Sitting Up With the Dead [Hardcover]

Pamela Petro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 2001

The story of the South is not finished. The southeastern states of America, the old Confederacy, bristle with storytellers who refuse to be silent. Many of the tales passed down from generation to generation to be told and re-told continue to change their shape to suit their time, stretching elastically to find new ways of retailing the People's Truth. Travelling back and forth, from the Carolinas to Louisiana, from the Appalachians to Atlantic islands, from Virginian valleys to Florida swamps, and sitting before bewitching storytellers who tell her tales that hold her hard, Pamela Petro gathers up a fistful of history, and sieves out of it the shiny truths that these stories have been polishing over the years. Here is another America altogether, lingering on behind the facade of the ubiquitous strip-mall of anodyne, branded commerce and communication, moving to other rhythms, reaching back into the past to clutch at the shattering events that shaped it and haunt it still

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Petro, a travel writer based in Northhampton, Mass., embarked on four meandering trips through the South to explore the "place-bond" that particular, mysterious nexus of identity, geography and history that she imagines defines Southern culture. Doggedly pursuing a diverse group of both black and white professional storytellers, she wanders from Appalachia, Louisiana bayous and Selma, Ala., back to the Atlantic seaboard. Folktales and their tellers serve as her maps and guides; her travelogue is peppered with transcribed stories she hears on the way. The resulting chronicle is an impressive piece of cultural conservation, reportage and memoir that subtly mourns the passing of a rural way of life. Petro revels in the folksy and whimsical stories of mule eggs, plat-eyes, kudzu, rattlesnakes and singing turtles revealing as much about her sensibility as about the eccentricities of her subjects. Not all of the stories retain their power in written form, however, and Petro sometimes offers obvious lessons and characterizations: that elderly people are wise, for instance. On the other hand, she generally resists an academic penchant for overanalyzing, trusting readers to interpret the racial, ethnic, environmental and socioeconomic conditions that shape the stories. The strength of the book lies in the fine balance between the individual voices of her storytellers and her own observations and commentary. In searching out these speakers, Petro discovers her own narrative voice.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Petro has composed a two-fold book --part oral history, part"blue highways"--that refreshingly demonstrates that, despite the"McDonaldization" of America, there is still great regionaldifferentiation in our country. Petro's perspective is far frompedestrian. While extolling the virtues of the oral storytellers thatshe visits, she is able to opine that "while stories ideally link usto the past . . . opening the world wider, storytelling itself cansometimes be a way of narrowing experience, of not hearing. To tell(and tell and tell and tell) is not to listen." In her "blue highways"guise, Petro shines when she describes kudzu growth in northeasternGeorgia (Time magazine voted kudzu one of the worst ideas of thetwentieth century). The more remote Petro's journeys, the moreprimitive the terrain, the more eccentric and captivating were thestorytellers, who, as Petro writes, were "obeying a human impulse asold as fear," making "the dark hours better by filling them withvoices." Greatly entertaining and informative. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 440 pages
• Publisher: Flamingo (May 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002571463
• ISBN-13: 978-0002571463
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,100,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Petro is a genius, December 22, 2003

By 

Jack Markell (Wilmington, DE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sitting Up With the Dead: A Storied Journey Through the American South (Hardcover)

It's rare to find such a great book - entertaining, provocative and simply impossible to put down. I've long been a Petro fan --starting with her classic "Travels in an Old Tongue". Only wish she would write more. Highly recommended.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Appalachian stories? Not in this book....., January 20, 2006

By 

Tamara Michael "New Orleans Creeper" (Zachary, La USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sitting Up With the Dead: A Storied Journey Through the American South (Hardcover)

I thought this book would be full of fascinating stories from the Appalachian mountain people, boy was I disappointed. What it turned out to be is the authors opinions of the storytellers themselves. Very few stories are included but complete details of her trip...the weather....her emails...how she felt and whatever else she could find to toss into the book to fill its pages. About halfway through I was ready to chunk it into the resell pile but I held on hoping it would get better, it didn't. If you are looking for folklore and the true tales of the Appalachian mountains, I'd suggest finding another book cause this book will sadly disappoint you. I'd put this one in the ranks of being one of the worst books I've ever read.