First published 2004
Ellen Douglas opens her collection by examining what it means to be a witness. She stands outside the action, watching and shaping what she sees into stories. Across sixteen essays spanning forty years, Douglas shares her observations of Southern life in all its complexity. She recalls her youth and family memories. She describes her literary friendships with Walker Percy and Shelby Foote. She presents a firsthand account of the violence that erupted when James Meredith integrated Ole Miss. Douglas reads the work of her predecessors, from William Faulkner to the overlooked memoirist Mary Hamilton, whose experiences in early river lumber camps prove as remarkable as any novel. Throughout, Douglas demonstrates her belief that a writer's primary duty involves observing both historical events and personal moments, then bringing the past to bear on the present. Her essays reveal how great writers shaped her artistic vision and how real world events provided energy and structure for her fiction.
Genres: essays, literary-criticism, 20th-century, american, non-fiction, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: observational, witness
Setting: Ole Miss, Southern
Period: 40 Years
198 pages · Hardcover · University Press of Mississippi