"Foreword by Jon Meacham"--Dust jacket

Grace under pressure -- New year, old habits -- Songs of summer -- Stuff, sweet stuff -- Say what? -- I'm with the band -- Hello Mother, hello Father -- A moving experience -- The awesome opossum -- Big racks and perfect parties -- Gods, gators, and gumbo -- Slugging it out -- Livestock of the rich and famous -- Life among the serpents -- Mastering the hunt -- A Delta original -- Good to the bone -- Bizarre foods -- A tasteful send-off -- Beyond the Butterball -- Recipe for longevity -- Make mine a scotch -- Stone-ground killer -- The south by the numbers -- Going deep in Dixie -- The dry county conundrum -- The politics of lust -- Good country, bad behavior -- Hollywood on the Delta -- When the sun don't shine -- Hell on wheels -- One for the road -- Rocking the boat -- Belle of the ball -- The ultimate party stop -- Songs of the South

A collection of essays written for the column "The high & the low" in the magazine Garden & gun

"A wry and humorous take on life and culture in the American South. In thinking about her native land, Julia Reed quotes another Southern writer, Willie Morris, who said, "It's the juxtapositions that get you down here." These juxtapositions are, for Julia, the soul of the South and in her warmhearted and funny new book, South Toward Home, she chronicles her adventures through the highs and the lows of Southern life--the Delta hot tamale festival, a masked ball, a rollicking party in a boat on a sand bar, scary Christian billboards, and the southern affection for the lowly possum. She writes about the southern penchant for making their own fun in every venue from a high-toned New Orleans dinner party to cocktail crawls on the streets of the French Quarter where to-go cups are de rigeur. And with as much hilarity as possible, Julia shines her light on the South's more embarrassing tendencies like dry counties and the politics of lust. As she puts it, "My fellow Southerners have brought me the greatest joy--on the page, over the airwaves, around the dinner table, at the bar or, hell, in the checkout line." South Towards Home, with a foreword by Jon Meacham, is Julia Reed's valentine to the place she loves best" --