A Deeper South:
The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road
By Pete Candler
University of South Carolina Press (May 21, 2024)
About The Project
“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
“[Pete's] work is about the stories the South likes to tell and probably shouldn't and about the stories the South doesn't tell and most definitely should."
— Tommy Tomlinson, author of The Elephant in the Room, and host of the SouthBound podcast
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.
To Arrange Interviews or
Speaking Engagements;
Please send an email to:
About the Authors
Pete Candler
Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Pete Candler is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bitter Southerner, Washington Post, and elsewhere. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.