Shows how representations of poor white southerners helped shape middle-class identity and major American literary movements and genres.

An enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged

Explores the abundance of Native American representations in US Southern literature.

“A lush mystery-within-a-coming-of-age-tale-within-a-Southern-Gothic.” —NPR Books “A richly textured portrait of small-town dysfunction and murder . . .

The essays cover an astonishing range of subject matter, from mental health and plastic surgery to literature, music, political philosophy, performance, popular