Issue 12, June / July 1996

“The Southerner who moves North is a staple character of song and story. In songs he tends to be an involuntary migrant who must leave home to find work. [He dreams] of the day when he can go back to the shack and the church in the wildwood that are ever enshrined in his heart.” — Florence King, on being a Southerner, in “West Toward Home”

Featuring “What’s Spam Got To Do With It?” with text by Clyde Edgerton and photography by Jean-Christian Rostagni.

Fiction by Lee Smith, Steve Yarbrough, and Ellen Gilchrest. Departments by Hal Crowther, Florence King, John Lewis, Roy Blount, Jr., and more.