Novel Sounds shows how Southern writers turned to rock music and its technologies-tape, radio, vinyl-to develop the "rock novel." Florence Dore considers the work of writers like William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and William Styron alongside Bessie Smith, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan to uncover deep historical links between rock and literature.

Novel Sounds shows how Southern writers turned to rock music and its technologies-tape, radio, vinyl-to develop the "rock novel." Florence Dore considers the work of writers like William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and William Styron alongside Bessie Smith, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan to uncover deep historical links between rock and literature.