A review by travellingcari
Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant

5.0

I really, really loved this book. The original plan was to read this while in Mississippi, but the best laid plans and all that jazz. Instead I devoured it in a few days when I returned to NY. Grant is a travel writer who was born in Malaysia and lived in Kuwait, London, Tuscon and New York before moving with his girlfriend turned wife to the Mississippi Delta. They moved partially out of curiosity and partially for a lower cost of living. Grant had friends in the region from his writing career and they met many friends when they moved to Pluto: friends of the family they bought the house from and others they quickly met in the small towns along the Delta.

In between his & Mariah's experiences trying to adjust to small town life and hunt for meat they couldn't otherwise acquire, Grant explored the legacy of racism in Mississippi as a whole and in the Delta specifically. It was still alive for him in his experiences visiting a club with a friend and watching a friend run for mayor of Clarksdale and navigate the race issues therein. In exploring racism he also explored the issues of stereotypes, two liberal democrats forming a deep friendship with conservative christians, and their NYC/London friends meeting and loving their Mississippi friends.

An excellent read about a slightly bizarre living situation.