Northern urbanite D. B. Tipmore describes the culture shock he experienced after moving to a small Alabama town in My Little Town: A Pilgrim's Portrait of a Uniquely Southern Place. From chicken salad to national politics, Tipmore shares the unique character of the South through the microcosm of his small town.
My Little Town turns the Yankee-comes-to-Dixie literary genre outside in, examining Lovelady, Alabama, through the eyes of someone who should never have been living there and yet found himself there for more than a decade. With a keen appreciation of its peculiarly Southern tableau, the book lovingly scrutinizes an Alabama village short chapter by short chapter, accompanied by photographer Frank Williams's images. Funeral visitations, poisoned soup luncheons, Pilgrimage hosting, supper clubs, family feuds, Obama Day parades, politics, Jews, and chicken salad recipes are all treated with a voice of singular precision and affection. Simultaneously author D. B. Tipmore couples this fresh view of Southern small-town life with his own narrative of a worldly urban nomad who hopes to find a home in one of the most isolated areas of the United States, peculiarly defined by its racial history and regional mores. By conflating the two stories, My Little Town challenges the reader as much as the author, raising serious questions about our ability as Americans to transcend our regional identities and cultural complexities.
"D. B. Tipmore, a writer of urbane wit, moved to a small town in rural Alabama in the hope of making a home. This brilliant book, coming ten years later, is the result of his experiences there. Composed of ten revelatory, sad, funny, and incisive chapters, My Little Town introduces the reader to special insights Tipmore has gained about the town, the region, and himself. What results is the perfect book, compassionately observed, for those who want to head to the South - or away from it."
Michael Tolkin, award-winning filmmaker,
"Tipmore combines the scientific precision of the anthropologist with the insight of a humanist in this compassionate portrait of a small Alabama town. He is that rare observer open to being changed by what he sees, with a point of view touched by homesickness and graced with detachment. A wonderful guide and memoir, elegantly written."
Rev. Dr. Andrew Walker, vicar, St. Mary's, Bourne Street, London,
"When an erudite bachelor Yankee set up housekeeping in central Alabama, it provided an opportunity to observe the best and worst about its citizens. There is an ancient prayer asking that God will allow us to see ourselves as others see us. I am not sure many folks in the Black Belt had D. B. Tipmore or his book in mind when they prayed that prayer, but My Little Town is its controversial answer."
Wayne Flynt, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Auburn University History Department,
