Sitting Up with the Dead

For the first time in paperback, an acclaimed look at the American South through the lenses of its most acclaimed storytellers and their tales.Rarely does a nonfiction work come along that is as original and refreshing as Sitting Up with the Dead. Here, take a ride with Pamela Petro as she embarks on a series of road trips through the states of the Old South to collect its stories and meet its tellers of traditional tales. Some of them are local celebrities, others national treasures. Among them are Ray Hicks, a National Heritage Fellow; Kathryn Windham, the “ghost lady"; Nancy Basket, a kudzu paper-maker; Colonel Rod, self-proclaimed “Florida cracker"; and Grammy Award-winner David Holt. You encounter plat-eyes and boo-hags, Jack the trickster and Brer Rabbit, mule eggs, singing turtles, talking corpses, and flying Africans from the sea islands of South Carolina. Stories provide the connective tissue of the South, linking the past with the...