Synopsis
To most Americans, Mississippi is not a state but a scar, the place where segregation took its ugliest form and struck most savagely at its challengers. But to many Americans, Mississippi is also home. And it is this paradox, with all its overtones of history and heartache, that Anthony Walton—whose parents escaped Mississippi for the relative civility of the Midwest—explores in this resonant and disquieting work of travel writing, history, and memoir.
Traveling from the Natchez Trace to the yawning cotton fields of the Delta and from plantation houses to air-conditioned shopping malls, Walton challenged us to see Mississippi's memories of comfort alongside its legacies of slavery and the Klan. He weaves in the stories of his family, as well as those of patricians and sharecroppers, redneck demagogues and martyred civil rights workers, novelists and bluesmen, black and white. Mississippi is a national saga in brilliant microcosm, splendidly written and profoundly moving.
About Anthony Walton
See more books from this Authorfor the young Walton, Mississippi was something dark and sinister, ``perhaps the most loaded proper noun in American English.'' So when he was older and going through a difficult time in New York City, the young man determined to confront his devils, thinking that by resolving his issues with Mis...
| Read Full Review of Mississippi: An American JourneyAt 30, Walton, a black man raised middle-class in Illinois, found himself questioning his identity and his heritage.
| Read Full Review of Mississippi: An American JourneyAn aggregated and normalized score based on 20 user ratings from iDreamBooks & iTunes