The ADS Book Tour
Coming this spring to an independent bookstore near you!
If you haven’t heard the news by now, my next book, A Deeper South: The Beauty, Mystery and Sorrow of the Southern Road, lands on bookshelves on 21 May 2024. And to make matters even more exciting (for me, anyway), I myself will be landing at an independent bookstore near you this spring!
Starting with the official book launch on Wednesday 22 May at the Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown Atlanta (get your tickets here!), brought to you by The Atlanta History Center, the ADS Book Tour begins in earnest at the mecca of Southern bookstores, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, where I will be joined by John T. Edge on 23 May for a conversation about my new book.
I will be sharing many more details about this adventure in weeks to come, but in the meantime, find a town near you and make plans to come out and join me on the road!
Between now and then, you can pre-order a copy of A Deeper South here, or through your own local bookstore. (N.B.: if you purchase tickets for the launch in Atlanta (which I strongly encourage you to do), the price of the ticket includes a copy of the book, at a discount).
(Don’t see anything in your area? Let us know where you would like to see the ADS Tour stop near you!)
I hope to see you out on the road!
From the foreword to A Deeper South by Rosanne Cash:
Pete Candler “is a quintessential storyteller, in the great Southern tradition of which he describes, but a storyteller of magnificent largesse of spirit: one whose heart is so large that you feel he has forgiven us for pain we don’t remember inflicting, and pain we don’t recall enduring, in both a cultural and personal sense. I don’t know why that is. I only know that his large heart beats through every sentence, but his intelligence and elegant facility with language underscores his writing in a way that your mind can unhinge itself from some very rusty entrenched patterns and grievances.”
Read what the publisher says about the book:
In A Deeper South: The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road, Pete Candler offers a travel narrative drawn from twenty-five years of road-tripping through the backroads of the American South. Featuring Candler’s own photography, the book taps into the public imagination and the process of both remembering and forgetting that define our collective memory of place. Candler, who belongs to one of Georgia’s most recognizable families, confronts the uncomfortable truths of his own ancestors’ roles in the South’s legacy of white supremacy with a masterful mix of authority and a humbling sense that his own journey of unforgetting and recovering has only just begun.
With the wit of a Southern storyteller and the eye of a photographer, Candler takes the reader on a journey that spans two continents, six states, and countless miles of asphalt. Along the way, we meet the “galaxy’s no. 1 Elvis fan,” stop to ponder roadside markers and small-town monuments, and contemplate what makes the South both distinct from, and emblematic of, the nation of which it is a part. The stories that he uncovers can only be found off the beaten path, away from the curated tourist experiences and mass culture located near the interstate exit ramp. A Deeper South is about Candler's journeys to see the South and understand it, and he invites us to ride along.
Advance praise for A Deeper South:
“Part history, part memoir, and part self-discovery, Candler calls on us to face the demons of our past so that we can truly appreciate the region we call home.”
—Karen L. Cox, author of Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture
“Candler explores the truth hidden behind the romance of place and digs deep to seek out harsh truths that have been silenced, overlooked, or obscured by willful blindness. This is a book that will help foster a new way of seeing the South.”
—W. Ralph Eubanks, author of A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape.
“A beautifully conceived and executed piece of historical reclamation.”
—Margaret Edds, former reporter, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, and author of What the Eyes Can't See: Ralph Northam, Black Resolve, and a Racial Reckoning in Virginia
“A righteous plumbing of suppressed family histories, a vigorous exorcism of the myths and willful ignorance that trouble the land of his birth, A Deeper South blazes a path through the nostalgia thicket for readers who want to make sense of their inheritances. Candler writes with indignation and empathy, showing us a better way to see the South so that we can better love any place we call home.”
—John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers and host of TrueSouth