The Greats of Cuttercane: The Southern Stories
Jan 2011 · Mercer University Press
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When Asa Holbrook Staggs stepped into the cold-water spring that would later bear his name, he was drunk. The date was November 18, 1914. He pulled himself from the water, sober, cold and converted to a new life in the Lord. And thus began the legend of Asa¿s Spring, a pool indiscriminately dispensing favoritism to those who believed (or wondered about) the curative power of its water. These are stories of people born in Cuttercane, Georgia, the place of Asa¿s Spring, and who earned minor celebrity from the townsfolk¿s highest praise: ¿He (she) is something else, ain¿t he (she)?¿ The ¿something else¿ is what a Southerner might call a catchall phrase, for it can apply to saint and sinner alike. It means exactly what it implies: the person referenced has made a name for him (her) self in some manner ¿ Asa, the drunk, becoming a war hero; the reigning heavyweight lard watermelon champion and Indian terror, Newell Proudfoot, in a grudge match against the Prichard twins; Felton Eugene Weaver¿s rise from whiskey runner to Hollywood movie fame; Elmo Parker and Monroe Dawson in a showdown baseball game between the Claybank Textile Tigers and the Jefferson Bluejays; and, last, the stunning Mattie Mae Blair¿s career as the strip-tease artist, Princess Salome. Written in the edged-in-humor style of caricature, these stories are shared daily in cafes and other gathering spots in rural communities in the South. It is a practice embedded in the culture, and all it takes for a casual mention to become a tall tale is one storyteller trying to outdo another. If you find yourself in the company of such men and women, pause nearby and eavesdrop. When the snickering turns into a cackle, you will know that someone has been elevated to being ¿something else.¿
When Asa Holbrook Staggs stepped into the cold-water spring that would later bear his name, he was drunk. The date was November 18, 1914. He pulled himself from the water, sober, cold and converted to a new life in the Lord. And thus began the legend of Asa¿s Spring, a pool indiscriminately dispe...
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About the author
Terry Kay was born February 10, 1938 in Royston, Georgia. He grew up there and became a well-known novelist. Perhaps his most well-known book is To Dance with the White Dog, which was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in 1983. He is also the author of such best-selling works as Dark Thirty, Shadow Song, After Eli, and The Runaway, which was adapted for the screen. He won an Emmy for his screenplay Run Down the Rabbit. Kay's novel The Valley of Light won the 2004 Townsend Prize for Fiction and was also adapted for the screen. He won the 1981 Georgia Author of the Year Award for After Eli, and the Southeastern Library Association named him Outstanding Author of the Year in 1991 for To Dance with the White Dog. He published The Book of Marie in 2007. His last book, The Forever Wish of Middy Sweet, was published in August 2020. Terry Kay died on December 12, 2020 at the age of 82.
Terry Kay was born February 10, 1938 in Royston, Georgia. He grew up there and became a well-known novelist. Perhaps his most well-known book is To Dance with the White Dog, which was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in 1983. He is also the...
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