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Coast. Cotton and the plantationculture of slavery made the Souththe richest section in the countrybefore the U.S. Civil War (1860-1865). But after the war, the regionsank into poverty and isolation thatlasted a century. Today, the South ispart of what is called the Sun Belt,the fastest growing part of theUnited States.The most traditional of theregions, the South is proud of itsdistinctive heritage. Enduringthemes include family, land, history,religion, and race. Much southernwriting has a depth and humanityarising from the devastatinglosses of the Civil War and soulsearching over the region’s legacyof slavery.The South, with its rich oraltradition, has nourished manywomen storytellers. In theupper South, Bobbie Ann Mason(1940- ) from Kentucky, writes ofthe changes wrought by mass culture.In her most famous story,“Shiloh” (1982), a couple mustchange their relationship or separateas housing subdivisionsspread “across western Kentuckylike an oil slick.” Mason’sacclaimed short novel In Country(1985) depicts the effects of theVietnam War by focusing on aninnocent young girl whose fatherdied in the conflict.Lee Smith (1944- ) brings thepeople of the AppalachianMountains into poignant focus,drawing on the well of Americanfolk music in her novel The Devil’sDream (l992). Jayne Anne PhillipsBOBBIE ANN MASONPhoto: Jymi Bolden /CityBeat(1952- ) writes stories of misfits —Black Tickets (1979) — and anovel, Machine Dreams (1984), setin the hardscrabble mountains ofWest Virginia.The novels of Jill McCorkle(1958- ) capture her North Carolinabackground. Her mystery-enshroudedlove story Carolina Moon(1996) explores a years-old suicidein a coastal village where relentlesswaves erode the foundations fromderelict beach houses. The lushnative South Carolina of DorothyAllison (1949- ) features in hertough autobiographical novelBastard Out of Carolina (1992),seen through the eyes of adirt-poor, illegitimate 12-year-oldtomboy nicknamed Bone. MississippianEllen Gilchrist (1935- ) setsmost of her colloquial CollectedStories (2000) in small hamletsalong the Mississippi River and inNew Orleans, Louisiana.Southern novelists mining maleexperience include the acclaimedCormac McCarthy (l933- ), whoseearly novels such as Suttree (1979)are archetypically southern tales ofdark emotional depths, ignorance,and poverty, set against the greenhills and valleys of easternTennessee. In l974, McCarthymoved to El Paso, Texas, and beganto plumb western landscapes andtraditions. Blood Meridian: Or theEvening of Redness in the West(1985) is an unsparing vision of TheKid, a 14-year-old from Tennesseewho becomes a cold-hearted killerin Mexico in the 1840s. McCarthy’sbest-selling epic Border Trilogy —144