Good discussion today.
For those interested in learning more about Padgett Powell, here’s a 2006 interview with him in the Believer, which discusses some of the blue-collar work he did before becoming a writer (”You always miss being around hard people without imaginary issues”) and his relationship to “Southerness” in his writing (”Actually, the idea of having a position at all with respect to characters or Southernness…strikes me as the wrong thing to do”).
Here’s the link to the 9/29 NYT story on Eatonville, FL, made famous by Zora Neale Hurston’s stories. “‘We’re very cautious about how our story is told,’ said Hortense Jones, 59, a lifelong resident and member of the town’s oldest church. ‘It needs to be right.’”