Dreamworlds of Alabama

Dreamworlds of Alabama

Allen Shelton

Table of Contents

$22.95 cloth/jacket
ISBN 978-0-8166-5034-7
ISBN-10 0-8166-5034-9

An evocative remembrance of the beauty and mystery of the rural South.

Wisteria draped on a soldier’s coffin, sent home to Alabama from a Virginia battlefield. The oldest standing house in the county, painted gray and flanked by a pecan orchard. A black steel fence tool, now perched atop a pile of books like a prehistoric bird of prey.

In Dreamworlds of Alabama, Allen Shelton explores physical, historical, and social landscapes of northeastern Alabama. His homeplace near the Appalachian foothills provides the setting for a rich examination of cultural practices, a place where the language of place and things resonates with as much vitality and emotional urgency as the language of humans.

Throughout the book, Shelton demonstrates how deeply culture is inscribed in the land and in the most intimate spaces of the person—places of belonging and loss, insight and memory.

“Shelton displays both his impressive narrative gifts as a memoirist and the emotional constraints of academic discourse. Whenever the author relies principally on the power of his own stories, the poignancy of his images, his essays are fiercely gripping.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Dreamsworlds is a rich, haunting, and often humorous collection of five intertwined essays that ranks with any 'exile narrative' I’ve read in years.” —The Buffalo News

“A texture-rich montage of earth, home, and capitalism.” —Rain Taxi Review of Books

“Dreamworlds of Alabama is a brave book. . . As memoir it is a moving account of a man who still sees himself in circumstantial exile from his home place, pained by the fact that fading memory rarely sustains him. As sociology it holds up remarkably well, its theories ably supported by similarities in the works of Benjamin (Shelton’s literary forebear, it seems), Proust, Darwin, Kafka, Marx, even Freud—a remarkable European link to the Appalachian heritage of the author. Perhaps the most resonant aspect of the book is its evocation of that Appalachian heritage. It is that cultural landscape with its particular cultural commodities that is the book’s ultimate strength.” —Southern Humanities Review

“This might be a new literary genre, a sort of narrative imploding inward towards its own theorization instead of unfolding like a story. Or an explosion of earthlike metaphors that is impressive at many instants. . . there is nothing crooked in this text and the fascination is entirely sustained by honesty.” —Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Born and raised in Jacksonville, Alabama, Allen Shelton is associate professor of sociology at Buffalo State College.

240 pages | 8 b&w photos | 5 3/8 x 8 1/2 | 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Preface: You Are Worth Many Sparrows

The Mark on the Spade
The Abduction of Mary Janie
Planchette, My Love
The Stars beneath Alabama
Assembling Mary Pullen for a Cry

List of Illustrations
Publication History



Dreamworlds of Alabama Allen Shelton Table of Contents		$22.95 cloth/jacket ISBN 978-0-8166-5034-7 ISBN-10 0-8166-5034-9
An evocative remembrance of the beauty and mystery of the rural South. Wisteria draped on a soldier’s coffin, sent home to Alabama from a Virginia battlefield. The oldest standing house in the county, painted gray and flanked by a pecan orchard. A black steel fence tool, now perched atop a pile of books like a prehistoric bird of prey. In Dreamworlds of Alabama, Allen Shelton explores physical, historical, and social landscapes of northeastern Alabama. His homeplace near the Appalachian foothills provides the setting for a rich examination of cultural practices, a place where the language of place and things resonates with as much vitality and emotional urgency as the language of humans. Throughout the book, Shelton demonstrates how deeply culture is inscribed in the land and in the most intimate spaces of the person—places of belonging and loss, insight and memory. “Shelton displays both his impressive narrative gifts as a memoirist and the emotional constraints of academic discourse. Whenever the author relies principally on the power of his own stories, the poignancy of his images, his essays are fiercely gripping.” —Kirkus Reviews “Dreamsworlds is a rich, haunting, and often humorous collection of five intertwined essays that ranks with any 'exile narrative' I’ve read in years.” —The Buffalo News “A texture-rich montage of earth, home, and capitalism.” —Rain Taxi Review of Books “Dreamworlds of Alabama is a brave book. . . As memoir it is a moving account of a man who still sees himself in circumstantial exile from his home place, pained by the fact that fading memory rarely sustains him. As sociology it holds up remarkably well, its theories ably supported by similarities in the works of Benjamin (Shelton’s literary forebear, it seems), Proust, Darwin, Kafka, Marx, even Freud—a remarkable European link to the Appalachian heritage of the author. Perhaps the most resonant aspect of the book is its evocation of that Appalachian heritage. It is that cultural landscape with its particular cultural commodities that is the book’s ultimate strength.” —Southern Humanities Review “This might be a new literary genre, a sort of narrative imploding inward towards its own theorization instead of unfolding like a story. Or an explosion of earthlike metaphors that is impressive at many instants. . . there is nothing crooked in this text and the fascination is entirely sustained by honesty.” —Consciousness, Literature and the Arts Born and raised in Jacksonville, Alabama, Allen Shelton is associate professor of sociology at Buffalo State College. 240 pages \| 8 b&w photos \| 5 3/8 x 8 1/2 \| 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Preface: You Are Worth Many Sparrows The Mark on the Spade The Abduction of Mary Janie Planchette, My Love The Stars beneath Alabama Assembling Mary Pullen for a Cry List of Illustrations Publication History