This collection of short essays and humorous pieces, however, is hit and miss. Most of its failings, however, could have been relieved by a good editor. There are far too many pieces that go over the same themes, same issues, same ground. If some tough choices had been made, this could have been an excellent 200+ page book. As it stands, though, we get around 400 pages, leaving the reader with the unfortunate impression that the book was just thrown together in a hurry without a guiding editorial intelligence.
It's a shame, really, because when Blount is funny, he is really funny. I laughed out loud at many points, but I have to admit that I didn't technically finish the book. There's something wrong when both those things are true.
And what's wrong here is lack of editing.
February 22, 2018
This is a wonderful collection of essays on all things Southern by Ray Blount, Jr. Because of the format, it's an easy book to pick up, read a few pages, and then put down. Unfortunately, I had to stop reading this book at my desk at work because I kept bursting into laughter and, apparently, random laughter is viewed with suspicion in the workplace. One of my favorite essays was his "Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English" which includes such words as "squoz"--the past tense of squeeze, "fotched-on"--store bought or imported, and "the all-overs"--the shivers. Blount as an opinion on everything and, luckily, he's willing to share. For example, he says living with a Jack Russell Terrier is "like living with a movie star who seems to be able to handle quite a lot of cocaine" and calls Tom DeLay of Texas "the thinking person's Satan". Many of the essays deal with being a Southerner transplanted to the North and he deals with the subject with deftness, insight, and humor.
June 28, 2007
This collection of Roy Blount's humor essays has its moments: whenever Blount talks about food, fishing, or country music, he strikes gold. Whenever he drops a droll anecdote about life in the South, it's amazing. But what made reading these essays somewhat tedious were his often incomprehensible takes on politics. Additionally, thought not Blount's fault, this collection repeats so many of the same jokes that they become less than funny--they become straight-up annoying. If Blount writes another essay with his infant baptism joke in it, I'm going to set fire to it. He even brought it up at a reading I attended. All in all, I think these essays are better read aloud and appreciated for their meandering wit and comic timing. On paper, they languish.
August 27, 2011
Blount is one of my favorite humorists - although I'm not sure that's quite the right word for him; he's pretty funny, but also insightful. Many of his books are collections of his short pieces; this is one of the best of those. Many of the essays have to do with being a Southerner, or rather, a Southerner in the North. But he also writes about Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Memphis Minnie, and the Boswell Sisters. Blount is more than ready to ramble and digress, and some folks seem to be put off by this. But some of his best observations come out of his digressions, so I'm more than willing to follow him as he rambles.
May 13, 2012
Blount is absolutely hilarious—but smart in his commentary—in this book! Would highly recommend the audio, as who could read it better (with all the accents and colloquialisms) than the author himself. I don't LOL often (seriously... that might be the 3rd time I've written those letters together, because seriously... how often do you LOL all by yourself???) but for real, I really did laugh out loud in my car several times all by myself listening to this book. It helps that I'm of the liberal persuasion and have similar political views as the author, but I imagine that most folks would find some humor in his work.
October 7, 2007
I think that I mostly was interested in this book because the author grew up in Decatur, GA (where I now live) and now lives in Northampton, MA (my favorite of the places that I have lived). That said, I found that the essays did not really hold my interest. Technically, I did not finish this book, though I feel like I did what you do with a book of essays--I skimmed through and read what appealed.
November 21, 2007
As a fellow Southerner in exile, I related to and enjoyed parts of this book very much. However, Blount seemed to be trying too hard to prove that although he still talks Southern, he's actually got a brain in his head. He seemed especially strident when discussing politics and religion. Sometimes his writing was obtuse, and since the essays were pulled from various sources, sometimes there was repetition. A disappointment, despite a couple of great essays.
December 17, 2007
I read an article in the Nashville Scene about Roy Blount and discovered some similarities between the man and myself. Ties to Atlanta and Nashville, experience as a transplanted southerner in the northeast, not quite fitting in in the south or the north...
Parts of this collection of short stories were pretty funny, particularly since I can relate to many of his experiences. Other parts were decidedly unfunny, and rather dull even. Entertaining, but not as good as I expected.
Parts of this collection of short stories were pretty funny, particularly since I can relate to many of his experiences. Other parts were decidedly unfunny, and rather dull even. Entertaining, but not as good as I expected.
April 29, 2008
I, sadly, had to give up on this book. Blount writes really well, and has some great thoughts and insights to share about the country and human nature -- but in my present mode (mom-dom), I just didn't have the brain power left by the time reading-time came around to be able to properly appreciate his logic. Or, for that matter, to be able to penetrate the labyrinth of anecdotes to be able to pick up the main train of his thought. LOVED the anecdotes, but I lost the forest for the trees.
August 28, 2008
A collection of his articles on being a Southerner, primarily in the Northeast, with explanations for Yankees. Best read in spurts. I adore Roy’s humor and have since I met him over 20 years ago. He’s a ready wit on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me and his dry assessment of how Southerners are perceived by Northeners is accurate to a fault and extremely funny. If Roy’s humor can’t overcome Yankee prejudice, I don’t know what will….maybe everyone should spend four years in Dixie and repent.
April 9, 2009
Bought this one last week in Oxford Mississippi! Had to buy it after reading the jacket - he sounds a little like me in that the longer he is away from the South the more Southern stuff he likes. Has many examples of being assumed to be a redneck and people being shocked that he is smart - reminds me of my mother's experiences working for a publishing company and everytime she called the NYC office they would put her on speaker phone and all laugh at her! Meanies!
November 25, 2009
Ok, I gave this one a good effort. There were moments of the book that I enjoyed. But it just didn't grab me. I think I read one page each night before I would realize that I didn't pay any sort of attention for that last page and just give up for the night.
It could be that the South just doesn't interest me as much as Mr. Blount thinks it will?
So, 4 months into it, I'm finally giving up (sad that I only had like 50 pages left).
It could be that the South just doesn't interest me as much as Mr. Blount thinks it will?
So, 4 months into it, I'm finally giving up (sad that I only had like 50 pages left).
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