Sitting Up With the Dead: A Storied Journey Through the American South Book

Pamela Petro's travel in Sitting Up with the Dead is a voyage, not a road trip, through the myths and memories of the American South. Her signposts are the storytellers who, by profession or proclivity, keep alive a history that is unique in the United States. The American Deep South is a country of its own, one where the sounds of the cicada, the mocking bird, church revivals and banjos mark time. But it is particularly in the cadence of voices--a variety of accents as indecipherable to an unaccustomed ear as that of Glaswegian or Geordie--that is the heart of Petro's journey. Petro's travels take her through the Carolinas, the Appalachian mountains, Louisiana and the Florida swamps. Each chapter features a storyteller peppered with information on the region, the folklore and, often, the politics of race that is so grounded in this part of the country. The author of Travels in an Old Tongue brings the same keen ear to the personalities of the storytellers such as Ray Hicks and David Holt. She knits her own narrative in an online conversation with budding performance artist Vickie Vedder who has worked the problems of her "dirt poor" southern family into terrific characters. One warning: many of the tale and some interviews are written in dialect. They demand to be read aloud. "Mah gran'father tol 'em (stories) when I'us little. An' I tried to tel 'em at fivh yay-yrs ole'..I liked 'em. Loved th'stawries. An' do yet," says Ray Hicks after telling Petro a couple of yarns. Skip Petro's introduction and just jump in but do save the title story for last. As a narrative on a dying art and for the pleasures of laughing and reading aloud, Petro has stitched together a lasting tale of her own. --Kathleen BuckleyRead More