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Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena
Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena collects a bevy of wise, witty, often hilarious essays by the inimitably charming, staunchly Southern Julia Reed.
In classic Dixie storytelling fashion, Reed wends her way through the South—from politics, religion, and women to weather, pestilence, guns, and what she calls “drinking and other Southern pursuits”—with a rare blend of literary elegance and plainspoken humor.
To hear Reed tell it, the South is another country. She builds an entertaining and persuasive case, using as examples everything from its unfathomable codes of conduct to its disciplined fashion sense. When a bemused Reed once commented on the cross-dressing get-ups of an upstanding community member, her austere grandfather said, “He’s been wearing them lately. Now come on.” A friend of her aunt’s merely said, “I wonder where he gets his shoes. I can’t ever ?nd good-looking shoes in Nashville.”
Southern food, of course, is an entire world apart: gumbo, grits, greens, okra, chess pie, Lady Baltimore cake, and Frito chili pie make memorable appearances in Reed’s stories, which will amuse, delight, and even explain a thing or two to baffed Yankees everywhere.
Mysterious ways --
Eat here --
Trigger happiness --
To live and die in Dixie --
Lady killers --
American beauty --
Southern fashion explained --
Cat fight --
Whiskey weather --
On soggy ground --
The real first lady --
George Jones, Inc. --
Tender mercies --
Tough love --
Queen for a day --
Miss Scarlett --
Member of the club --
License to kill --
Bird song --
A plague on our houses --
That's entertainment! --
The morning after --
Snake world --
Color me red --
A reader's guide
In classic Dixie storytelling fashion, Reed wends her way through the South—from politics, religion, and women to weather, pestilence, guns, and what she calls “drinking and other Southern pursuits”—with a rare blend of literary elegance and plainspoken humor.
To hear Reed tell it, the South is another country. She builds an entertaining and persuasive case, using as examples everything from its unfathomable codes of conduct to its disciplined fashion sense. When a bemused Reed once commented on the cross-dressing get-ups of an upstanding community member, her austere grandfather said, “He’s been wearing them lately. Now come on.” A friend of her aunt’s merely said, “I wonder where he gets his shoes. I can’t ever ?nd good-looking shoes in Nashville.”
Southern food, of course, is an entire world apart: gumbo, grits, greens, okra, chess pie, Lady Baltimore cake, and Frito chili pie make memorable appearances in Reed’s stories, which will amuse, delight, and even explain a thing or two to baffed Yankees everywhere.
Mysterious ways --
Eat here --
Trigger happiness --
To live and die in Dixie --
Lady killers --
American beauty --
Southern fashion explained --
Cat fight --
Whiskey weather --
On soggy ground --
The real first lady --
George Jones, Inc. --
Tender mercies --
Tough love --
Queen for a day --
Miss Scarlett --
Member of the club --
License to kill --
Bird song --
A plague on our houses --
That's entertainment! --
The morning after --
Snake world --
Color me red --
A reader's guide
208 pages, Hardcover
Published April 6, 2004
10 people are currently reading
1114 people want to read
About the author
Julia Reed
78 books92 followersJulia Reed was born in Greenville, Mississippi, in 1960. She went to the Madeira School for Girls at age sixteen near McLean, Virginia. She began taking classes at Georgetown University but then transferred to and graduated from American University.
She started working at Newsweek magazine as an intern in 1977 and went on to become Contributing Editor and columnist. She was contributing editor and senior writer at Vogue for twenty years. She is a Contributing Editor at Elle Magazine and at Garden and Gun Magazine (for which she also writes a column). She also writes articles for the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and the Wall Street Journal.
Well known as a humorist and a “master of the art of eating, drinking, and making merry,” according to her publisher, her books include One Man’s Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood (2014), But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria! Adventures in Eating, Drinking, and Making Merry (Apr 30, 2013), New Orleans, New Elegance (2012) with Kerri McCaffety, Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties: An Entertaining Life (with Recipes) (Apr 28, 2009), The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story (2008) and Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena (2005)
She started working at Newsweek magazine as an intern in 1977 and went on to become Contributing Editor and columnist. She was contributing editor and senior writer at Vogue for twenty years. She is a Contributing Editor at Elle Magazine and at Garden and Gun Magazine (for which she also writes a column). She also writes articles for the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and the Wall Street Journal.
Well known as a humorist and a “master of the art of eating, drinking, and making merry,” according to her publisher, her books include One Man’s Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood (2014), But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria! Adventures in Eating, Drinking, and Making Merry (Apr 30, 2013), New Orleans, New Elegance (2012) with Kerri McCaffety, Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties: An Entertaining Life (with Recipes) (Apr 28, 2009), The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story (2008) and Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena (2005)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
November 28, 2024
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Goodreads friends. Each year on Thanksgiving (and July 4th) I try to time it so I can review a book that is inherently American. Usually the book is one about sports or politics or a biography or nonfiction account of history. Not so this time around, and to be fair I read and review my fair share of those. My husband, when asked, notes that I am an all-American girl. Ask a southern woman, and she will also respond that she is an all-American girl albeit from a different perspective. Over the course of this year I by chance discovered the body of work of Julia Reed hailing from Greenville, Mississippi. A northerner, or Yankee, would not refer to Reed as all-American, just as a southerner. Usually, when one thinks of the south and Thanksgiving, a northerner evokes how Abraham Lincoln established that the holiday would be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The south views Lincoln with other choice words and in some regards is still reeling from losing the war. It is is what Reed notes gives the south it’s charm. While Julia Reed might not be viewed by some as all American in the same way that a football game or Macy’s Parade is, her work is the American south at its finest. I am happy to have read one of her earlier books of essays on this national day of feeling grateful.
Julia Reed was born on September 11, 1960 to Clarke and Judy Reed, relics of the old south. Reed never forgot that her birthday was on September 11. She happened to be living in New York as a reporter for Vogue and Newsweek forty one years later, and she coped wirh the destruction in a way that any good southerner would do: she threw a party. In the south, one mourns wirh food: tenderloin, layered salad, frozen fruit salad, puddings, sliced tomatoes, etc. Every time two or more southerners meet, the topic inevitably turns to food: whose fried chicken and cornbread is the best, where does one find the best catfish, biscuits with gravy, and where is the best barbecue. I can relate as I have never been to a Jewish function where there isn’t a table of food laid out. We all have comfort foods although in the south those foods are most often accompanied by whiskey. The north is Puritan whereas the south had been settled by Scots and Irish. Inevitably they are going to eat and drink away their sorrows. Besides the mosquitos and other critters and hurricane season, the event that southerners still evoke as an excuse to wash away those sorrows: we lost the war. Reed said the war even these one hundred sixty years later is what gave the south it’s character. If it’s an excuse to reminisce over mint juleps on a neighbor’s porch, even better.
One spring as my parents drove home from Florida to Chicago they stopped in Mobile, Alabama for lunch. At this restaurant where most of the salad offerings had been doused in mayonnaise, they encountered a group of girls under the age of ten dressed for a beauty pageant. Ah yes, the beauty pageant, another southern relic. Reed notes that Mississippi is known for producing its share of Miss Americas. Girls get their start from an early age. A matron type person identifies which girls in a given town have what it takes to be Junior Miss Chamber of Commerce, Little Miss Tomato Queen, and the Queen of the Turtle Derby. One of her father's contacts once asked Reed if she would report on the aforementioned Turtle Derby and if she did, she would be crowned Queen for a day. She would have preferred to be the Catfish Queen and had a tiara made specially for the occasion. Sadly, Reed was not invited to be the Catfish Queen although the sequin encrusted tiara was a thing of beauty. The crowning jewel of all of these pageants are the debutantes who asked to be the queens of various krewes during Mardi Gras. After months of preparation the belles are glammed up and ready to be the talk of these balls. Masquerade balls and crowning queens of the krewes have been happening at Mardi Gras since its inception in the 1850s. Little girls are still singled out to be queens today, a sure sign that the south has not lost its flavor.
A southern pastime is entertaining oneself with or without whiskey. Mississippi actually remained “dry” until 1966, but its residents didn’t take the hint. Reed grew up telling stories and making up fantasies with her friends. They invented far fetched stories, played dress up and make believe. As kids, these stories occurred in the backyard. As adults, when fishing for catfish, at all day barbecues, or at epic house parties. Reed’s father could weave a yarn or two but couldn’t complete it because he would break down and laughing. She noted that she got her humor from him. She also maintains that the south, delta region specifically, has produced its share of storytellers from a lack of what else to do. From Faulkner and Welty to Percy, Willie Harris, and some aspects of Capote’s work, Reed notes of the author inserting him/herself in their stories and telling stories within a story. Although these works are preserved on paper, they are little different from the tales told among friends on the back porch or boat while fishing for catfish. It is why as an adult Reed and her friends would write scripts just to act out themselves to show the next generation of kids. This is what one does in the delta, even if it means dressing up as an evil catfish or stolen mermaid. These tall tales could inspire and produce the next generation of southern writers.
As many of us are in the kitchen preparing the pumpkin pie and stuffing, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes, we should think what is it that makes something inherently American. In the south hostesses could be serving eggplant parmigiana topped with crushed ritz crackers and bourbon pecan pie instead of pumpkin because that is their preferred cuisine. Heck, in the south, one cannot find a cranberry bog because it is too south; however, the region is most definitely still part of the United States. From Mardi Gras and Mississippi steamboats to writers like Faulkner and Welty, the south and its regionalisms is part of what makes the United States a melting pot of cultures. One thinks of that term to mean the immigrant experience but it refers to all the people and their customs and values that make the United States such a unique country. I could have read another book about baseball or football or a First Lady, but I chose to return to the work of Julia Reed on this Thanksgiving day. Her writing has brought me much joy this year as I have read about her adventures through life that almost seemed too far fetched to be true, but true they were. I also understand that Reed following in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps was the hostess with the mostest and her Thanksgiving meals were epic. It is of little wonder that I wanted to spend part of my Thanksgiving day with her.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
4 stars
Julia Reed was born on September 11, 1960 to Clarke and Judy Reed, relics of the old south. Reed never forgot that her birthday was on September 11. She happened to be living in New York as a reporter for Vogue and Newsweek forty one years later, and she coped wirh the destruction in a way that any good southerner would do: she threw a party. In the south, one mourns wirh food: tenderloin, layered salad, frozen fruit salad, puddings, sliced tomatoes, etc. Every time two or more southerners meet, the topic inevitably turns to food: whose fried chicken and cornbread is the best, where does one find the best catfish, biscuits with gravy, and where is the best barbecue. I can relate as I have never been to a Jewish function where there isn’t a table of food laid out. We all have comfort foods although in the south those foods are most often accompanied by whiskey. The north is Puritan whereas the south had been settled by Scots and Irish. Inevitably they are going to eat and drink away their sorrows. Besides the mosquitos and other critters and hurricane season, the event that southerners still evoke as an excuse to wash away those sorrows: we lost the war. Reed said the war even these one hundred sixty years later is what gave the south it’s character. If it’s an excuse to reminisce over mint juleps on a neighbor’s porch, even better.
One spring as my parents drove home from Florida to Chicago they stopped in Mobile, Alabama for lunch. At this restaurant where most of the salad offerings had been doused in mayonnaise, they encountered a group of girls under the age of ten dressed for a beauty pageant. Ah yes, the beauty pageant, another southern relic. Reed notes that Mississippi is known for producing its share of Miss Americas. Girls get their start from an early age. A matron type person identifies which girls in a given town have what it takes to be Junior Miss Chamber of Commerce, Little Miss Tomato Queen, and the Queen of the Turtle Derby. One of her father's contacts once asked Reed if she would report on the aforementioned Turtle Derby and if she did, she would be crowned Queen for a day. She would have preferred to be the Catfish Queen and had a tiara made specially for the occasion. Sadly, Reed was not invited to be the Catfish Queen although the sequin encrusted tiara was a thing of beauty. The crowning jewel of all of these pageants are the debutantes who asked to be the queens of various krewes during Mardi Gras. After months of preparation the belles are glammed up and ready to be the talk of these balls. Masquerade balls and crowning queens of the krewes have been happening at Mardi Gras since its inception in the 1850s. Little girls are still singled out to be queens today, a sure sign that the south has not lost its flavor.
A southern pastime is entertaining oneself with or without whiskey. Mississippi actually remained “dry” until 1966, but its residents didn’t take the hint. Reed grew up telling stories and making up fantasies with her friends. They invented far fetched stories, played dress up and make believe. As kids, these stories occurred in the backyard. As adults, when fishing for catfish, at all day barbecues, or at epic house parties. Reed’s father could weave a yarn or two but couldn’t complete it because he would break down and laughing. She noted that she got her humor from him. She also maintains that the south, delta region specifically, has produced its share of storytellers from a lack of what else to do. From Faulkner and Welty to Percy, Willie Harris, and some aspects of Capote’s work, Reed notes of the author inserting him/herself in their stories and telling stories within a story. Although these works are preserved on paper, they are little different from the tales told among friends on the back porch or boat while fishing for catfish. It is why as an adult Reed and her friends would write scripts just to act out themselves to show the next generation of kids. This is what one does in the delta, even if it means dressing up as an evil catfish or stolen mermaid. These tall tales could inspire and produce the next generation of southern writers.
As many of us are in the kitchen preparing the pumpkin pie and stuffing, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes, we should think what is it that makes something inherently American. In the south hostesses could be serving eggplant parmigiana topped with crushed ritz crackers and bourbon pecan pie instead of pumpkin because that is their preferred cuisine. Heck, in the south, one cannot find a cranberry bog because it is too south; however, the region is most definitely still part of the United States. From Mardi Gras and Mississippi steamboats to writers like Faulkner and Welty, the south and its regionalisms is part of what makes the United States a melting pot of cultures. One thinks of that term to mean the immigrant experience but it refers to all the people and their customs and values that make the United States such a unique country. I could have read another book about baseball or football or a First Lady, but I chose to return to the work of Julia Reed on this Thanksgiving day. Her writing has brought me much joy this year as I have read about her adventures through life that almost seemed too far fetched to be true, but true they were. I also understand that Reed following in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps was the hostess with the mostest and her Thanksgiving meals were epic. It is of little wonder that I wanted to spend part of my Thanksgiving day with her.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
4 stars
February 3, 2019
Queen of the Turtle Derby is a collection of essays written by a Southern lady of the "old school". What I mean by that is that the author grew up in a wealthy Southern household and was cared for by a housekeeper who cooked most of her meals. Her family had a country club membership and she was raised on beauty pageants and Gone With the Wind.
Not that there's anything wrong with those things. It's just a very specific group of Southerners and not a group that all Southerners can relate to.
Reed covers plenty of topics from a Southern perspective: food, politics, religion, guns, cockfights, women getting away with murder in the South, and George Jones.
A lot of these topics feel outdated because of the "old school South" mentality but also because it was published back in 2004 and includes in the introduction the line: "The other theory is that the South isn't the Cotton Belt anymore; it's the Sunbelt, a land of interchangeable suburbs, full of Home Depots and Blockbusters and people wearing Dockers pants."
Welp, I don't know anyone wearing Dockers and Blockbuster no longer exists. While the South manages to progress (albeit it at a slower pace than the rest of the country; we do everything slower down here, including talking and eating), there are deep-seated traditions in our culture that are relatable to all Southerners, especially food.
"We use food to sympathize and to celebrate. We give it as presents and peace offerings. Everywhere else in America people use cash, but we use food to bribe people."
So true.
But on the next page, I read this paragraph:
"The other day my mother and I were lying on the beach. Since we were both attempting to be on diets, we entertained ourselves by talking about the fried apricot pies and sliced tomato sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise on white bread cut into rounds that her childhood cook Eleanor used to make, and the shad roe on toast that her grandfather ate every Sunday it was in season."
Wait, what? I happen to go in the kitchen and make my own sandwiches and I had to Google what shad roe is. (It's the egg sac of the female shad fish, in case you were curious)
I can't relate to the author's obsession with beauty pageants and Scarlett O'Hara, having a cook to slice up sandwiches for me, or dividing my time between New Orleans and New York City, but I appreciate her humor and her explanation of what food itself means in the South.
If you're looking for a light hearted collection of essays about the South, this wouldn't be my first recommendation but it does contain a healthy dose of humor and a glimpse into the old school South.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
Not that there's anything wrong with those things. It's just a very specific group of Southerners and not a group that all Southerners can relate to.
Reed covers plenty of topics from a Southern perspective: food, politics, religion, guns, cockfights, women getting away with murder in the South, and George Jones.
A lot of these topics feel outdated because of the "old school South" mentality but also because it was published back in 2004 and includes in the introduction the line: "The other theory is that the South isn't the Cotton Belt anymore; it's the Sunbelt, a land of interchangeable suburbs, full of Home Depots and Blockbusters and people wearing Dockers pants."
Welp, I don't know anyone wearing Dockers and Blockbuster no longer exists. While the South manages to progress (albeit it at a slower pace than the rest of the country; we do everything slower down here, including talking and eating), there are deep-seated traditions in our culture that are relatable to all Southerners, especially food.
"We use food to sympathize and to celebrate. We give it as presents and peace offerings. Everywhere else in America people use cash, but we use food to bribe people."
So true.
But on the next page, I read this paragraph:
"The other day my mother and I were lying on the beach. Since we were both attempting to be on diets, we entertained ourselves by talking about the fried apricot pies and sliced tomato sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise on white bread cut into rounds that her childhood cook Eleanor used to make, and the shad roe on toast that her grandfather ate every Sunday it was in season."
Wait, what? I happen to go in the kitchen and make my own sandwiches and I had to Google what shad roe is. (It's the egg sac of the female shad fish, in case you were curious)
I can't relate to the author's obsession with beauty pageants and Scarlett O'Hara, having a cook to slice up sandwiches for me, or dividing my time between New Orleans and New York City, but I appreciate her humor and her explanation of what food itself means in the South.
If you're looking for a light hearted collection of essays about the South, this wouldn't be my first recommendation but it does contain a healthy dose of humor and a glimpse into the old school South.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
August 31, 2020
One of my best girlfriends when I was growing up, Vicky Lynn, gave me this book. A few years ago, I was down home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast when she presented this book to me, so I would love it regardless of the content between the two covers of the book. But, Vicky and I are gopher turtle fans so, there you go. Love the book and discovered a new favorite author.
November 4, 2012
Oy.
So I'm reading Farah Mendelsohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy, and there was a brief aside about Southern culture and superstition that included a really charming and wry quote from this book, and I was like A: in the mood for some light essays, and B: hoping these'd be enlightening on some level and maybe dispel a few of my lingering unfair hangups about the place. NOPE. The one quote that led me to it turned out to be the cream of the crop, and the remainder was spectacularly frustrating, wavering between dull, self-impressed, and actually surprisingly sketchy:
* Cranky defense of cockfighting and fox hunting? Check.
* I was super skeeved out by her paean to Scarlett from Gone With the Wind, but I don't figure it's really worth dissecting in detail. I mean, if that story was formatively important to you, then it can totally be worth talking about on all kinds of levels, but the blithe and almost totally ahistorical approach there was kind of the culmination of some majorly dodgy racial and gender-related threads running through the whole book. (There's a whole other essay about the South's tendency to go weirdly easy on women who murder, which cites a reflexive cultural need to protect women's safety and honor, and although it had some really interesting material in it, I was mostly like, damn, are you sure you meant to just say "women" all those times without any modifiers? Like, all women? You sure you didn't mean to say "white women?" Real sure? Just sayin'.)
* Glowing love letter to traditional gender roles? Check.
* Author "divides her time between New Orleans and New York City?" Check.
I don't really know why I kept reading it after a certain point. I guess give me one and a half wry and humane essays and hope springs eternal. Anyway, here's a snippet of what got me in the door in the first place:
You see what I mean.
So I'm reading Farah Mendelsohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy, and there was a brief aside about Southern culture and superstition that included a really charming and wry quote from this book, and I was like A: in the mood for some light essays, and B: hoping these'd be enlightening on some level and maybe dispel a few of my lingering unfair hangups about the place. NOPE. The one quote that led me to it turned out to be the cream of the crop, and the remainder was spectacularly frustrating, wavering between dull, self-impressed, and actually surprisingly sketchy:
* Cranky defense of cockfighting and fox hunting? Check.
* I was super skeeved out by her paean to Scarlett from Gone With the Wind, but I don't figure it's really worth dissecting in detail. I mean, if that story was formatively important to you, then it can totally be worth talking about on all kinds of levels, but the blithe and almost totally ahistorical approach there was kind of the culmination of some majorly dodgy racial and gender-related threads running through the whole book. (There's a whole other essay about the South's tendency to go weirdly easy on women who murder, which cites a reflexive cultural need to protect women's safety and honor, and although it had some really interesting material in it, I was mostly like, damn, are you sure you meant to just say "women" all those times without any modifiers? Like, all women? You sure you didn't mean to say "white women?" Real sure? Just sayin'.)
* Glowing love letter to traditional gender roles? Check.
* Author "divides her time between New Orleans and New York City?" Check.
I don't really know why I kept reading it after a certain point. I guess give me one and a half wry and humane essays and hope springs eternal. Anyway, here's a snippet of what got me in the door in the first place:
[Insert story about Mike Huckabee disputing some legislative language re "act of God" in a disaster bill in a way that I can't make heads or tails of but was probably a dog whistle for someone.] In the end, nobody wanted to hear any more about it and "act of God" was replaced with "natural causes" so that the governor would go on and sign the bill [...]
Now, I have to say that I am with the legislature on this one. Everybody knows that "natural causes" are those things that kill a person who is about ninety-eight years old in his or her sleep. "Natural causes" is not a phrase dramatic enough to describe what happens when a whole trailer park is blown across the county line. Furthermore, I think if I watched my trailer being blown across the county line, I would feel like what had happened to me was a definite, big-time act of God.
Of course, Southerners tend to think that pretty much everything is an act of God. It's easier than trying to figure out why we lost the war, why we remain generally impoverished and infested with mosquitoes and snakes and flying termites, why there is in fact "brokenness" in our world as well as plenty of tornadoes and floods and hurricanes and ice storms and hundred-percent humidity levels. Hell, it's easier than trying to figure out what made the battery go dead or who locked the keys in the car. In Mississippi alone there are more churches per capita than any other state; God looms pretty large. Also, most of us are disinclined to blame ourselves for anything.
You see what I mean.
May 14, 2008
As someone who is fascinated by the South, I thought this book was terrific. I love Julia Reed's style of writing (her work has been appearing in Vogue for years and she used to write the food column in the NY Times Mag from time to time) and she is most at home discussing the quirks of her native South. She is a great storyteller who leaves you wanting more.
March 3, 2021
4.5? Delightful!
December 23, 2023
Full disclosure - like the author, I am a white woman from the American South. I love the South. And I absolutely hated this book. For starters, Reed tosses around the word "racist" like it's a funny thing to call someone -- almost a synonym for dumb -- without any real consequence behind it. Her whiteness truly shines in her failure to acknowledge how racism ruins (and ends) lives, save for a passing mention of a Latina woman in her story of female murderers. She describes people and institutions as racist in the same way that you might say someone had bad breath or was a rude neighbor. Reed brushes off gun violence with a similarly (concerningly) blasé attitude, painting it as another funny quirk of the region. Her views on animal cruelty are outright disgusting. She taunts the British for banning bear baiting, proudly declaring that cockfighting will never be banned in Louisiana because "unlike the Brits, we know how to keep our culture intact." I guess I didn't get the memo that "preserving culture" means "no need to update your morals from the 1600s."
This book reclaims stereotypes in the worst way, promoting a truly baffling exceptionalism that feels like it's meant to dust the assorted -isms and -phobias under the rug. Reed's tone frames the South's "uniqueness" as an acceptable excuse for the stranglehold that segregation, religious extremism, and strict gender roles still have on many communities.
I found it offputting and ironic that Reed repeatedly asserts that southern women are in a league of their own by calling New York women boring and German women ugly. How does that help anyone? The word "feminist" is so obviously used as an insult, conjuring images of the frumpy man-hater stereotype I thought we'd left behind in the 2000s. Don't get me started on the article about how Southern women "fix" mediocre men with their charm and always protect their man's pride.
The author is also glaringly out of touch -- Reed seems unaware that maids, boarding schools, and Gatsby-style parties are not the norm, unironically regailing her experiences as a rich white woman in Mississippi as representative of the state or region. While the South certainly contains some common threads across geography and culture, I don't appreciate being roped in with Memphis debutantes any more than I appreciate being looked down on by New Yorkers.
In sum, f**k this book. I'm horrified that people from other parts of the country and the world will pick this up and consume it as an accurate representation of the region.
This book reclaims stereotypes in the worst way, promoting a truly baffling exceptionalism that feels like it's meant to dust the assorted -isms and -phobias under the rug. Reed's tone frames the South's "uniqueness" as an acceptable excuse for the stranglehold that segregation, religious extremism, and strict gender roles still have on many communities.
I found it offputting and ironic that Reed repeatedly asserts that southern women are in a league of their own by calling New York women boring and German women ugly. How does that help anyone? The word "feminist" is so obviously used as an insult, conjuring images of the frumpy man-hater stereotype I thought we'd left behind in the 2000s. Don't get me started on the article about how Southern women "fix" mediocre men with their charm and always protect their man's pride.
The author is also glaringly out of touch -- Reed seems unaware that maids, boarding schools, and Gatsby-style parties are not the norm, unironically regailing her experiences as a rich white woman in Mississippi as representative of the state or region. While the South certainly contains some common threads across geography and culture, I don't appreciate being roped in with Memphis debutantes any more than I appreciate being looked down on by New Yorkers.
In sum, f**k this book. I'm horrified that people from other parts of the country and the world will pick this up and consume it as an accurate representation of the region.
June 9, 2025
3.75 stars
honestly really funny, enjoyed reading this
honestly really funny, enjoyed reading this
September 9, 2019
Loved this book. Great humor. Great writing. Great stories. Buying more of this author’s books...
October 18, 2009
Being from the south, I was naturally interested in reading this book. Alot of material was spot on, but some of it was really strange. Food combinations must be different in the delta than in the hills. I would never entertain the idea of eating turnip greens with fried catfish! Our area would eat "cut-up", but tamales wasn't a word I even knew when I was a child! I could go on an on about the food issues. She is correct about everyone hunting and having guns, that's for sure! Also, she is correct about women murdering their husbands and somehow getting off. I thought there was too much about fashion, etc., which I can understand since she writes for Vogue. The thing is, in the sunny south, make-up, hair and fashion runs from one extreme to the other. Like one other reviewer, there was not enough on religion and believe me, in the south one can readily guess someone's religion by their personal grooming habits! She didn't even mention knowing anyone who regularly handles snakes on Sunday mornings! There was alot of information on Louisiana which is actually a country unto itself and very much different in many aspects from other southern states. She grew up in Greenville, MS and was from a family that had a maid and were members of the country club. I don't feel as if that environment is the norm for most kids growing up here. Got sick of the George Jones and sausage chapters. Tammy Wynnette's family lives all around me and in fact her mom used to live across the street. Um, Reed needs to do more research in this area. The book had amusing points but all in all I would not go out of my way to recommend it to others.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 22, 2020
This book was ok but I found it to be majorly out of date (which is no fault of the author's) and majorly centered on white upper class people (which I do fault the author for, as she could have done literally any research to get out of her personal bubble). I mean, she talked about her cook and everyone's "house man" which I didn't even know was a thing. It resulted in making the reader feel alienated and at the same time dismissed how the majority of the population of the south lives.
June 13, 2011
I found myself smiling over Reed's essays as she described some of the worst traits of southerners, nodding in recognition and being delighted with her dead-on detail of our odd culture, Suddenly I had a horrifying though! Yankees have read these!!
August 9, 2007
You will laugh and cry. Reed hits the nail on the head. Absolutely wonderful. To read and reread.
October 3, 2007
Hilarious collection of essays about Southern life. Excellent beach read.
September 17, 2008
LOVED this one. Best quick read for the beach. Laughed out loud in my beach chair.
August 27, 2008
One of the funniest books I've ever read!!...and I was raised by two VERY northern parents.
September 8, 2010
I loved this book! Very funny and easy read. :)
August 17, 2013
Enjoyable, witty series of essays on the South from the perspective of a writer reared in the South. Although I am a Southerner, I think readers from any region will enjoy this book.
February 7, 2021
This is the first standalone I ever given one star and this is the third book that I've read that gotten one star. What I'm saying is that I rarely read books as distasteful as this was. I was expecting a book (based on the cover & title) that this was going to be about different traditions and celebrations throughout the south concerning animals and would explain how they worked and about the south's relationship with animals/domestication. This was more about a rich and privileged lady making generalizations about women from different areas of the south and how much she dislikes having one of her houses in New Orleans. She also kept using 'we' when referring to women in the south. She made it seem as if I should already be familiar with Julia Reed, which I'm not. There was also several writing mistakes, she told the same story twice, it was not structured well, and to me it just seemed devoid of skill. I'm glad it was short.
May 8, 2024
She comes off as a slightly left-leaning country club Southern belle. But that's not a 100% bad thing at all. She has some humor and wit. She seems to be trying to explain Southern culture to readers of things like New York Times and Vogue, which are some of the zines that these essays originally appeared in. I am probably NOT the audience for this kind of thing, but having grown up as a middle class fella in medium-sized North Carolina towns, I get what she's speaking of. My favorite parts are when she's talking about getting sloshed. It's getting to be pretty non-PC to openly talk about boozing and this is...refreshing. The problem is how much she gives off an air of privilege. But hey--people born into privilege can voice their thoughts.
July 1, 2020
I enjoyed the essays about food, but much of the material is very dated and specific to older upper middle class white women. I started out enjoying it and thinking about which friend I would pass it to after I finished it, but it left a sour taste (the chapter about fox hunting and cockfighting, the sausage, the German model...). There are much more interesting and entertaining things about Southern culture, and much better books about it. I may pick up one of Ms. Reed’s books about food, but not into this type of overly precious essay writing.
October 3, 2020
I’m kind of obsessed with Southern food, and Julia Reed is an engaging and entertaining writer. I find it necessary to add that over the years, I’ve gone from finding her writing charming and fun, to often entitled and oh so privileged (a change in my worldview, not in her writing), but if you can put that aside, she is very entertaining, and I found myself shocked and saddened at her recent untimely death.
December 19, 2020
I enjoyed this collection of light, Southern essays written by Julia Reed (Garden and Gun). I like how she captured some of the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of Southern culture and spotlighted a number of characters, whose doppelgängers could be found in any Southern small town. Many of our small towns have unique a festivals, beauty pageants, local dishes and more - it was fun to read about her own experiences and perspectives.
February 15, 2021
I learned of Julia Reed by reading her essays in Garden and Gun magazine. I always enjoyed them and, upon hearing of her passing, decided I needed to read one of her books. This one is a collection of essays, ruminating about the South and - to a large degree - the author's southern upbringing. I really enjoy her humor, insight, and acuity. I liked the book quite well, and will likely read others as time goes on.
March 28, 2019
She's from further south than I am. But she's funny. This book consists of reportage on places and events that were advertised to the public, including a turtle race, the openings of buildings, restaurants, and so on. It qualifies as cultural history; it also passes muster as comedy. The recipes are not to be missed, especially the one for the not-too-sweet, mousselike tomato ice cream.
August 17, 2021
I am currently reading all of Julia Reed's book because my sister gave me ALL OF THEM for my birthday. Let me say this was the best gift ever. I laugh, I read aloud, I mark recipes - mostly I end up googling Julia Reed because I am obsessed with her. So very sad I will never get a chance to meet her.
March 26, 2019
I enjoyed this collection of essays. I don't think you have to be a Southerner to appreciate Reed's humor about her heritage. At times I wasn't sure if she was poking fun or bragging about certain Southern traits. Either way it is obvious that she is proud of her roots.
July 14, 2020
A fun read with some history, reflections, and musings about living in the southern United States.
Published about 15 years ago so some of the pieces were a bit lost on me, and I didn’t have a huge connection to the author before starting. Very intelligent in its writing and conception though.
Published about 15 years ago so some of the pieces were a bit lost on me, and I didn’t have a huge connection to the author before starting. Very intelligent in its writing and conception though.
January 2, 2024
As a southerner, an enjoyable read, When the author started talking about hired help and family cooks she lost me - not an experience I had growing up. Then the pagents and contests - only the upper crust of the south experienced this...cute read, but not relatable...
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