The Real South: Southern Narrative in the Age of Cultural Reproduction by Scott Romine

In this book Scott Romine investigates the question of what constitutes the "real" South in the context of so many competing stories and narratives. He concludes that both "real" and "South" are terms that have little meaning without quotation marks--that is, spending a lot of time on figuring out what is "authentic" or "traditional" is less valuable than assessing how these cultural productions function. There are good readings of a variety of texts, ranging from Gone with the Wind to Roots to Daughters of the Dust to Dip's (a restaurant in Chapel Hill) to Confederates in the Attic to A Turn in the South. Finally Romine concludes that "my South" is always tenuous and dependent on who's talking, but that these overlapping Souths are more realistic and accurate than any single solid South could be.