My Tears Spoiled My Aim: and Other Reflections on Southern Culture [Paperback]

John Shelton Reed (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0156000067 | ISBN-13: 978-0156000062 | Publication Date: May 13, 1994

With characteristic tongue-in-cheek wit, Reed tackles the questions, Just what is “the South” today? Where is it? Why are Southerners so devoted to it? Instructional maps include “Where Kudzu Grows” and “States Mentioned in Country Music Lyrics.”

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Where exactly is the South? Why do southerners so love it? Why have more and more blacks been moving there? Is the southerner's reputation for laziness really deserved? Those who know Reed (Sociology/University of North Carolina) only as the author of Southern Folk, Plain & Fancy (1986)--a vastly entertaining collection of southern stereotypes--will be gratifyingly surprised with the present essays, which effortlessly cut through a century's worth of bias to answer the above questions and more. Reed insists that to ask ``Where is the South?'' is pointless. Southerners, he contends, are America's only genuine ethnic group and are bound together by culture--patterns of diet, religion, music, manners, and the like--rather than by geography. There are sizable southern enclaves in Ypsilanti, Michigan; in Bakersfield, California; in Brooklyn; and in many other places. Asked what they like about the South, southerners who live below the Mason-Dixon Line invariably speak of the pleasant natural conditions and the amiable people: ``It's green, clean-looking, not eaten-up with pollution''; ``I have a great feeling of being respected and welcomed here.'' What about returning blacks? Reed says that the years 1963-65 evidenced a watershed reversal of white prejudice; that ``more blacks now hold public office in the South than any other region''; and that ``average black incomes in the South have exceeded those in the Midwest, and increased in the 1980's while declining elsewhere in the US.'' And as for southerners' supposed laziness, Reed notes that they watch less TV and listen to less radio than their compatriots. The author also quotes a 1973 Harris poll that found favorite pastimes to include fixing things around the house; helping others; eating; developing one's personality; having a good time with friends and family; taking naps; and ``just doing nothing.'' Wonderfully authentic: an admirably lighthearted supplement to W.J. Cash's classic The Mind of the South. (Maps.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Where exactly is the South? Why do southerners so love it? Why have more and more blacks been moving there? Is the southerner's reputation for laziness really deserved? Those who know Reed (Sociology/University of North Carolina) only as the author of Southern Folk, Plain & Fancy (1986)--a vastly entertaining collection of southern stereotypes--will be gratifyingly surprised with the present essays, which effortlessly cut through a century's worth of bias to answer the above questions and more. Reed insists that to ask ``Where is the South?'' is pointless. Southerners, he contends, are America's only genuine ethnic group and are bound together by culture--patterns of diet, religion, music, manners, and the like--rather than by geography. There are sizable southern enclaves in Ypsilanti, Michigan; in Bakersfield, California; in Brooklyn; and in many other places. Asked what they like about the South, southerners who live below the Mason-Dixon Line invariably speak of the pleasant natural conditions and the amiable people: ``It's green, clean-looking, not eaten-up with pollution''; ``I have a great feeling of being respected and welcomed here.'' What about returning blacks? Reed says that the years 1963-65 evidenced a watershed reversal of white prejudice; that ``more blacks now hold public office in the South than any other region''; and that ``average black incomes in the South have exceeded those in the Midwest, and increased in the 1980's while declining elsewhere in the US.'' And as for southerners' supposed laziness, Reed notes that they watch less TV and listen to less radio than their compatriots. The author also quotes a 1973 Harris poll that found favorite pastimes to include fixing things around the house; helping others; eating; developing one's personality; having a good time with friends and family; taking naps; and ``just doing nothing.'' Wonderfully authentic: an admirably lighthearted supplement to W.J. Cash's classic The Mind of the South. (Maps.) (Kirkus Reviews )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (May 13, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156000067
• ISBN-13: 978-0156000062
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #877,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Shelton Reed is William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science for twelve years and helped to found the university's Center for the Study of the American South. He has written or edited eighteen books, four of them with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Popular scholarship, May 2, 2000

By 

Julian P Killingley - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Tears Spoiled My Aim: and Other Reflections on Southern Culture (Paperback)

A Brit like me needs all the help he can get when it comes to understanding the South - and John Shelton Reed is the man to supply it. Readers may find the review from a reader in Vermont a little misleading - this book is not written for laughs although it is often very amusing. Reed is no Bill Bryson - but neither is Bryson a John Shelton Reed.

The book is a wonderful collection of short esssays that illuminate and explain "Southern-ness". Pinning down Southern characteristics - or indeed even where "The South" begins and ends - is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. However, that does not prevent Reed making the attempt with humor and considerable scholarship.

Most of the chapters have previously appeared in journals or are based on such papers. Reed's tone is light and entertaining even though the underlying purpose is serious. Perhaps the most overtly scholarly is the opening chapter that deals with the geographical extent of "The South". It is well adorned with plates taken from a very wide range of academic journals showing the incidence in the contiguous states of various factors suspected of reflecting Southern-ness. All the usual suspects are here: self-perception, cotton cultivation, incidence of lynchings, members of Baptist chruches, and 'Southern Living' readers. However, Reed has other less familiar indicators of Southern-ness such as where kudzu grows, ratio of active dentists to population, states mentioned in country-music lyrics, ratio of homicides to suicides, or chapters of the Kappa Alpha order.

It makes for fascinating reading and a shifting pattern of where the South is. Other chapters deal with such disparate issues as the depiction of Southern women in Playboy magazine, violence in country music, the Southern diaspora, and life and leisure in the New South. Reed's real achievement is to disguise his scholarship as an entertaining and informative read.

This is a very different kind of book from Reed's 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South. That was more an eclectic collection of facts, both familiar and unfamiliar, grouped loosely around broad themes. It was more for dipping into than reading straight through. The present book is more limited in its aims and obliquely explores a few specific questions in greater depth.

All in all, this is an immesely enjoyable book that is full of surprising revelations about the nature of Southern-ness. Some of the material on which it is based is getting a little dated (the bulk of sources are from the 1970s and early 1980s) and we can only hope that Reed is moved to bring out a new edition.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's So True!, February 7, 2001

By 

Michael Charton - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Tears Spoiled My Aim: and Other Reflections on Southern Culture (Hardcover)

I am from Brooklyn, New York and spent four years in a rural Virginia town. I was informed I was the third Jew to have lived in the town. Too bad, this book didn't exist when I lived down there. I just read it and couldn't put the book down and stop laughing. I learned about Professor Reed from the book Culture Shock USA, The South. An invaluble book for those who want to do business with Southerners, or move down there and become "Damn Yankees" (as my Alabama cousins call them). (You know you are liked, when you are promoted to Damn Yankee). To the reviewer from Birmingham, England. Explore the South and enjoy!

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I LAUGHED THE ENTIRE TIME AND ANNOYED MY IN-FLIGHT NEIGHBORS, December 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: My Tears Spoiled My Aim: and Other Reflections on Southern Culture (Hardcover)

John Shelton Reed does it again in this hilarious book. I have finally become addicted to his writing which is some of the most accurate and funny I have seen in quite some time, since I have been in academia for most of my life now. Anyone living in the South or those who have left and remember it well (like myself) will love this gem of a book.