Southern Ladies and Gentleman
by Florence King
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Description
Looking for guidance in understanding the ways and means of Southern culture? Look no further. Florence King's celebrated field guide to the land below the Mason-Dixon Line is now blissfully back in print, just in time for the Clinton era. The Failed Souther Lady's classic primer on Dixie manners captures such storied types as the Southern Woman (frigid, passionate, sweet, bitchy, and scatterbrained--all at the same time), the Self-Rejuvenating Virgin, and the Good Ole Boy in all his show more coatsand stripes. (The Clinton questions--is he a G.O.B. or isn't he?--Miss king covers in her hilarious new Afterword.) No one has ever made more sharp, scathing, affectionate, real sense out of the land of the endless Civil War than Florence King in these razor-edged pages. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Florence King is a hoot. While the South that she writes about here is probably lost forever, there are enough familiar caricatures, er... characters, portrayed in her sharp-witted, sharper-tongued survey of Southern life to provoke a grin and even outright laughter.
Not for the faint of heart, King pulls no punches. The book is peppered with both profanity and vulgarity aplenty (but if it offends, it must hit home, so...). It's easy to see why her "Misanthope's Corner" was a popular column in National Review for years.
Give this slim paperback a try, if you can find a copy. I think you'll find that even we Yankees can recognize more than a few of the types preserved, skewered butterfly-like between the pages.
Not for the faint of heart, King pulls no punches. The book is peppered with both profanity and vulgarity aplenty (but if it offends, it must hit home, so...). It's easy to see why her "Misanthope's Corner" was a popular column in National Review for years.
Give this slim paperback a try, if you can find a copy. I think you'll find that even we Yankees can recognize more than a few of the types preserved, skewered butterfly-like between the pages.
These essays by King form a hilarious anthropological study of the South. Some are dated since it was first published in 1975, but they still hold a resonance that will explain some things to any confused Northerner (Good Old Boys, "coming out", flirting and more). I don't think anything holds a candle to King's memoir Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, but this is still a great read by a fantastic writer.
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Author Information
13+ Works 1,722 Members
Florence Virginia King was born in Washington, D. C. on January 5, 1936. She received a bachelor's degree in history from American University. After college, she trained briefly for the Marines before entering graduate school at the University of Mississippi. She left graduate school after she discovered she could earn $250 an article writing show more first-person stories for pulp magazines like Uncensored Confessions. She wrote more than 100 articles. When the pulps became less popular, she started writing erotic novels under a series of pseudonyms including The Barbarian Princess by Laura Buchanan. In the 1960s, she was a feature writer for The Raleigh News and Observer in North Carolina. Her first book under her own name was the nonfiction title Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, which was published in 1975. Her other nonfiction books include He: An Irreverent Look at the American Male, Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye, Lump It or Leave It, and With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy. She also wrote a memoir entitled Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and an anthology entitled The Florence King Reader. She wrote two columns for the National Review entitled Misanthrope's Corner and The Bent Pin. She also wrote book criticism for Newsday and The New York Times. She died on January 6, 2015 at the age of 80. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Southern Ladies and Gentleman
- Alternate titles
- Southern Ladies & Gentleman
- Important places
- Southern States, USA
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 975.04 — History & geography History of North America Southeastern United States (South Atlantic states) 1865-Present: Post-Civil War to Present
- LCC
- F216.2 .K56 — Local History of the United States, Canada and Latin America United States local history The South. South Atlantic States
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 278
- Popularity
- 115,580
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.02)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 6
