Hillbilly Heaven

Set in Blytheville, Arkansas, eight-year-old Sara Michelle struggles to come to terms with her parents' separation while spending an adventurous summer in her Mema's house. Hillbilly Heaven is a story that will take you back to a time when life was simple and family was close. For everyone who's ever had a "Mema," this story will touch your heart.

A social history of country music from the 1920s to the present, discussing such artists as Patsy Cline, Grandpa Jones, Dolly Parton, and Garth Brooks.

The stereotypical hillbilly figure in popular culture provokes a range of responses, from bemused affection for Ma and Pa Kettle to outright fear of the mountain men in Deliverance. In Hillbillyland, J. W. Williamson investigates why hillbilly images are so pervasive in our culture and what purposes they serve. He has mined more than 800 movies, from early nickelodeon one-reelers to contemporary films such as Thelma and Louise and Raising Arizona, for representations of hillbillies in their recurring roles as symbolic 'cultural others.' Williamson's hillbillies live not only in the hills of the South but anywhere on the rough edge of society. And they are not just men; women can be hillbillies, too. According to Williamson, mainstream America responds to hillbillies because they embody our fears and hopes and a romantic vision of the past. They are clowns, children, free spirits, or wild people through whom we live vicariously while being reassured about our own standing in society.

Just miles from the Washington, D.C. beltway is the small community of Lorton, Virginia. By the time it was formally named Lorton in the late 1800s, the area had already seen much history in the making. At the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt scouted out the territory for the makings of a new detention center in answer to the prison problems in the District of Columbia. When the land reverted back to Fairfax County in the late 1900s, the Lorton prison facilities were closed, and the community began a rapid development from a poor rural area to one of high-end housing. Through the vintage and modern photos in this volume, walk the grounds of our founding fathers. See the home of George Mason, author of the Bill of Rights, and visit Pohick Church, designed by George Washington. Try to hear the laughter and conversation by the fire at the Fairfax Tavern, a favorite stopping place for anyone heading north. Witness the radical change from an agrarian Lorton to the subdivisions of today.

Josey is a strong willed youngster that endures a lot of trials. Through memories and secrets she reveals you will know the tolerance and durability of what children can endure together when left without a choice.

This text argues that the hillbilly - in his various guises - has been viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the modern order and as a keeper of traditional values and thus symbolic of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life.

Hillbilly Heaven is based on a true story. Josey grew up in the bountiful foothills of the Missouri Ozarks with her little brothers and sister. As her thoughts take her back to those hills, she will make you laugh. The secrets that these beautiful hills hold may startle you. Josey is a strong willed youngster that endures a lot of trials. Through memories and secrets she reveals you will know the tolerance and durability of what children can endure together when left without a choice. True life can sometimes be more bizarre than any movie!

In this stimulating study, Scott Romine explores the impact of globalization on contemporary southern culture and the South's persistence in an age of media and what he terms "cultural reproduction." Rather than being compromised, Romine asserts, southern cultures are both complicated and reconfigured as they increasingly detach from tradition in its conventional sense. In considering Souths that might appear fake -- the Souths of the theme restaurant, commercial television, and popular regional magazines, for example -- Romine contends that authenticity and reality emerge as central concepts that allow groups and individuals to imagine and navigate social worlds. Romine addresses a major critical problem -- "authenticity" -- in a fundamentally new manner. Less concerned with what actually constitutes an "authentic" or "real" South than in how these concepts are used today, The Real South explores a wide range of southern narratives that describe and travel through virtual, simulated, and commodified Souths. Where earlier critics have tended to assume a real or authentic South, Romine questions such assumptions and whether the "authentic South" ever truly existed. From Gone with the Wind, Civil War reenactments, and a tennis community outside Atlanta called Tara, to the work of Josephine Humphreys, the travel narrative of V. S. Naipaul, and the historical fiction of Lewis Nordan, Romine examines how narratives (and spaces) are used to fashion social solidarity and cultural continuity in a time of fragmentation and change. Far from deteriorating or disappearing in a global economy, Romine shows, the South continues to be reproduced and used by diverse groups engaged in diverse cultural projects.

Exploring the redneck culture in all its in-your-face glory, this richly illustrated book is a cross between Studs Terkel and White Trash Cooking. From Velveeta Fudge to values (virtually all expressed in the lyrics of country music songs) to snake-handling ministers and gun mania, Redneck Heaven captures the redneck spirit in all its exuberance. 80 photos.

From myth, religion, art, literature, drama, music, film, and television, the spectacular visions of Heaven are illuminated and interpreted. 50 photos & illustrations.