Noel Polk (1943–2012)

In Outside the Southern Myth, Polk makes the case for his hometown, Picayune, Mississippi, fitting much more into the "normal American" mold than the stereotypical "Southern" small town so commonly portrayed in the media. This is a memoir, but Polk works persistently to make it more about a large segment of Southern males than just about himself, giving us a picture of a small American town with no connection to the Civil War (Picayune has no antebellum history; it did not exist until just after the turn of the 20th century); no racial conflict (which is not to say there was no racism, just that both sides followed the rules, so it never erupted into violence or even confrontation); no glorious traditions to uphold or be buried under. It's very good reading, indeed, especially when he gets to the chapter entitled "One Baptist Son", in which he deconstructs Baptist theology from the perspective of a "survivor" who once (at the age of 11 or 12) felt the call to preach, but grew up and out of it, despite the lingering appeal of the certitude of fundamentalist faith. Polk treats his hometown, the people in it, and his own childhood, with respect, even tenderness at times, but never drifts over the line into sentimentality, often explaining but never rationalizing the kind of racial attitudes and conditions that unquestionably existed then and there.

Noel Polk was a professor at Mississippi State University (not to be confused with Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi), an expert on Faulkner and Welty, and an editor whose name you will find everywhere in recent editions of their works, most especially the Library of America volumes, and the "corrected" editions of Faulkner. Sadly, he passed away in 2012. I think he could have given us even more to think about if he had stayed with us a few more years.

(Review written in 2014)… (meer)