Read Sitting Up with the Dead: A Storied Journey through the American South by Pamela Petro Online

Appalachian stories? Not in this book I thought this book would be full of fascinating stories from the Appalachian mountain people, boy was I disappointed. What it turned out to be is the authors opinions of the storytellers themselves. Very few stories are included but complete details of her tripthe weather.her emailshow she felt and whatever else she could find to toss into the book to fill its pages. About halfway through I was ready to chunk it into the resell pile but I held on hoping it would get better, it didn't. If you are looking for folkl. escapeartiste said Very disappointing. The subject matter is very interesting, sadly the treatment is rather poor. The author is a travel writer and not a folklorist, so it's not surprising that there is more in the book about her travels through the South than there are stories. What is disappointing is that she's simply not a good writer. Even if you read this as only a travel book and not a collection of folkloric stories, it's flaws are irritating. There are several instances in the book that are muddled and unclear. She's not terribly insightful a. Petro is a genius Jack Markell It's rare to find such a great book - entertaining, provocative and simply impossible to put down. I've long been a Petro fan --starting with her classic "Travels in an Old Tongue". Only wish she would write more. Highly recommended.

They join communities as widespread as the coastal plains of the Carolinas and Georgia, the swamps of the Gulf Coast, and the mountains and valleys of Appalachia. They contain bits of lived history, both from before the Civil War and after. For the first time in paperback, an acclaimed look at the American South through the lenses of its most acclaimed storytellers and their tales.Rarely does a nonfiction work come along that is as original and refreshing as Sitting Up with the Dead. In Sitting Up with the Dead, Pamela Petro offers a paradoxical wake for the undying body of the Old South, to hear its truths and contemplate its robust afterlife in the tallest, lyingest,” most fruitful, and most haunting of its tales.. Among them are Ray Hicks, a National Heritage Fellow; Kathryn Windham, the ghost lady”; Nancy Basket, a kudzu paper-maker; Colonel Rod, self-proclaimed Florida cracker”; and Grammy Award-winner David Holt. You encounter plat-eyes and boo-hags, Jack the trickster and Brer Rabbit, mule eggs, singing turtles, talking corpses, and flying Africans from the sea islands of South

On the other hand, she generally resists an academic penchant for overanalyzing, trusting readers to interpret the racial, ethnic, environmental and socioeconomic conditions that shape the stories. Not all of the stories retain their power in written form, however, and Petro sometimes offers obvious lessons and characterizations: that elderly people are wise, for instance. Petro revels in the folksy and whimsical stories of mule eggs, plat-eyes, kudzu, rattlesnakes and singing turtles revealing as much about her sensibility as about the eccentricities of her subjects. In searching out these speakers, Petro discovers her own narrative voice. The strength of the book lies in the fine balance between the individual voices of her storytellers and her own observations and commentary. . From Publishers Weekly Petro, a travel writer based in Northhampton, Mass., embarked on four meandering trips through the South to expl

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