Crackers -

[Peter Applebome]

>



        At the risk of shameless self-promotion, something not unknown on
this list as far as I can tell, an even better way to learn about the
contemporary and historickal manifestations of cracker culture (from
Neo-Confederates to Lewis Grizzard, to Erskine Caldwell, to Southern
Republicanism to George Wallace, to Hot New Country, to New South
Boosterism) is my book, "Dixie Rising: How the South is Shaping American
Values, Politics and Culture, published last fall by Times Books/Random
House . Check out website at http://www.websun.com/dixierising

        I even make reference to Pynchon and M&D in passing in an afterward
I wrote for the paperback due out in the fall about how, in the end, the
Mason-Dixon Line, north and south, old and new, religious and secular, etc
etc still remains the dividing line in American culture, which is partly, I
think what Pynchon was getting at...

Peter Applebome 

>
>Anyone truly interested in the contemporary manifestation of the "cracker"
>phenomenon should definitely check out writer Roy Blount, author of such
>delightful compilations as CRACKERS and WHAT MEN DON'T TELL WOMEN  (both
>probably out of print, but should be available at the used stores).
>
>