Books, Arts & Manners: A Good Listener in a Talking Country

A Turn in the South, by V. S. Naipaul (Knopf, 307 pp., $18.95)

Southerners are famous talkers; generally colorful, whether brash or dignified, humorous or grave, they come into this world of Yankees and outlander pundits explaining themselves. In Santee parish, South Carolina, for example, a gentleman named Jack Leland is describing how his tombstone will look: “It will have my name, the date of my birth, the date of my death. And at the bottom there will be a line: have one on jack. And I’m leaving $2,000 to the church, so that every year at the spring service they can have wine, whisky, or whatever. I think people will remember me because of that.”

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Fred Chappell

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A Turn in the South, by V. S. Naipaul (Knopf, 307 pp., $18.95)

Southerners are famous talkers; generally colorful, whether brash or dignified, humorous or grave, they come into this world of Yankees and outlander pundits explaining themselves. In Santee parish, South Carolina, for example, a gentleman named Jack Leland is describing how his tombstone will look: “It will have my name, the date of my birth, the date of my death. And at the bottom there will be a line: have one on jack. And I’m leaving $2,000 to the church, so that every year at the spring service they can have wine, whisky, or whatever. I think people will remember me because of that.”