Episode 13 - Tennessee

 This week, our theme is Tennessee. We talk the Elia Kazan movie A Face In The Crowd (1957) and Cormac McCathy's 1965 debut novel, The Orchard Keeper (1965). Southern accents abound and we debate how to pronounce names.

Next week, we do time pieces!  We're watching Timer (which is streaming on USA Netflix) and reading Agatha Christie's The Clocks.


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Edited to add from Amy:

The Orchard Keeper was set very near where I grew up and I recognized a lot of terms and place names and such.

• "corner of Market and Gay" - Gay Street is the big, main street through downtown Knoxville. Banks, the movie palace, restaurants, the music hall, etc. Market is one of the cross streets and gives its name to a public space called Market Square. It, as the name implies, used to be a place for trade, originally livestock, produce, other goods, then department stores. It's now come full circle in a way because it's where a terrific and thriving farmer's market is held most every Saturday.
• Brushy Mountain - A prison in Tennessee that was much used by parents as a scare tactic. "If you don't stop kicking your brother, I'll have you locked up in Brushy Mountain."
• Melungeon - A term for a small group of people who have origins in a very small part of northeast Tennessee/Virginia. Thought to be a mix of Native American, African, and Northern European. There's an active movement to establish and maintain their identity, at sites like The Melungeon Heritage Association and of course, they're of interest to those doing genealogy research. (Fun Fact: Our Canadian Correspondent Randy Perry has what some consider to be one of the Melungeon surnames.)
• Bluetick hound - Officially the "Bluetick Coonhond." The official mascot of my alma mater the University of Tennessee, both actual and human-played, is a bluetick hound named Smokey. (I love the snarky caption on the bottom photo.)
• Walker dog - Probably referring to the "Treeing Walker Coonhound."

Also, I mentioned my granddad the bootlegger and his "fruit stand." Here's the picture.