“I left the South in search of the Enlightenment. I’m
pro-choice, in favor of gay marriage, and against
creationism and the war in Iraq. But both my parents’ people
are deep Southern from many generations, and I spent a
little over a third of my life, including the presumably
most formative years (toilet training through college),
living in the South. Mathematically, that makes me just
about exactly as Southern as the American people, 34 percent
of whom are Southern residents. But it goes deeper than
math—my roots are Southern, I sound Southern, I love a lot
of Southern stuff, and when my [Northern] local paper
announces a festival to ‘celebrate the spirit of differently
abled dogs,’ I react as a Southerner. I believe I care as
much about dogs’ feelings as anybody. It is hard for me to
imagine that a dog with three legs minds being called a
three-legged dog.”
A sly, dry, hilarious collection
of essays—his first in more than ten years—from the writer
who, according to The New York Times Book Review, is
“in serious contention for the title of America’s most
cherished humorist.”
This time Blount focuses on his
own dueling loyalties across the great American divide,
North vs. South. Scholarly, raunchy, biting and affable, ol’
Roy takes on topics ranging from chicken fingers to
yellow-dog Democrats to Elvis’s toes. And he shares
experiences: chatting with Ray Charles, rounding up
rattlesnakes, watching George and Tammy record, meeting an
Okefenokee alligator (also named George, or Georgette),
imagining Faulkner’s tennis game, and being swept up, sort
of, in the filming of Nashville. His yarns, analyses,
and flights of fancy transcend all standard shades of Red,
Blue, and in between.
Roy on language: “Remember when
there was lots of agitated discussion of Ebonics, pro and
con? I kept waiting for someone to say that if you acquire
white English, you can become Clarence Thomas, whereas if
you acquire black English, you can become Quentin
Tarantino.”
Roy on eating: “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.”
Roy on racism:
“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.”
Blount’s previous
books have included reflections on a Southern president
(Jimmy Carter), a novel about a Southern president
(Clementine Fox), a biography of Robert E. Lee, a
celebration of New Orleans, a memoir of growing up in
Georgia, and the definitive anthology of Southern humor.
Long Time Leaving is the capper. Maybe it won’t end
the Civil War at last, but it does clarify, or aptly
complicate, divisive delusions on both sides of the
longstanding national rift. It’s a comic ode to American
variety and also a droll assault on complacency North and
South—a glorious union of diverse pieces reshaped and
expanded into an American classic, from one of the most
definitive and esteemed humorists of our time.
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