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A Deeper South

The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road

Pete Candler

Paperback
978-1-64336-479-7
Published: May 21 2024

$27.99

Hardcover

Published:

Ebook
978-1-64336-480-3
Published: May 21 2024

OA Ebook
978-1-64336-480-3
Published: May 21 2024

$0.00

The inclusion of this book in the Open Carolina collection is made possible by the generous funding of

The author's road trips through the American South lead to a personal confrontation with history

In A Deeper South: The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road, Pete Candler offers a travel narrative drawn from twenty-five years of road-tripping through the backroads of the American South. Featuring Candler's own photography, the book taps into the public imagination and the process of both remembering and forgetting that define our collective memory of place. Candler, who belongs to one of Georgia's most recognizable families, confronts the uncomfortable truths of his own ancestors' roles in the South's legacy of white supremacy with a masterful mix of authority and a humbling sense that his own journey of unforgetting and recovering has only just begun.




Author website: adeepersouth.com

Listen to Pete Candler on the Southbound podcast

Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Pete Candler is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Bitter Southerner, Washington Post, and elsewhere. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

"Part history, part memoir, and part self-discovery, Candler calls on us to face the demons of our past so that we can truly appreciate the region we call home."—Karen L. Cox, author of Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture

"Candler explores the truth hidden behind the romance of place and digs deep to seek out harsh truths that have been silenced, overlooked, or obscured by willful blindness. This is a book that will help foster a new way of seeing the South."—W. Ralph Eubanks, author of A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape.

"A beautifully conceived and executed piece of historical reclamation."—Margaret Edds, former reporter, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, and author of What the Eyes Can't See: Ralph Northam, Black Resolve, and a Racial Reckoning in Virginia

"A righteous plumbing of suppressed family histories, a vigorous exorcism of the myths and willful ignorance that trouble the land of his birth, A Deeper South blazes a path through the nostalgia thicket for readers who want to make sense of their inheritances. Candler writes with indignation and empathy, showing us a better way to see the South so that we can better love any place we call home."—John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers and host of TrueSouth

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