South to America

Any attempt to classify this ambitious work, which straddles genre, kicks down the fourth wall, dances with poetry, engages with literary criticism and flits from journalism to memoir to academic writing—well, that’s a fool’s errand and only undermines this insightful, ambitious and moving project…. An essential meditation on the South, its relationship to American culture—even Americanness itself…. This work—and I use the term for both Perry’s labor and its fruit — is determined to provoke a return to the other legacy of the South, the ever-urgent struggle toward freedom -- Tayari Jones * The New York Times Book Review *
In South to America, Perry shows readers that there is no one archetype of the American South, as she considers everything from immigrant communities to the legacy of slavery to her own ancestral roots * Time *
Provocative, perspective-shifting…. Rendered in exquisite detail…. In this vibrant, revelatory book, Perry proves herself to be a radiant storyteller…like Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Nina Simone before her * Oprah Daily *
Perry is deft and disciplined, her efforts to situate the beauty, oddity, and terror that mark southern life are critical and compelling. As a travel writer, she embraces detours with an eye toward discovery…. Perry asks what it means to be tied to a ‘land of big dreams and bigger lies’ when one is committed to the pursuit of a truth that bursts the nation at its seams * Vulture *
This history of the American South examines its subject from both personal and sociopolitical perspectives... [Perry] draws connections between the past and contemporary experience * New Yorker *
Breathtaking…. Extraordinary…. In the realm of Southern letters it has no real antecedent. It is that fresh, that vital, that intellectually supercharged, that incandescent * Garden & Gun *
[Perry] tells rich stories of place while ignoring the borders dividing disciplines and genres, weaving personal experiences with deep history, economics and cultural critique * Los Angeles Times *
Engrossing…. [Perry] cannily frames her investigation as a travelogue, moving from Appalachia to the Upper South to the Deep South to outliers like Florida and Cuba…. The book’s pleasures are many…. Her vignettes spark off the page…. An immersive read * Minneapolis Star Tribune *
“South to America marks time like Beloved did. Similarly, we will talk not solely of books about the south, but books generally as before or after South to America. I have known and loved the South for four decades and Imani Perry has shown me that there is so much more in our region’s fleshy folds to know, explore and love. It is simply the most finely crafted and rigorously conceived book about our region, and nation, I have ever read -- author of Heavy * Kiese Laymon *
[Perry] focuses on a place and reflects on its distinctive relationship to the region’s history of slavery and racism, drawing on her own extensive knowledge of literature, music, art, and folklore, as well as her own family history * NPR's Fresh Air *