Latest / Books4Guys / John T. Edge on House of Smoke, TrueSouth & Understanding the American South

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John T. Edge on House of Smoke, TrueSouth & Understanding the American South · Books4Guys

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably one of the most excited I've been for any episode I've done of the Books for Guys podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: As man, today's a big day.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know this episode will come out afterwards, but season nine of True South is hitting SEC Network.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And man, I think I've watched every single episode and uh big fan of everything you and Wright have put together.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And man, I'm just excited.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for taking the time to do this today.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Chris.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to be here.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good day.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: It is a good day, man.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, John T, I uh I just wanted to kick things off because I want you to talk about your books and true South and just kind of all this a little bit together.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: But man, what you've created is something really beautiful.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the way, you know, again, I love where you go to different towns and different restaurants, and you're talking about the history of the South and how beautifully complicated it all is and has been and and still is, you know, a lot of times.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I know the book that's out now talks a lot about your life, your personal life, House of Smoke, which I've got on the Books for Guys website, and it interfines a lot of that as well.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: But John T, for those who who haven't been introduced to you through your books or True South, would you mind just sharing a little bit about your story and just who you are and kind of where it's gotten you to today?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I my wife and I live about four blocks south of the square in Oxford, Mississippi.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: My wife just retired from teaching here, taught creative writing for 28 years at the university.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, our son Jess is uh 25 years old and he's running a U.S.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: congressional campaign here in Mississippi.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's got a big, big two months ahead of him.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I lived here in Oxford since 1995.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I moved here from Georgia where I grew up.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this book, House of Smoke, begins in my childhood home at age really eight or 10.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm still connected to the place from which I came, but Oxford has been home for 30 years and we're not going anywhere.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to write here.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I built a career here that I didn't even think was possible.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oxford told me a lot of things were possible, told me I could be a writer, and then helped me find a way.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so grateful to my town and and to my university as well.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I work here at the University of Mississippi and have since 1999.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh, you know, even on a non-football game weekend, we've got a big football game coming up this weekend.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when we're recording this, SU is coming to town and bedlam will ensue.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But no matter what's happening in town, I I love my little place.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, for sure.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've been I've been a few times.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've I'm I'm a razor back, but I've got some some old miss friends.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I've been I've been to Tailgate there in the grove.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's the best in the SEC.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And certainly as uh as a college football fan in general, uh Saturday night, I will be watching the game as most probably every college football fan will be paying attention to what's going on there in Oxford.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so but John, I I like I said, I've got your book up and and sure.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to to know more about, you know, without going without giving so much away, but just talk a little about a little bit about your life in general because you talk about the intertwining of this complicated South.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you've you experienced it personally, and I mean you're you've lived in the South your whole life.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: You you've seen a lot, experienced a lot.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: You you talk about it a lot and you try to give a picture of it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So can you share a little bit about just the way you grew up and some of the things you write about?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So my book opens um in the home where I was born in Clinton, Georgia, which is about 12 miles north of Macon.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And born in my home in 1829 was a boy who would become a Confederate Brigadier General.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Alfred Iverson.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And as a boy, I revered Iverson because I believed what was written on the historical marker in front of our house that implied that he was a hero.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as time passed, I came to learn a different story.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, this book begins there with the stories I was told growing up about my place and my people, and then my own attempt to unpack those stories and take the stories I've been told by my family and by the South as a whole and rewrite them.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a writer.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, my job, I think, here as a as a human moving through the world of the year 2026 is to take the stories I inherit, figure out what about those stories I find has fidelity to the truth and what deviates, and then find a way to write a new story for myself, for my people.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what this book is about.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a search for home, a place to belong.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're only truly at home when we know the fullness of our stories.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: John T., where did you get the the heavy interest in pursuing this path of searching for home and just all the stories that come along with it in the South?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because you, again, you talk about it so beautifully.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: You phrase it way better than I do, but uh it's something that, you know, I'm not the only one that's interested in.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I love learning about stories that, again, aren't necessarily what we kind of maybe have been told they were about.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we kind of discover some of the truths and some of it hurts.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then we we try to put ourselves back during that a certain era and we we try to figure it out and untangle things to the best of our abilities.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: But where did you, and I know growing up in that home, I'm sure had a played a big part, but like what really has driven you to continue pursuing all of that and then intertwining all the work you do, like through the show and all like how did that come about?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my drive here is to love my people and love my place.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think many of us who live in the South who um, you know, who have complicated relationships with the South, as you mentioned, who have these dueling narratives in my head.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love my place and I hate my place.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that Patterson Hood and Natasha Trethaway, Patterson Hood, a musician, Natasha Trethaway, a poet, both have written about a duality that exists within many of us.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for the longest time I've accepted that duality, this idea that it was normal to love my place and hate my place, love the South and hate the South.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: But working on this book, I've come to at least my conclusion.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't I don't pretend to say what others might want to believe, but I don't think that's a tenable way to be, to love your place and hate your place.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think what I'm working toward here is a love of my place and a love of my people.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I believe that to tell the truth, the full truth about your place is an act of love.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: To be critical of your place, to be well-intentioned and critical of your place when you're bringing the critic criticism to bear is an act of love.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: To want more from your place and from your people is an act of love.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, that all folds into I'm on a search for home, for a place where I can belong, where I can love my people, um, and they can love me.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and that sounds a little gauzy and soft, but it's hard work.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I I I understand it completely.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and I love the way you say you're you love where you're at, and there's not nothing wrong with demanding it to be better and improve.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can do that in all phases of life, but especially at home, and and we're we're all we're all different, mixed together.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: We we can want better.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it resonates a lot with me, John, because I'm just thinking, I don't know, I've been in my in the south my whole life.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was born in Little Rock, I lived in a little town, Pine Bluff, outside of there.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very was introduced to culture at a very young age, lived in San Antonio, Texas.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I lived in Atlanta, I'm in Nashville now.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all these places have a piece of just history and a lot of the same things you talk and write about.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's these things that collide in a in a in a beautiful way sometimes.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone, for the most part, has the same approach.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: They just want things to be better and they want everyone to get along and everyone to to be happy and accepting of each other and cultures.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do, I do really appreciate the work that you do and and how you go about it.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it it makes a big impact positively.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Chris.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I one thing I think about, you know, we use the word culture a lot, and I I write about this in the book that culture to me is not something that's fixed in time.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we too often talk about it that way.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: That, you know, culture is something from our past to be preserved.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think culture is instead a process, not a product.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: The way we express ourselves through music, through literature, through art, um, however it is we express ourselves is a cultural phenomenon that changes um across time, across experience.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It changes based on perspective.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it changes based on who lives in the region now and who who once lived in the region.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So these talks about culture really are a way to chart the evolution of a people.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way you say that, because culture is something you can look back on to see where it was and culture can experience, can be experienced in real time for what it is and where we're at today.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't really thought of it that way before, but that that makes a lot of sense.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: John T, as people read your book and consume it, what are what are a couple things you hope people take away from it?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: If if they only take a, you know, a nugget or two of what you're trying to share, what do you hope those those points are?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I hope people can understand that change is hard, but change is necessary, change in understanding of your own history, change in understanding of your role in the South, change in understanding of the way you impact others.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I told you a moment ago, I grew up believing the story about Alfred Iverson.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I would we I was born in this home that dated to the 1820s.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as a boy, I would stand up on top of a wash pot at the edge of our patio and tell the story of Alfred Iverson as a hero.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I believe different stories now.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've found a different story to tell.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I want people to understand that like it's okay to change.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to admit that the story you knew as a boy is doesn't hold water, that you as a human have changed.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's incumbent upon us across our across our lives is not to be stay fixed in our beliefs, but to take in new information and make change.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've made a lot of change in my in in my time on this planet.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time when I went off to college, I was I was a very unfocused student, to say the least.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I now work at a university.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've got three degrees from universities.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I um, you know, I value education and all it can bring, but in 1980, I was the guy funneling hunch punch at a at a at a party.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was the guy dancing until I worked myself into a froth of sweat.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was the guy who had no interest in classes.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was an earlier version of me.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm I've changed a lot over time, and I think we all do.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think to embrace those changes instead of being embarrassed by them, to understand that change is is like I don't know, we all need to evolve over our lives, and that's one of the things I've realized.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, John T, that's a big thing about books for guys, is just my personal journey.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've changed the way I've thought, I've become more empathetic, I've I've learned things from taking the time to read books like yours, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And better understanding and becoming more educated in certain areas.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's something I'm trying to encourage a lot of young guys to do at an earlier age, is dive into reading and learning and start that curiosity and personal development uh track earlier, as early as possible.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you, you know, as a as an individual who works at a university, and again, as you've experienced things throughout your life, I'm curious to know what your thoughts are, just your opinion on our maybe future, future young people who are who are growing, you know, they've gone through COVID.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: We we saw a lot of events take place during that time that kind of maybe brought some things back to the surface that maybe hadn't been there in a while.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You do you see, well, let me just ask you, like, what do you see from our young people?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel optimistic that we are trying to be be more loving and accepting and and embrace our home or to make our home a better than it's ever been?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or are there some frustrations that you've kind of found yourself having?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just, you know, just your personal opinion around all that.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm really impressed by my son's generation.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our son's 25.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I find them far more empathetic than than my generation was.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: I find them far more willing to go to therapy and, you know, figure out how to get a handle on their own mental health.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was not something that, you know, kids in the Deep South did when I was growing up.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It, you know, it was a punchline to a Woody Allen joke about people in New York who went to therapy.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I find kids today um more willing and able to get in touch with their feelings, and I think that's great.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I find them also willing to ask questions about the jobs they take, like, how am I going to be treated?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Am I willing to give 60 hours a week to a job?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I find it crazy, train, that people my age question them on that.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's exactly the right question to ask.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how much of yourself do you want to give to a job?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: How much of your life and your time on this planet do you want to give to a job?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question to ask.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think, you know, this newer generation, and I think some of this comes out of COVID about so many people stepping out of the workplace.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when they step back in, they had questions.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And those questions are good ones to ask.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I appreciate you sharing your opinion on that.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm in the world of recruiting.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I I deal with probably four or five different generations of workers right now.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone has, you know, there's people that have done things a certain way for a long time.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a generation that is, they want they're a little more empathetic.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: They want to know what we're doing to be more socially responsible.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, where's my balance?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's important in life?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've seen people at the top end start to have that, those questions too.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's coming together on some things, but it's interesting to talk with people who have done things differently and kind of see how they're they're starting to coexist maybe a little bit better.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's interesting.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: John, John T, if you don't mind, I would love to ask you a couple questions about True South too, just because again, this is a big day.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Season nine is releasing this evening.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will be watching.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm curious to know, so I don't know how any of that works.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: How you know, how did you get the idea?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: How did it come to fruition to even get season one kicked off?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, my buddy Wright Thompson, who's our executive producer and is a senior writer for ESPN, we live about eight blocks apart in Oxford.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And one day we met for cheeseburgers at Handy Andy, um, which is a barbecue joint, but you don't really go for there for the barbecues, you go there for cheeseburgers.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we met there one day and we were talking about the ways in which the national media often depicts the South, especially on television, and that it's usually grounded in stereotype, the kind of the myth, the kind of magnolias, the moonlight, and all that BS.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we said to ourselves, like, why can't there be a television show that actually looks like the South that a Southern would watch and say, hey, that that's that's my people, that's my place.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So Wright has a lot of swing at ESPN as a senior writer.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I went home from that lunch and I wrote a proposal, and Wright sold it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we got a TV show.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't work that way normally.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Rosalind Durant, who was at that point the head of the SEC network, saw the promise really early and believed in us.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for that, I'm I'm so thankful because that first year, 2018, we didn't know how to make a television show.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: We had some instincts and and we we we had some ideas, but we've learned a lot in in nine years.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really proud of what our crew gets to do.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think we're trying, I'm not saying we get there, but we try to do the thing we set out to do.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the South today?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who lives here?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: What runs through their heads?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: What do they care about?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they eat?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they worship?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what art do they make?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
• 17:43
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I I some of my favorite, some of the favorite parts of the shows are when you and Wright are just sitting back with a cocktail and talking and just kind of rehashing what you've experienced or just your thoughts on the South.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it uh again, it's just done beautifully.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's perfect for the SEC network, just, you know, as a football fan, as a as a Southern food fanatic, and just I love little towns and little mom and pops, and you guys do such a great job of visiting those places and and giving those people stories a platform to be shared on.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know me and my wife, we've uh before we take trips sometimes, I I I gotta remember, but sometimes we've been like, where did they go in in True South?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we need to go and and find that spot.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's the the SCC network has has come up with a really good website that has all the locations mapped and then all the details.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you need a trip planner, head over there.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's good stuff.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna include that in the show notes, John T.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: I actually had that pulled up, and it is a very well done website with all the locations.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a really good website.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just two more questions for you, John T.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: One is kind of an unfair because I've uh it again, the show, you've experienced so many just cool stories and met so many good people and had good food and good drinks.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have like a top three where you're like, man, I I will never forget how that tastes.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I will never forget that that cocktail that was made.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you have a small list of favorites?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like I fall in love with every place we go.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's why we make a show about them.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I can say this season, you know, we've got four primary shows in the behind the scenes.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the show that premieres September 15th, I would love everybody who watches this show on the shoals of Alabama to get in their car and drive to Florence, Alabama, and eat an egg and olive sandwich at Trow Bridges, open since 1918, right in downtown Florence.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next show is in Hazen, Arkansas.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love everybody who watches that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a show about duck hunting and the people and the places that surround it.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would love everybody who watches that to go to Murray's on a Friday or Saturday night and get fried catfish.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know that place, I'm sure, is an Arkansan.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then up next comes Beauford Highway, and there's a great Filipino restaurant there called Camayan.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they do this eggplant dish with coconut oil that's just ecstatically good.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last of the four, primary, is in Rain, Louisiana.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've never had crawfish bigger or better than I have in rain, and rain is the only place I've ever been when I order the crawfish, and they were so big that I could crack the claws and get meat out of there like a lobster.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were that big.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then episode five is always a wrap-up that right that what you described, right and I sit around and talk.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: This time we're paying tribute to the filmmakers that we admire and are inspired by, the fashion designers that we admire, inspired by, the musicians we admire.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, record labels that we've depended upon for the show.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm excited for everybody to see it.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm excited too.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I got to figure figure out where that uh obviously I got a lot of friends that duck hunt, so that'll be an interesting there in Hazen, but I gotta figure out where you got those crawfish because that sounds lovely.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Here in Nashville, there's usually uh crawfish boils in April, May, and trucks come up from Louisiana to do the boils, and then they were certainly good, but uh the ones that you experienced, uh they seem to be on another level.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I gotta figure out where that's at.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: But John T, last question for you.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I ask everyone who comes on the podcast this question.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's more of just a book-related question.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always curious to know what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you, personally or professionally, and what's a book or two you love to recommend to others?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think one of the books I've recommended the most to others has been Will Campbell's book, Brother to a Dragonfly, which came out in the late 1970s, and it's about his upbringing in um Amite County, Mississippi and this little town of Liberty.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's about his relationship with his brother.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's the dragonfly.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And his brother um fights addiction and doesn't win that fight.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, it's almost a metaphor for a relationship with the South that struggles and can't quite reconcile and can't quite pull it together.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yet you love it anyway, and you love your people anyway.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Coming back to the beginnings of our conversation.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: As for a book that means a lot to me, my father grew up, and this is a part of House of Smoke, too.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: My father grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, and he was a running buddy with a guy named William Price Fox.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And William Price Fox wrote my favorite book of short stories when I was a boy.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was my favorite, called Southern Fried Plus Six.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: The original book was Southern Fried.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: They had six more stories, but Southern Fried is a title story, and it's about a contest between a young callow grill cook at a diner and this Kant-quoting African-American man who's dignified and works alongside him, and who's gonna turn out the orders fast, faster than the other on a Saturday night in Columbia, South Carolina.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a weird setup for a short story, but it's it's beautiful and smart and and full of humor and deep pathos.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that book, Southern Friday.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds I've hey, I've spent some time in Columbia too, so I need to read that because there'd probably be some familiar things.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But no, John T, again, thank you so much, man.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've got, like I said, I've actually got the potlicker papers and House of Smoke.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Chris.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Learn more about it.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in the show notes, too, I'll have the link so they can go purchase those books and support you.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: But no, John T, excited for for season nine of True South, excited to watch all the episodes.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm wishing yourself and Wright continued success with that series.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Chris.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, happy to support you and thank you for being a part of the Books for Guys journey as well.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for the good questions, and I enjoyed the conversation.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, John T.