Monthly Archives: May 2025

Continuing my look at books that I used as research for Southern Discomfort, or that shed an informative light on the 1970s. Illustrations are randomly selected 1970s images.

NO DIRECTION HOME: The American Family and the Fear of National Decline, 1968-1980 by Natasha Zaretsky argues that 1970s America saw the seismic shocks of the oil crisis, defeat in Vietnam and the loss of millions of good-playing blue-collar jobs as blows to the American family, not just the nation. Vietnam holding American prisoners of war, for example, deprived military families of husbands and fathers; the Arabs (or the oil companies) jacking up prices left families financially strapped, and so on. Even the Bicentennial devoted a lot of time to families as stressing roots and heritage played to minorities and activists who didn’t feel much like celebrating America.

Interpreting all this was another matter. Did losing the Vietnam War mean America had lost its military prowess or that we’d simply over-reached? Had OPEC made us the Arab nations’ play-toy or was the problem that Americans had become too greedy, consuming too much? A lot of the debate blamed women for whatever the problem was: women who didn’t want to give up family leadership when their husband came home, permissive moms whose spoiled kids became radical protesters, cold mothers who drove kids crazy, etc. Zaretsky concludes, however, that the sense of the decade as dysfunctional and despairing (as in Invisible Bridge) didn’t take hold until Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign portrayed the 1970s as the decade of The Family Besieged with himself as the solution. An interesting job.

THE SKIES BELONG TO US: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan I. Koerner focuses on the 1972 skyjacking by party girl Cathy Kernow and unstable veteran Roger Holder hoped to arrange a pardon for radical black activist Angela Davis. Instead, they wound up traveling to Algeria and hanging with Eldridge Cleaver, relocating to Paris and then parting (Holder came home, Kernow vanished, possibly into a new identity). Mixed in with this is the overall history of the Age of Skyjacking from the comical (one guy hijacked a plane to get to Smackover Arkansas) to the horrifying (a hijacker contemplated crashing the plane into a nuclear power plant) and the airlines’ reluctance at the to deal with it (protesting not only the cost of metal detectors, but the prospect of delaying passengers by using them). Koerner argues that just as headlines about skyjackers prompted more skyjacking, so the gradual slowdown in the early 1970s (the result of better security and foreign nations refusing to provide safe haven) choked the trend of oxygen (of course, the drop then led to everyone relaxing their security until 9/11). A good job covering one of those things that would have been universally familiar in 1973, when Southern Discomfort takes place, but no longer.

I read THE 70s HOUSE by David Heathcote to add a little visual detail to the scenes in people’s homes. Unfortunately this was less about typical houses and more a view of broad trends (modernism; efforts to blend modernism with traditional local styles; rehabbing older houses rather than building new) with various high-end homes offered as examples. Still it did give me some ideas and it’s a good book in its own right.

I read OUR KIND OF PEOPLE: Inside America’s Black Upper Class by Lawrence Otis Graham when it came out in the 1990s, but it holds up well as it examines the various groups, cliques, sororities and schools popular with generations of well-to-do blacks (though some of those institutions were losing ground as integration and entry into the white world became more acceptable); whether they’re bastions of snobbery or simply like calling to like (“We’re selective because we associate with people we have something in common with.”); the movers and shakers in different cities around the country; and passing (confirming my view that Lovecraft Country botched that aspect). I reread it because one character, Liz Mitchell, comes from the Atlanta black upper class, and it forced me to revise my concept of her: women in the circles Graham writes about were expected to be more than just housewives so Liz having career ambitions wouldn’t be at all a shock to her family.

REMEMBERING JIM CROW: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South by editors William Henry Chafe and Raymond Gavins collects dozens of stories from back in the days of segregation, courtesy of a Duke University project. These include little humiliations (walking miles past a neighborhood school because it was whites-only), terrifying threats and the institutional road blocks against improving things. What surprised me the most was the number of accounts where the tale-teller fought back against the system despite the risks. Refusing to enter the house by the back door. Saying no. Threatening violence if whites didn’t back off. Or simply negotiating for a brief pass across the color lines, like eating in a restaurant during a trip. This plays into my setting, Pharisee, under the influence of Aubric and Olwen McAlister, being a better place for African Americans — though as some of them point out in the novel, being better than Jim Crow is not the same as being good.

SOUTHERN STORM: Sherman’s March to the Sea by Noah Andre Trudeau wasn’t as relevant as I’d thought as Pharisee County’s history in the Civil War faded into a footnote by the final draft. In its own right a good look at the battles Sherman’s troops faced, the angry reactions of the Georgia residents faced with scavenging “bummers” (back then a name for soldiers who went out to scrounge) and the bummers efforts — if I was writing a story about an army living off the land, this would be an excellent resource for that.

All rights to images remain with current holders. Covers top to bottom by Ernie Chan, Chan again, and John Romita.