Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena | 
| Author: Julia Reed
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 68096
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.3
ISBN: 0812973615
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.0975
EAN: 9780812973617
ASIN: 0812973615
Publication Date: April 12, 2005
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Product Description
In classic Dixie storytelling fashion, with a rare blend of literary elegance and plainspoken humor, the inimitably charming, staunchly Southern Julia Reed wends her way below the Mason-Dixon line and observes many phenomena– from politics, religion, and women to weather, guns, and what she calls “drinking and other Southern pursuits.” To hear Reed tell it, the South is another country. She builds an entertaining and persuasive case, using as examples everything from its unfathomable codes of conduct to its disciplined fashion sense. And then there is Southern food, which is an entire world apart: Gumbo, grits, greens, and, of course, fried chicken make memorable appearances in Reed’s essays, which will amuse, delight, and even explain a thing or two to baffled Yankees everywhere.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Their Own Special Genre of Unconventional Behavior December 29, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For those of us who are fascinated by the women of the South and the unique lives they lead, Julia Reed's Queen of the Turtle Derby is the ideal book. A senior writer at Vogue and a contributing editor at Newsweek, Reed grew up in Greenville, Mississippi, and still spends half her year in New Orleans. She knows the South, its women and its men, as well as I know the back of my hand. And she isn't shy about telling it like it is.
I laughed on almost every page. At times, I thought I was reading about a foreign country. The manners and mores of the characters are so different than my own. Yet at times, I could imagine myself living there because I love the friendship of women. The women Reed writes about are utterly loyal and devoted to one another, no matter how diverse their personalities or how much they gossip about one another.
Many years ago, I was a guest in the home of a friend from Jackson, Mississippi, for only a week. I was reminded of my time there when I read the notion of the author's columnist friend who says that to successfully adjust to living in the South, just "Don't think you know what is going on." That was a feeling I had frequently during my week with my friend. I was there. I was showered with gracious attention; yet I couldn't help but feel very much the outsider.
Reed reminds us that the rules and regulations in the daily life of every young Southern woman are entrenched traditions which must be followed to the letter of the law. However one might feel about them. For example, "Memphis girls don't wear a lot of black and they wouldn't be caught dead in public without their makeup." At the same time, she tells us that Southern belles are tough as nails and hold every bit of power over their spouses...that all their "softness" (of which they are so proud and go to such lengths to maintain) is little more than a veneer...a veneer to let the fellows feel they are the ones in charge. Talk to any Southern belle, Reed says, and she will tell you it works.
Another fact I read with interest is that the FBI has released statistics which show Southerners to be the most violent people in the country. Apparently, they own the most guns and will shoot one another at the drop of a hat. One example we are given is the stabbing of a husband by his wife on Thanksgiving Day. "They had been fighting over the last piece of turkey, some dark meat, and the victim had made the mistake of taking it."
The author provides many other examples of their trigger happiness, which, henceforth, might make me think twice before disagreeing with anyone from the South. "The South leads the nation in murders of lovers, spouses, and other relatives (though we don't kill our children any more than most people do)," her source assures us. "But really, we'll shoot just about anything." At the same time, Southern women are the most church-going people in the country.
Another fun subject is Southern food. A homecooked dinner might consist of fried catfish, okra, turnip greens, lima beans, green onions, potatoes, cornbread, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob and tea. Not just some of these, but all. Reed also explains which foods "must" be served at funeral receptions--hams, roasts and, of course, tenderloins, not to mention dozens of casseroles topped with crushed Ritz crackers, crushed potato chips or canned Durkee's fried onions." She is appalled when families resort to Chinese takeout or deli sandwich platters on plastic trays. I doubt that my daughter, who insists that her children eat only organic and wouldn't dare touch anything resembling a potato chip or anything out of a can, would last even a day in that part of the country.
Then there is the matter of drinking. Reed once asked a friend why he thought Southerners drink so much. "Because we lost the War," he said. But the author insists that Southerners drink less than the national average, and she points out that their rate of suicides and mental illness are lower. Though she readily admits that the definition of mental illness in the South is given a great deal more lattitude than in the North.
These are only a few examples of this author's heartfelt appreciation of what makes her countrymen/women different from the rest of us. Indeed, they have their own special genre of unconventional behavior--a love of food and partying, a zest and passion for life that is as endearing as it is often "over the top." I suspect that if I lived in the South, I would be watching from the sidelines with great pleasure.
by Duffie Bart
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
 Gosh durn, ain't I a clever girl... August 13, 2005
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
By now, is there anyone alive who doesn't know Southern men like their guns, while their women like big hair and wear lots of makeup? Judging by this mundane ( the nth Scarlett O'Hara deconstruction), repetitious collection of vignettes (see the German model story), there is truly nothing new under the southern sun. The recipes ( except for the frozen tomato - and who would really serve that?) are familiar. Sure, it is a comfort to know that in the South losing one's mind isn't all that big a deal. It also helps to have housemen, plus maids and cooks to fry up all that great chicken, raise up the kids and allow that steel magnolia (what else?) grandma to keep looking so immaculate while doing years of exhaustive note-taking at the "closed" Belle Meade Country Club - and Julia and friends attend a "racist" boarding school.
We know there really are wonderful cooks and writers to experience in the female South. For fun and style in writing, Florence King was there first. Her books are much more satisfying.
 Color me ambivalent June 11, 2005
6 out of 15 found this review helpful
There's plenty of laugh-out-loud fodder in this little book of short essays. Nothing is quite as funny as the human condition, observed and considered. At this, the author excells.
What astonished me was that I turned the last page of the book with the realization that race seemed to be completely omitted from the narrative, except where one could infer the presence of a non-white in the kitchen or as a maid. For a book of the 21st century, this is beyond startling to me. A subtitle of "Other (White) Southern Phenomena" might have been more on point.
Consider some of the topics. I know that debutantes, for instance, are not only white girls, but the writing about debs and their parties and their season is about a particular kind of girl whose lineage goes back to before -- well, you know. Think about the ubiquity of queens in places like Mississippi and Alabama and the picture that will come to your mind is not one of diversity. If the author's country club experience includes a racially integrated membership, this certainly would have happened not only in her lifetime, but probably since she has become an adult. But there's no mention of that reality, only of a particular kind of food available to those privileged few -- though I suppose that the included recipes purport to allow us to elevate our experience.
The essay about Scarlett O'Hara goes some distance toward explaining what it is so many white women find so endearing about Scarlett: her pluck, her determination, her sauciness. It overlooks entirely that Scarlett, even in Margaret Mitchell's rarified imagination, did not save herself without a "mammy". I don't get Gone With the Wind and probably never will. What I got from the essay was a point of view blessedly or infuriatingly disconnected from decades of social criticism.
The adage that people who like this sort of thing will probably like this seems quite apt. If you are interested in a funny, fairly unnuanced view of the upper-middle class white experience of a Southern woman born in 1960, here's your book.
So real I kept thinking I was reading about my own life February 13, 2005
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Wow, where do I start? I read this book in one sitting and laughed and cried while I was at it. Being from Arkansas myself, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, "What would people think?" It was a mantra in my household, particularly when I was trying to do something as outrageous as leaving the house without lipstick. I turned about every other page over to show my husband later, so he would understand me better!
I felt Ms. Reed presented both sides of the South well... the backward (and oft times embarrassing) ways, and the strong traditions and attitudes that make a real (positive) difference in a person's life. I bought it for my mom and her three sisters, as I knew they would laugh as hard as I did at how she nailed so many aspects of Southerners. I've also given this book to several young women, as I think it portrays the strength of Southern women. Ms. Reed finally gave me a way of explaining to blue-state Northerners (where I live now) why I'm so proud of being Southern.
Not so funny... January 4, 2005
9 out of 20 found this review helpful
Well, having recently finished Celia Rivenbark's 'We're Just Like You Only Prettier', which was very amusing, I figured this book would be similar to that one. The reviews said it was very humorous, and entertaining. I'm sorry, but I do not agree. Julia Reed is a Vogue writer living in New York City, but she's from Mississippi. Now, I felt that at times when describing the silly ways of the southern women's traditions, it was almost like she was making fun of them. But then when she would bash the Yankees (which I happen to be, and am darn proud of it) she was all for her southern heritage.
I love southern books, and I've always had this fascination with the south. I truly hope one day to live there when my husband retires. I have always admired southern women, their traditions, their tight family bonds, and the land itself. Ms. Reed made these women sound ditsy, and shallow, while making us Yankees sound like ignorant, clueless slobs. And she made the area (the south) sound like pure hell to live in.
I gave this 2 stars because there were some interesting facts in it, and some of the events that go on down there were really neat to learn about, and all the food she talked about, sounds delicious! But overall I'd just like to forget this book. It has in no way changed my opinion of southern men and women, or the south itself, and I can only hope they don't look at the Yankees the same way Julia Reed does. If you're looking for a funny book on the 'ways of the south', pick up Ms. Rivenbarks book, that one won't disappoint.
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