North Carolina produces some of the country’s best writers, receiving national acclaim for both its authors and the works they write.
To compile a list of the best North Carolina literature we went straight to the source, asking authors from around the state to share their own favorite works. For the duration of our N.C. writers series Tales From the Old North State will share the top picks from a different North Carolina author each week.
“Randall Kenan”:http://randallkenan.com/
Kenan spent his childhood in Chinquapin, N.C. and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1985.
Most of his short stories and novels are set in the South, including North Carolina. His collection of short stories called “Let the Dead Bury Their Dead” is set in the eastern part of the state.
The collection was listed among The New York Times Notable Books of 1992 and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award the same year.
Kenan is also the author of “A Visitation of Spirits” and “The Fire This Time,” among other works. He received the North Carolina Award for Literature in 2005 and is now an associate professor of english and comparative literature at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Just that good
Kenan starts off the list with “Beasts of the Southern Wild and Other Stories” by Doris Betts, one of his former professors at UNC-CH.
The collection of short stories includes “The Ugliest Pilgrim,” which follows a disfigured young woman who runs away from her old life, and “Hitchhiker,” the story of a secretary who finds herself on a boat with a man desperately trying to save fish. The publication was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1973.
“She became one of my favorite writers, period,” Kenan said. “It was not because she was my teacher or because she was in North Carolina. She was just that good.”
“Doris understood structure on an atomic level,” he said. “She ranged widely, and they are all different kinds of stories…She had tremendous range.”
Digging deep
Kenan also chose “White People” by Allan Gurganus.
“I just think he is an extraordinary stylist, and his creations of Falls, North Carolina is one of the great literary postage stamps,” Kenan said.
The cast of characters in this collection of 11 short stories ranges from former debutantes to vacationing senior citizens, blending together different strands of American culture in heartbreaking and hilarious ways.
“Allan digs deep,” he said. “His short stories are almost always about families of a certain social class in a certain type of town. He just goes into that sort of Southern, white protestant family history like nobody else.”
Timeless tales
Closing Kenan’s list is “Where She Was,” a novel by Anderson Ferrell that tells the story of poor farm wives in North Carolina.
Ferrell uses language in an almost unheard of way, Kenan said.
“It’s timeless. It’s incredible language,” Kenan said. “It has language that I have never encountered anywhere else. It is a shame that is has sort of dropped off of people’s reading lists.”
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