@blissweb 12 December 2022 more from that month

For her striking work of nonfiction, Imani Perry takes a tour of the American South, visiting more than 10 states, including her native Alabama. Perry argues that the associations and assumptions made about the South—with racism at their core—are essential to understanding the United States as a whole. While there is plenty of history embedded throughout South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, the winner of the 2022 National Book Award for nonfiction, it is no history book. Instead, it’s an impressive mix of deftly compiled research and memoir, with Perry making poignant reflections on the lives of her own ancestors. The result is a revelatory account of the South’s ugly past—the Civil War, slavery, and Jim Crow Laws—and how that history still reverberates today.