ENG 337 Grit Lit
The descriptors run the gamut--Country Noir, Trailer Gothic, Rough South Renaissance—but the common ground is clear enough: hard living punctuated by violence. Grit Lit is the prevailing name for it, this contemporary outpouring of dark tales from the swamps of the Gulf Coast, the flats of the Delta, and the mountains of Appalachia and the Ozarks. Course readings will include Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, Lewis Nordan’s Wolf Whistle, Tom Franklin’s Poachers, Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, Wiley Cash’s A Land More Kind Than Home, and life writing and short stories by Harry Crews, Dorothy Allison, Larry Brown, Rick Bragg, William Gay, Ron Rash, and James Lee Burke. Also of interest will be film and TV examples of the genre such as Sling Blade, Justified, and True Detective.
Prerequisite
Open to all sophomores and above.