Book Review: Deadheading and Other Stories (Stories of the South, including Petunia the Pittie)

Deadheading and Other Stories, by Beth Gilstrap (Red Hen Press, 2021, 229 pp, $15.95)

An uncommon picture of the Southern Belle: do you remember high-school? Author Beth Gilstrap does, remarkably well: you are there again, not wanting to take a shower after gym class, running to catch a ride with your backpack thumping against your back with every step, cutting out photos in Yearbook Class. And your boyfriend. . . .

An Anthology of Southern Life

Contemporary Southern Life told in 22 stories, short and longer, from 2 to 20 pages, culminating in the title story, "Deadheading." I especially love "Bone Words," two pages of zygomatic, occipital, mandible and the horned beetle family, Lucanidae. Love those Southern names too: Lula, Ona, Janine, Maddie, Reese, Gammie and Pawpaw.

"Like Air, or Bread, or Hard Apple Candy" 

Petunia the pit bull is a 70-pound puller and Grenada wonders why she didn't get "one of those little dogs you can scoop up into a sack and throw on your shoulder like nothing, like air, or bread of hard apple candy, . . ." (p. 89)

Plotless yet Engaging 

Have you ever wondered if the South was really different, or why? Read Deadheading and immerse yourself in another culture - separate yet similar, possibly slightly ghoulish. Fortunes rise and fortunes fall but when they rise, they don't rise very high and when they fall, it is familiar: the cycle will repeat unless one moves out of the South. But can one actually move or is the South embedded in you?