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A review by jodiguerra
The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi by Richard Grant
5.0
Richard Grant is a British journalist and author fascinated by the ironies of Natchez, MS. He is friends with Regina Charboneau, a Natchez socialite, cookbook author, and business woman. While visiting her, he begins a quest to understand this full-of-contradictions Southern town.
As noted in the book jacket, Natchez “once ad more millionaires per capita than anywhere in America, and its wealth was built on cotton and slavery.” The social scene for white citizens swirls around fundraising to keep up the many antebellum plantation mansions in what is likely the only matriarchy in the US. The black citizenry sometimes rails, sometimes participates, in these spectacles. Natchez faces financial battles and upheaval as it tries to cope with its past and somehow work together to build a better future.
This book, even before I received it, interested me because I already knew Natchez was a close cousin to that other distinctly weird and wild Southern city, Savannah. I know this because my mother was born in Natchez, and Mississippi is always a place full of contradictions. As Grant notes, it has produced per capita “more great writers and musicians...than any other state in America -- and in blown psychological gaskets and erratic behavior.” And while John Berendt had a murder in a mansion in Savannah to anchor his story “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (a must read!), Grant has his own completely off the wall cast of characters including elderly women in hoop skirts, the only police chauffeured drunk-driving escapade of Santa Clauses that I’m aware of, haunted houses, visits to cemeteries, gay mayors, frustrated activists, and feuding garden clubs.
Grant weaves the story of Prince Ibrahim, a royal son of Africa, who finds himself enslaved and working on a plantation in Natchez. His tale is the haunting backdrop to the current state of affairs Grant also explores.
While reminiscent of “Confederates in the Attic,” this book is more direct but just as fun. If you like Southern history or travel tales, you will like this book!
As noted in the book jacket, Natchez “once ad more millionaires per capita than anywhere in America, and its wealth was built on cotton and slavery.” The social scene for white citizens swirls around fundraising to keep up the many antebellum plantation mansions in what is likely the only matriarchy in the US. The black citizenry sometimes rails, sometimes participates, in these spectacles. Natchez faces financial battles and upheaval as it tries to cope with its past and somehow work together to build a better future.
This book, even before I received it, interested me because I already knew Natchez was a close cousin to that other distinctly weird and wild Southern city, Savannah. I know this because my mother was born in Natchez, and Mississippi is always a place full of contradictions. As Grant notes, it has produced per capita “more great writers and musicians...than any other state in America -- and in blown psychological gaskets and erratic behavior.” And while John Berendt had a murder in a mansion in Savannah to anchor his story “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (a must read!), Grant has his own completely off the wall cast of characters including elderly women in hoop skirts, the only police chauffeured drunk-driving escapade of Santa Clauses that I’m aware of, haunted houses, visits to cemeteries, gay mayors, frustrated activists, and feuding garden clubs.
Grant weaves the story of Prince Ibrahim, a royal son of Africa, who finds himself enslaved and working on a plantation in Natchez. His tale is the haunting backdrop to the current state of affairs Grant also explores.
While reminiscent of “Confederates in the Attic,” this book is more direct but just as fun. If you like Southern history or travel tales, you will like this book!