Brian R. Carpenter

The book had a 22 page introduction to explain what grit lit was. They could have summed it up with - stories about everyday people, most of them lower middle class and poor and saved 21 pages. I read most of the stories in this book, some I couldn't stand, since you could hear the subjects being patronized in the writing. All of the non fiction stories were pretty good. As far as the fiction, only George Singleton, Ron Rash, and Lee Smith's stories stood out. AND, I won't even go into the author who took all of his creative writing students on a field trip to Wal-Mart each year, so they could get "inspiration". LOL GIVE ME A BREAK!… (meer)

An outstanding collection of contemporary southern literature. Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader has several memoir pieces, many stories and excerpts from novels, an informative introduction, and a good list of references and supplemental readings.

Grit Lit is filled with stories of “hard-living people who had seen life from all angles except the top.” It starts with memoir. Larry Brown tells how he couldn’t kill a pig for a roast, and we like him even more for it. Tim McLaurin manages to depict pride and humanity in a North Carolina dog fight.

Heart-wrenching, devastating, and often humorous fiction follows. Harry Crews, Lewis Nordan, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, Ron Rash, Chris Offutt, Daniel Woodrell and Tim Gautreaux are among the contributors. It is sad than many are no longer alive.

This book contains some of the best writing anywhere, it just happens to be southern.… (meer)