In Peculiar Crossroads, Farrell O'Gorman explains how the radical religiosity of both Flannery O'Connor's and Walker Percy's vision made them so valuable as southern fiction writers and social critics. Via their spiritual and philosophical concerns, O'Gorman asserts, these two unabashedly Catholic authors bequeathed a postmodern South of shopping malls and interstates imbued with as much meaning as Appomattox or Yoknapatawpha. O'Gorman builds his argument with biographical, historical, literary, and theological evidence, examining the writers' work through intriguing pairings, such as...

In the middle of WWII, John Temple Graves, a syndicated columnist for the Birmingham Age-Herald, analyzed the South's eager support for England during the war's early days. He explored the South's military traditions, its poverty, and its allegiance to honor and duty.

The Fighting South reveals as much about Graves as his region, and he apprears as a thoughtful yet loyal Southerner in the mold of Jonathan Daniels, Clarence Cason, Ralph McGill, and Wilbur Cash.