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Reading path

Kudzu

The vine came to hold the soil and stayed to swallow the houses. This is the literature of the American South in its long hot decline: ruined plantations and pentecostal back roads, families rotting from the inside, the grotesque sitting down to dinner as though it belonged. Faulkner mapped the county, O'Connor armed it with grace and a loaded gun, McCarthy walked it into the dark. The heat never breaks and the past is never even past. You come out knowing that some places remember everything and forgive nothing. Like kudzu, the past never dies; it simply grows over the house.

In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.

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The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.

The route

  • 1. The Fall of the House of UsherEdgar Allan Poe, 1839
  • 2. The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner, 1929
  • 3. As I Lay DyingWilliam Faulkner, 1930
  • 4. A Rose for EmilyWilliam Faulkner, 1930
  • 5. SanctuaryWilliam Faulkner, 1931
  • 6. Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner, 1932
  • 7. Absalom, Absalom!William Faulkner, 1936
  • 8. Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston, 1937
  • 9. The Heart Is a Lonely HunterCarson McCullers, 1940
  • 10. Reflections in a Golden EyeCarson McCullers, 1941
  • 11. A Streetcar Named DesireTennessee Williams, 1947
  • 12. Other Voices, Other RoomsTruman Capote, 1948
  • 13. The Ballad of the Sad CafeCarson McCullers, 1951
  • 14. Wise BloodFlannery O'Connor, 1952
  • 15. A Good Man Is Hard to FindFlannery O'Connor, 1953
  • 16. Cat on a Hot Tin RoofTennessee Williams, 1955
  • 17. The Violent Bear It AwayFlannery O'Connor, 1960
  • 18. The MoviegoerWalker Percy, 1961
  • 19. In Cold BloodTruman Capote, 1966
  • 20. The Optimist's DaughterEudora Welty, 1972
  • 21. Child of GodCormac McCarthy, 1973
  • 22. Song of SolomonToni Morrison, 1977
  • 23. SuttreeCormac McCarthy, 1979
  • 24. Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy, 1985
  • 25. BelovedToni Morrison, 1987
  • 26. Salvage the BonesJesmyn Ward, 2011
  • 27. Sing, Unburied, SingJesmyn Ward, 2017
  • 28. KindredOctavia E. Butler, 1979
  • 29. Bastard Out of CarolinaDorothy Allison, 1992
  • 30. To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee, 1960
  • 31. All the King's MenRobert Penn Warren, 1946
  • 32. DeliveranceJames Dickey, 1970
  • 33. Tobacco RoadErskine Caldwell, 1932