Episode 521 || From the Front Porch Live from Reader Retreat
This week on From the Front Porch, we have a special treat: a recording of our live show from The Bookshelf’s March Reader Retreat! In this episode, Annie, Hunter, and Ashley are joined by extra-special author guest Jeff Zentner, our Reader Retreat featured author, to do a snake draft of all things Southern: from literature to manners to food. Enjoy!
To purchase Jeff Zentner’s debut adult fiction book, stop by the store or visit our website:
Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
Our Executive Producers are...Beth, Stephanie Dean, Linda Lee Drozt, Ashley Ferrell, Wendi Jenkins, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Gene Queens, Cammy Tidwell, Jammie Treadwell, and Amanda Whigham.
Transcript:
Annie Jones [00:00:01] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.
Choose beauty and sorrow over numbness and oblivion. Choose it again and again. Choose it as long as you have any choice. Jeff Zentner, Colton Gentry's Third Act.
[00:00:40] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And today we are bringing you our live podcast episode recorded a couple of weeks ago during our March Reader Retreat. I'm joined by my frequent co-hosts and From the Front Porch contributors Ashley Sherlock and Hunter McLendon, and our special guest for the retreat weekend was Jeff Zentner, author of Colton Gentry's Third Act. As with several of our previous live episodes, we opted for a fantasy draft style show, this time debating our favorite parts about life in the South. But make sure you stay tuned till the end for Ashley's rousing game of Country Song or book title. It's harder than you think. And if you are here waiting for our annual March Madness episode, never fear. Jordan and I are recording this week, so that episode will be dropping into your feed next Thursday.
Annie Jones [00:01:42] Welcome everybody. We're so glad y'all are here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being listeners of From the Front Porch. Tonight, we always kind of talk about how we want to do this show because on From the Front Porch, it's typically me and maybe one other person. And so when we become a group of four or five, I start to wonder, well, how are we going to do this? How are we going to have a not awkward conversation. We are going to start tonight by basing maybe tonight's theme on Jeff Zentner's book, Colton Gentry's Third Act, which I know many of you have read and loved. And so I decided who better to be in conversation with Jeff than, of course, Hunter, where we could talk about Southern culture. And so the Hunter's love of fried chicken is well known. So because, Jeff, I do consider you-- well, let me ask you, do you consider yourself a Southern writer?
Jeff Zentner [00:02:54] Yeah, absolutely.
Annie Jones [00:02:55] I feel like all of your books, even we were talking about The Serpent King being kind of Southern gothic, and I think Colton Gentry even feels like a Southern story.
Jeff Zentner [00:03:06] Sure.
Annie Jones [00:03:08] And Ashley, you are welcome to participate.
Ashley [00:03:10] Thank you, I'm also from the South.
Annie Jones [00:03:13] I would love to know how each of you defines the South. I think we're in a room with lots of Southerners, but not all. We've got I know some Californians in the audience. And so I would love to know, how do you define the South? Is it a region? Is it geography? Is it a personality? Is it a culture? What is it? Hunter.
Hunter McLendon [00:03:33] I think Karen Russell once talked about how Florida alone is like the Everglades and pink flamingos. It's like there's like such a wide span. But for me personally I'm like trailer trash Southern. So that's like where my first, like, it's very like Gwyneth Paltrow and view from the top. So it's definitely like, yeah, fried chicken, like Southern women with like those box fans and all of that. It is a certain feeling.
Annie Jones [00:04:03] Steel Magnolia?
Hunter McLendon [00:04:04] Steel Magnolias definitely, yes. It's just like a feeling, mostly like Southern women being really passive aggressive in a really fun way and also just a lot of drawls, Southern drawls and accents, fried chicken definitely, and the whole bit.
Annie Jones [00:04:24] Jeff, because we talked about this backstage, you're not originally from Nashville; so how would you define the South as maybe a transplant?
Jeff Zentner [00:04:34] I think about the South as being more of a cultural region than a geographic region. Now, I'm not going to get crazy and be like, oh yeah, South Dakota can be part of the South. No, come on, calm down. But I do think that there are parts of the country that we don't normally think of as the South that are culturally more Southern than places much farther South. So for example, Southern Illinois, I consider that part of the South. It's very culturally Southern. Like Southeastern Missouri. I grew up in Kansas. Even the part of Kansas where I grew up is a little outside of Kansas City. Even that, I think, is more culturally Southern in terms of the food, the way people carry themselves, demographics, the way people dress, all of that. More culturally Southern, certainly than like Miami. I don't consider most of Florida to be the South. Certainly geographically, it's South, but culturally--
Annie Jones [00:05:33] Like Orlando's South, I feel like it's [crosstalk].
Jeff Zentner [00:05:34] Yeah. But of course like Panhandle, Florida, I would consider the South. I would consider East Texas Maybe the South but the rest of Texas is just like Texas its own thing.
Annie Jones [00:05:44] Texas is its own thing.
Jeff Zentner [00:05:47] But it gets interesting because then there's Appalachia, which is another cultural region. So like West Virginia, I feel like has more in common with East Tennessee than Nashville has in common with East Tennessee.
Annie Jones [00:06:00] Interesting.
Jeff Zentner [00:06:00] So it gets kind of mushy and fuzzy I feel like.
Annie Jones [00:06:02] It does feel like you almost need to sketch it out on a map because, and I think I've said this before, I felt like Ashley and I were both raised in Tallahassee, I definitely felt Southern. I would have said, oh, that's Southern. And then I moved to Montgomery, Alabama for college and I was like, oh, I was mistaken. The fact that women wore dresses to football games, I was like, what are we doing? I did not know that this is what we did here. Pearls at a football game? That felt different to me. I don't know if it's the preppy Southern. Or even I found Alabama to be extremely friendly in a way that I do think Tallahassee is friendly, but Alabama just felt like I did not feel Southern enough for Alabama. And there's a way in which, even now living in Thomasville, I have had to adjust. I do think Thomasville is a different kind of South than Tallahassee.
Hunter McLendon [00:06:56] Do you guys ever feel like you go somewhere like completely out of the South, but still feel like-- one time I went to California and this woman she was from California, but I remember hearing her saying, "It hurts us and it hurts Jesus." And I thought, “Where are you from?” She says, California. And I was like, are you sure?
Annie Jones [00:07:16] Are you not one of us? Well, the Midwest thing makes me laugh because I have a dear friend who lives in Kansas City and her husband's like a farmer from maybe Southern Missouri. And I realized there's quite a bit of overlap culturally between the Midwestern sensibility and the Southern sensibility. And it is true Jordan has a much thicker Southern accent than I do, I think. And so when we have gone to New York or something, people will stop him on the street and be like, where are you from?
Jeff Zentner [00:07:46] Southern culture, as Hunter points out, has pervaded the United States to the point that the Southern accent has kind of become the de facto rural American accent to where, I mean, you will definitely go to rural Kansas and people will speak with a Southern accent. And one thing the show Yellowstone gets right is that people in the Mountain West, and rural people in the Mountain West, don't have that Southern accent. So it'd be really easy for them to just have all the cowboys talking with Southern accents, but they don't, which is a detail they get right. There is a Mountain West accent. But otherwise, even the Southern accent has really pervaded lots of rural America.
Annie Jones [00:08:26] Is this where we should just take a quick poll and find out if we like Parker Posey's accent in White Lotus or we don't? Because that's very controversial.
Jeff Zentner [00:08:34] I am all in on it. I love it. I tweeted the other day that Parker Posey is absolutely playing an SEC pill mom to the field. She's from like Laurel Mississippi. People need to step off Parker Posey.
Hunter McLendon [00:08:53] Let me tell you, she takes lorazepam in that show. I took one the other day, I swear [crosstalk] because I'd watched the show and I was listening and I was like, oh my gosh, I sound like Parker Posey.
Annie Jones [00:09:09] Listen, at first I wondered what accent is that? But she's from Laurel Mississippi like you said and she sounds just like anybody I've ever attended an SEC football game with. It's true and she's got the vibe down perfectly, but for some reason it has been relatively controversial. Okay. So what are some words that would come to mind when we're talking about Southern culture music literature, like, what are some keywords that you think come to mind when you think Southern culture?
Jeff Zentner [00:09:41] Storytelling. Southerners are big storytellers. We love dark humor. We were just listening to Hunter's stories backstage. This is like a master of Southern Gothic storytelling right here. Just stories of his upbringing. Southerners love telling stories. They love telling dark Gothic stories that have this vein of humor running through them. There's a real mordant wit about a lot of country songs. the thing I love about Southern Gothic lit is that vein of humor. I tend not to trust art that is both bleak and humorless. That's what I don't trust. I'm like, I am worried that there's a genuine misanthrope behind this, and I don't like art created by misanthropes. That's not the way I'm wired.
Annie Jones [00:10:36] Storytelling is definitely a word that would come to mind because I think again it transcends maybe those geographical definitions we're talking about. I would say almost without exception every Southerner I know knows how to tell a story. I have a friend who's like I could never be a writer. But she's a storyteller; you could listen to her talk all day long. I come up from a family I would say of storytellers. I could sit and listen to my family talk all day long. And I feel like they know exactly how to keep you on to the edge of your seat. They know exactly where the punch line comes in. If there's an art to it, storytelling is a word that would come to mind for me, too. What do you think? What's a word that would come to mind for Southern?
Hunter McLendon [00:11:21] I don't know why, my first thought was Jesus.
Annie Jones [00:11:25] We do incorporate him quite a bit.
Hunter McLendon [00:11:26] I do think that, I don't know, it's so funny, but I do think that both like a spiritual and a magical realistic type like feel. Truly, I think that the South is a vibe.
Annie Jones [00:11:41] Yeah. And you mentioned Karen Russell at the beginning, but aside from just Jesus, I do think there is like a spirituality that pervades the South where we are willing even-- I don't know, like I think about Haitian Creole culture or we are willing to like bring in a lot of other worldly elements into our day-to-day lives.
Jeff Zentner [00:12:03] It's a culture where the veil is thin. It's like Irish culture, like a thin veil. And it makes sense that there's so much Scotch-Irish ancestry here. Like where the veil is thin. There are African cultures where the veil is thin.
Annie Jones [00:12:19] Yes. I love that idea. Okay, so we've kind of alluded to it, but we'll briefly just share our own personal histories with the South, living in the South. because now, Hunter, I think people will really want your perspective now that you live in Philly. You don't even live here anymore. You don't even vote here. And so I grew up in Tallahassee. Like I said, I thought it was Southern and then I moved to Alabama and then I also met my in-laws who were from Birmingham and I was like, oh, this is not the same. This is not the same Southern. So I do think there are different elements of Southern culture and then move to Thomasville, which is yet another element of Southern culture. I do write in the book a little bit about moving here and somebody inviting Jordan, my husband, to go dove hunting. And I pulled him aside and I was like, are we allowed to do that? Doves are so pure. Like biblically, are we allowed to do this? And Jordan was like, I don't know. He never went. He did not want to go going dove hunting. But I grew up where deer hunting was a thing. I didn't even know people hunted small birds. Why? There's still little meat on that bone. I don't understand it. So I've only ever lived though in the South. I'd like to think I fit other places. I said earlier with some of our retreaters, I dream of an M state, like Michigan or Maine, but I think this is it. I mean, this is it for me, the tri-state area. Georgia, Florida, and Alabama that's the only home I've ever really known.
Hunter McLendon [00:13:54] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:13:54] And you grew up here?
Hunter McLendon [00:13:55] Yeah. I grew up in Thomasville, Cairo, Bainbridge, all these little tiny areas. And it is really funny because people have always-- this sound like a brag, people have always thought I was funny. And so I just thought, oh, I'm a very funny person. And then I moved up north and no one finds me funny. Which is fine, I only take minor offense. But it is really funny because I think that part of it is that people think that I'm rude. A lot of like people there, there's a lot of cynicism there. And I was talking about this backstage, but something I miss about the South is there's a lot of sincerity here. And it's so funny because like just a little side, recently I worked at the university of Penn and admin and a student got their wallets stolen. They were just being negligent. And I was told to call campus police, campus security. And so I did. And at one point I was talking to one of the women and we were having a little back and forth and we joked and then she like laughed so hard that she hit my arm and I went, "Oh, assault and battery." And she laughed so hard and then I went back and I told my co-workers and they were like, "You said assault and battery to a police officer?" And I was like, yeah, and they were like, "That's just unprofessional." But I think there's like a seriousness up north that I keep encountering that is just not like-- I don't know, I'm dumb and silly. So I like that here.
Annie Jones [00:15:22] I think there is a humility to Southern culture. Not always, but I do think like a humility, a pick yourself up by your bootstraps kind of mentality that makes us maybe have a sense of humor about ourselves, like a little bit self-deprecating maybe.
Hunter McLendon [00:15:38] No, yeah, I miss that.
Annie Jones [00:15:40] And then, Ashley, you born and raised in Tallahassee, but now you're in a different part of the South. What are you finding there?
Ashley [00:15:47] I was born and raised in Tallahassee, lived in Alabama for four years, now I'm living in North Carolina. And I really didn't think it was that different, but now I'm in like the Appalachia part of the South. And really everybody's still very friendly, different type of Southern accent. But really the main thing I've learned is that if you are out at night, especially in the mountains and you hear whistling, don't acknowledge it, you just leave immediately.
Annie Jones [00:16:18] When have you encountered that? What were you doing?
Ashley [00:16:20] No, I've never encountered that. It's just what I've been told. Has nobody ever heard of whistling in the Appalachian Mountains?
Jeff Zentner [00:16:25] No, I lived in Asheville for four years. Nobody warned me about the whistling.
Hunter McLendon [00:16:31] Is this the Hills Have Eyes?
Ashley [00:16:33] Yes, it's evil. Yeah, if you hear whistling at night.
Jeff Zentner [00:16:40] Like Andy Griffith theme show whistling or like [inaudible] whistle whistling.
Annie Jones [00:16:45] I don't know.
Jeff Zentner [00:16:47] The lifeguard whistle whistling?
Ashley [00:16:50] No, like somebody whistling like Andy Griffith. Or just like a-- I'm not whistling for you.
Jeff Zentner [00:16:56] That kind of whistling?
Ashley [00:16:57] Just like a straight whistling in the night. Like you're not supposed to say anything about it because then that invites evil mountain spirits into your life.
Annie Jones [00:17:06] That sounds like another creepy movie.
Hunter McLendon [00:17:08] Yeah. I thought it was like a TLC special.
Ashley [00:17:09] It's real.
Jeff Zentner [00:17:10] So if you're an introverted hiker, you could just like whistle as you hike and like be golden, like no conversations, people are dispersing.
Ashley [00:17:19] Yeah, you'll be completely alone out there because everyone will have gotten out.
Jeff Zentner [00:17:23] That's wild.
Annie Jones [00:17:24] I love that you've lived in North Carolina for a little over a year, and that's your biggest takeaway.
Ashley [00:17:28] I didn't know what you would ask me. I wasn't prepared.
Annie Jones [00:17:33] Okay, and then what is your history? We knew it from backstage, but what is your history of the South and living in the South?
Jeff Zentner [00:17:39] Well, and just going back real quick, another feature of Southernness, like going back to the idea of the veil is thin, just people sharing information with other people that will help them avoid haints is a very Southern thing.
Annie Jones [00:17:54] Paint your ceiling blue. Paint your porch ceiling blue.
Jeff Zentner [00:17:56] Yeah, get your bottle tree out and these are some tips for avoiding haints. You're not going to get tips on avoiding haints if you move to Iowa, okay?
Annie Jones [00:18:05] Yeah, it's that element of spirituality.
Jeff Zentner [00:18:09] Yeah. So I am a Southern transplant. I grew up in Kansas, right outside of Kansas City. And like I said, it was very culturally Southern, but I began consuming Southern media at a very young age with the Dukes of Hazard. And immediately, I felt the most powerful, like, that is my place ever. And so I felt that, like, all growing up. And I just promised myself that I was going to live in the South because that's where I belonged. I just knew it. And so I finally managed, when I was in my 20s, moved to Nashville. I have lived there ever since with four years in Asheville, North Carolina. We are there for good. And so here's the interesting thing though, is we were doing genealogy and we discovered that all of my family is from the Asheville and Nashville area. So I have become a big believer in like ancestral memory encoded into your DNA. I truly do believe that because the other thing I've got is this deep affinity for all things Irish. I love all things Irish. I see the Irish landscape and just feel this deep, deep love for it. And the 23 in me, I'm like 60% Irish. I had no idea. No idea whatsoever. So I have become a big believer that there is like ancestral memory at work going on.
Annie Jones [00:19:46] That sounds like book fodder to me, is what that sounds like. Okay, before we move into our fantasy draft section about Southern culture, who is your favorite Southern writer?
Hunter McLendon [00:20:00] I have a couple. Jesmyn Ward and Karen Russell, I think, are like my top two because I think that they both capture really specific feeling. I'm all about the mood. I like anytime I read something and it feels like sticky and hot. I don't like it in real life, but anytime I'm reading it, if it really captures that feeling, then I love that. Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:20:25] Jesmyn Ward would be at the top of mine as well, and then Flannery O'Connor, I think just when I encountered her it wasn't quite like what you're saying of, oh my gosh, this is where I'm from, or these are my people. That's not how I felt. But I did that dark humor, that not afraid to talk about religion, and not afraid to maybe take some different directions when it comes to spirituality. I think that struck me when I encountered her late high school, early college. So I have to put Flannery O'Connor on there for sure. But Jesmyn Ward, I feel like really encapsulates the modern Southern writer. What about you?
Jeff Zentner [00:21:12] Jesmyn Ward. That was going to be my answer, too. She's just incredible and it's like Hunter was saying, there's just like a film of humidity over everything she writes. So if we include Southern Appalachia, and again, I do think Appalachia is a distinct cultural region, but if we include Southern Appalachia as part of the South, I would say Silas House. I absolutely love Silas House and he is a really, really nice guy. I love Silas House. I love Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee period: Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, Suttree. I think he really embodies that mordant wit that you get in really great Southern Gothic. He was a lot funnier writer than he gets credit for. He was a very, very funny writer, but extremely, extremely dark at the same time.
Annie Jones [00:22:09] What about you?
Ashley [00:22:10] Mine was Flannery O'Connor. Introduced to me by you, of course.
Annie Jones [00:22:14] You're welcome.
Ashley [00:22:15] And one of my very large influence when I was in college. But also, I think, her writing reminded me of stories that our grandma would tell mama because mama did always have a slight element of surprise. And by the time we came around, she was old and not afraid to say anything.
Annie Jones [00:22:36] Yes.
Hunter McLendon [00:22:38] This is random but I don't know if we would consider Mary Carr to be Southern. She's Texas which in my mind feels like--
Annie Jones [00:22:44] Listen, we talked about this when we did Lonesome Dove, and we got a lot of pushback that Lonesome Dove was not a Southern novel, it's a Texas novel.
Jeff Zentner [00:22:51] I'd be on team Texas novel.
Annie Jones [00:22:54] Listen, I think when you start to mess with Texas-- so maybe Mary Carr is a Texas writer.
Jeff Zentner [00:22:59] But I would consider Winter's Bone a Southern novel because I think the Ozarks are culturally Southern.
Annie Jones [00:23:04] Yes, I would agree with that. I think we owe a lot, I think, to Southern writers and Southern culture. Okay, so we are going to do what we have done for the last couple of live shows. We're going to do a fantasy draft with Southern culture. So I've made a list of how many things? Nine. Does that make sense? Is that right? Because there's three of us, yes. Okay, so Ashley is going to be our moderator and keep track of what we pick. Ashley, please remind us of the rules of snake draft.
Ashley [00:23:36] Okay, so the official rules of how we're going to do this this evening, I'm going to state the category and then we will go in order and you will put out the thing you pick, your heavy hitter, because you are trying to win over the votes of the audience at the end.
Annie Jones [00:23:56] Yes, this is audience participation, but in the least aggressive way.
Ashley [00:24:01] And, hopefully, if I can keep up with it, in fairness, for example, if we start with Annie in round one, we will then start with Jeff in round two, and Hunter in round three. But for round one, we will begin with the person who has the next birthday.
Annie Jones [00:24:18] Okay, my birthday already happened.
Jeff Zentner [00:24:21] April 13th.
Hunter McLendon [00:24:22] Am August.
Annie Jones [00:24:26] Hunter's not used to losing because he does frequently get the audience in the palm of his hand. I'm just warning you. He's manipulative like that.
Ashley [00:24:36] Now he's got your sympathy.
Annie Jones [00:24:37] Okay. So Jeff gets to start.
Ashley [00:24:39] Jeff is going first. Our first round is comfort food.
Jeff Zentner [00:24:43] Okay, all right, so we don't get to--
Annie Jones [00:24:45] Wait, no.
Ashley [00:24:46] Wait, what did I do?
Annie Jones [00:24:47] No, we have to pick one of these things; otherwise, there's so many things.
Jeff Zentner [00:24:50] So I get all?
Annie Jones [00:24:51] You get all. So here are the items comfort food, Southern gothic literature, college football, country music, Southern hospitality Southern accents, manners, sweet tea or Southern television. You're Andy Griffith. You're designing women, etc. Okay, so then each of us pick the category.
Ashley [00:25:09] Pick the category and then defend the category
Jeff Zentner [00:25:10] Yes. All right, so am I first?
Ashley [00:25:14] You're first.
Jeff Zentner [00:25:14] Give me comfort food, baby. I'm talking about that mac and cheese, that fried chicken. I'm talking about chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel. Give me that comfort food that has spread across the nation, spread across the world, that Sean Brock, like, elevated... yeah.
Annie Jones [00:25:34] This makes sense because we talked earlier today about how much food writing is in Colton Gentry. And so, yeah, this makes sense even though I'm mad.
Jeff Zentner [00:25:42] Y'all knew I was either going to do comfort food or country music.
Annie Jones [00:25:47] Okay, so he gets comfort food. So, Hunter, now it's your turn.
Hunter McLendon [00:25:50] I'm going with Southern gothic literature, because here's the thing...
Annie Jones [00:25:54] Dang it. I'm going to have to sit here and defend college football. I'm capable.
Hunter McLendon [00:26:00] Without Southern gothic literature, we would not be able to-- the thing is if you've moved out of the South, if you have moved to a different part of the South and you just miss this specific part of your home, you find the book that you want that feels like home and you're able to like re-enter it, or if you want to enter into a different time of the place that you want to exist and you can enter into it, without Southern gothic literature we wouldn't have these portals that we need to continue to exist. It is like a necessity, so I do think that it is, like, the top priority on this list. And also this is really fun. I like the gossip that they have in some of the stories. I love The Little Friend, that Donna Tartt book, like, the judgment of all, I love how judgy everyone is, and that's all in the literature.
Annie Jones [00:26:46] Well, and I think you are a Southern Gothic storyteller. I do. Like Jeff said, I think that's just ingrained in who you are. Okay. All right; I'm going to pick Southern hospitality. And I'm going to pick that because I do think that at the risk of being cheesy and too earnest and sincere, I do think that is what The Bookshelf is all about. It's the spirit of welcome and hospitality. Even before The Bookshelf, welcoming people into my home was important. I'm not a great cook. We've discussed this many times. Recently, I was cooking dinner in my home and I maybe was putting something in the oven and the oven was hot as ovens are. But I was stunned by how hot my oven was and my entire pan of dinner went face down on my oven door. And you can bet your bottom dollar I just plopped that fish back on there. I was like we're eating this anyway. But it reminded me of the time Ashley and my other cousin came over to my house and I had googled like how to mash potatoes. And it was like use your kitchen aid. And I was like awesome, and like Amelia Bedelia I just threw potatoes in the kitchen aid and put it on high and potatoes just flew all over. So, to me, Southern hospitality is not necessarily just about the food, it's about the spirit of welcome. I think about the spirit of the front porch. I think about sitting on my parents' front porch growing up, this idea that anybody belongs in its best case. And I'm not saying this is true all the time, it's my hope that all are welcome. And this idea that anybody can sit on a front porch and visit and talk. And that Southern hospitality, I do think, epitomizes Southern culture. So that's what I'll take.
Jeff Zentner [00:28:32] That's really good.
Ashley [00:28:33] That's great. All right, Hunter, do you need me to read the remaining options?
Hunter McLendon [00:28:38] I know what they are.
Ashley [00:28:39] Perfect.
Hunter McLendon [00:28:39] Okay, my next one is actually going to be Southern accent
Annie Jones [00:28:43] Right!
Hunter McLendon [00:28:45] And the reason why, it's so funny, let me tell you--
Annie Jones [00:28:47] Do you know you have one? Because not everybody knows they have one.
Hunter McLendon [00:28:50] Do you think I still have one?
Annie Jones [00:28:54] No, I don't think that a year of living in Philly has deprived you off your Southern accent.
Hunter McLendon [00:28:59] It's so funny actually, so I feel like I don't have it as strong as I did. Like when I was 18 I tried to audition for Glee and I remember I was trying so hard to not have a Southern accent and so I was like, hello, my name is Hunter McClendon and I tried so hard for it. But I used to hate Southern accents; however, over the years the people I love often part of what I love about them is how sweet they often sound and that comes from their accents. And also living up north, hearing people being like, "Let me tell you something right now," I hate it. I'm like no. Like there's something...
Annie Jones [00:29:36] Be careful, there are some northerners in the audience.
Hunter McLendon [00:29:39] That's fine. But, listen, like Lauren Groff is from New York. There are some good ones out there. But also Southern accents are the safe accent to make fun of. [Crosstalk]. And also there's such a wide variety of them.
Annie Jones [00:30:06] I think people think there's one if they're maybe not from-- but we definitely can hear. There's an Alabama and then a Georgia. And when I moved to Thomasville, I call it the upper class Georgia accent, they don't pronounce the R's. And the first time I heard it, I was like that is so different from even Alabama or North Florida. Yeah, you can totally differentiate.
Hunter McLendon [00:30:30] I know that I lost you all for a second. Like we cannot make, but yeah, you can't make fun of these. How dare you? No, but I do think, and also, I don't know. I think that there's something about like when you're telling these stories that like that accent does really lend itself really well to like punctuating the sentences and stuff.
Annie Jones [00:30:48] Yeah, I’d agree with that.
Jeff Zentner [00:30:49] I love that Hunter thinks he doesn't have a Southern accent when to my ears, he could voice a possum in a Pixar movie.
Hunter McLendon [00:30:58] Is it that strong?
Jeff Zentner [00:31:00] Yeah, it is! Here, let's do a quick test to see how much Philly you've picked up. Say the word, water.
Hunter McLendon [00:31:09] Water.
Jeff Zentner [00:31:10] Oh, well, the Philly is sneaking in because yeah. Okay. Water. Yeah, it's sneaking in. The Philly is sneaking in. That would be a shame if Philly replaced that Southern accent, because I do think your Southern accent is wonderful. So please keep the Water at bay.
Annie Jones [00:31:29] So Jordan has a Southern accent, but I do think it has gotten-- well, you've known him a long time, too. Do you think it's gotten less as we have lived here?
Ashley [00:31:39] No. Every time he says I guess the word hill-- I get hill and heel confused, specifically by Jordan, like said by Jordan Jones.
Annie Jones [00:31:49] So the first time I met his mom, whose name is Twyla [sp], okay, the we were talking about accents. Because I know that compared to a lot of people in this room, I have one, but I don't think it's as strong as Jordan's, for example. And so we were talking about accents and Ms. Twyla-- I met her when I was a child, okay? So I still call her Ms. Twyla. And so Ms. Twyla said she didn't have a Southern accent and she has the deepest-- her name's Twyla. Like she has the deepest, most Alabama accent and I looked at her and I was like, no, you definitely do. I don't know how you're supposed to tell your future mother-in-law, no, you definitely have a Southern accent. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's quite endearing. I think Jordan's accent is endearing as I think yours is as well.
Hunter McLendon [00:32:31] Thank you.
Annie Jones [00:32:32] Okay. My turn?
Ashley [00:32:33] Your turn.
Annie Jones [00:32:36] Okay. Well I'm just going to do it. I will sit here and defend college football. And I will do it because there is something about-- just like I love March Madness, there is something about college football season that I just love it as background noise. It feels very comforting to me. I grew up a Florida State fan because of living in Tallahassee and my whole family going there. I shouldn't have any roots in that world because I did not go to any schools with football teams at all. And so I should have no attachment, but I do. And I love a Saturday afternoon in the South where football is on the TV, maybe you have your soup going in your crock pot. And, to me, there is nothing better than reading with sports in the background. I really do genuinely love a long football game, basketball game, and then reading a book and paying attention. I do actually know the rules of the game, but there is something about the reader in me that just loves the seasonality of college sports. I know we can talk about concussion protocol. It's fine, but I do still really like culture ball and I still watch it. Yeah, I still love it, so I'll defend it.
Jeff Zentner [00:33:58] I am so glad you didn't leave me with that one, because one of the questions I was prepared to answer tonight from the sheet was, what is the least Southern thing about you? So one of them was, what is the most Southern thing about you? I say, do what now? That is a Southernism that has not extended outside of the South. Everybody says y'all now, people are starting to say bless your heart. Nobody outside the South says, "Do what now?" That's the most Southern thing about me. The least sudden thing about me is I could not Possibly care less about SEC football. I don't even know who's in the SEC. I made the joke-- I don't care. I don't care. I'll be the heel. I don't care. So I made that joke about Parker Posey playing an SEC pill mom. Well, so many people yelled at me. They're like, well, her character's from North Carolina. They're in the ACC. I'm like, I don't care. I don't care at all. It's fine. It's all fine.
Annie Jones [00:35:01] Not to bring gender into this, but I do think the irony is that of everyone on this stage, I am the person who watches the most college football and cares the most.
Hunter McLendon [00:35:08] I also. You guys like college, but me too. I love it.
Jeff Zentner [00:35:13] The straight man here is the one who most got excited about the scented candle shop. I'm like, wow, hints of Jasmine.
Annie Jones [00:35:24] This is my next career!
Jeff Zentner [00:35:27] This is nice.
Annie Jones [00:35:26] Okay. I will say I do wish I had asked that question. So Jordan actually went with me to a Southern Booksellers Conference and that was something that was said at an author panel. What's the most Southern thing about you and what's the least? And so what is the most Southern thing about you and what is the least? Everything about you is the most Southern.
Hunter McLendon [00:35:46] I do think I'm like a very Southern person. What's the least Southern thing?
Annie Jones [00:36:00] Fair enough. I love that the podcast listeners have no idea what you are talking about.
Hunter McLendon [00:36:03] Home of sexuals.
Annie Jones [00:36:08] Ashley, what's the most Southern thing about you and the least?
Ashley [00:36:11] Well, you've answered this on my behalf and said the most Southern thing about me is the guys that I've dated, a lot of men from Alabama. I would like to offer my own Southern thing. That is that I love purchasing and consuming boiled peanuts from old men on the side of the road.
Annie Jones [00:36:31] That is the most Southern thing about you.
Ashley [00:36:32] Thank you. I don't know what the least Southern thing is. I have no clue. I feel Southern. No, I know what it is. The way I pronounce H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E.
Annie Jones [00:36:48] Horrible?
Ashley [00:36:48] Horrible.
Annie Jones [00:36:50] It's the least Southern thing about you.
Ashley [00:36:52] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:36:53] Fascinating. I think for me the most Southern thing about me is please don't even try to offer me anything other than a Coke. Don't try to give me your Pepsi. Please don't give me your Pepsi product. And so I do think the most Southern thing about me is my affinity for Coke. I think that's probably true. And then my least Southern thing, I don't like sweet tea. I don't like grits. I don't like a lot of Southern...
Jeff Zentner [00:37:18] So you guys aren't going to give her the SEC reaction? That's how this works? You're going to home cook me? I'm the guy who comes in and gets beat up here? We can't touch Annie. We all love Annie. We love Hunter. But Jeff... Annie can slander grits in front of this audience and marry a misplaced word against the SEC. I just said I didn't know who was in the SEC. Wow, I have so lost this thing already. Unbelievable. Speaking of Coke by the way, all sodas are very Southern. The American South is the cradle of sticky soft drinks. Pepsi is North Carolina, Coke is Georgia, Mountain Dew is Johnson City, Tennessee. Dr. Pepper is Texas. We'll count Texas for this one to make my point.
Annie Jones [00:38:20] Do you think it's teetotalers, where we're like, please, we have to get our vices up?
Jeff Zentner [00:38:25] Honestly, probably.
Ashley [00:38:26] Yeah, we're not about to drink alcohol.
Jeff Zentner [00:38:27] Yeah, probably.
Annie Jones [00:38:28] Yeah, it probably has to do with teetotaler culture. That would be the most Southern thing about me.
Jeff Zentner [00:38:30] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:38:32] Okay, where are we? Is it Jeff's turn?
Jeff Zentner [00:38:34] This is my turn. Okay. Give me country music. You've got to give me country music. If you took all of the things on this list, okay, and you put them in a pitcher and poured the pitcher out onto the red clay and used that wet clay to form a golem, it would be Dolly Parton. It would arise from the ground as "I am Dolly Parton. Hi, how y'all doing? Am Dolly Parton?" And it would be Dolly Parton. It would be Reba McEntire. Country music is so Southern gothic in its sensibility. There's so much wit. So people really love to rag on modern country music, mainstream pop country music. I get the criticisms. I love it, though, there are still so many wonderful turns of phrase on modern country radio. You can hear lines like, "You look like I need a drink." You hear lines like, "When this world turns ugly, I just turn and look at you." Like come on, those are great lines. The first day I moved to Nashville, I went for a run at the park near my house, and I just found little scraps of paper that were torn up songs.
Annie Jones [00:39:51] How Nashville.
Jeff Zentner [00:39:51] And I was like this is my city. This love of words, this love of poetry, this love of storytelling, it's all baked into country music. And then you have the cultural cross currents in country music. You have the Irish influence, you have the African influence, all intermingling. It reflects the demographic of the South. Country music is so, so Southern, and it's such a great export to the world. You see all sorts of mainstream pop artists going country, Post Malone going country. It's just got that pull. I think it's a great export culturally of the South.
Annie Jones [00:40:29] Yeah, and still ties into that overarching storytelling history. Okay. Ashley, where are we?
Ashley [00:40:36] Alright, we're at the last round and you're the first pick.
Annie Jones [00:40:39] But there's nothing good left.
Ashley [00:40:42] You got to convince us otherwise.
Annie Jones [00:40:43] Okay, I will convince you otherwise. I will also pick manners. I will pick manners because one time on From the Front Porch, we asked somebody, maybe we asked the question, what's your favorite part about life in the South? That used to be whenever we had a guest on, I would ask four speed round questions, and one of them was what's your favorite part about life in the South? And we got a lot of answers like food and sometimes a lot of overlapping answers. But one guy came on and he said, "My favorite part about life in the South is the two finger wave." And I thought to myself, oh, my gosh, it's so true. And even today, I found myself waving to the postman. And I thought there is something-- I know manners exist everywhere, but I think it's an extension of that hospitality I was talking about where I still-- and maybe this is old-fashioned. I do it as a woman for other people. I like holding the door open for people. No matter what gender you are, I like opening the door for people. I like generally the respect of elders. I think that's something we're losing in our culture. I think it is actually tied into our European roots, this idea of respecting the generation that came before us. I find that distinctly Southern. I will watch in a restaurant here in town like a daughter take care of her elderly mother, and that is exactly how I grew up. And please, and thank you, and thank you notes, I still think that stuff matters.
Hunter McLendon [00:42:21] That's something I do miss. Not to say that everyone's like rude, but people are not going out of their way to be nice. And, for instance, average Michelle joke up there, no one gives a courtesy laugh. But down here everyone's, like, you poor thing.
Annie Jones [00:42:39] Sometimes Southern manners can devolve into passive aggressive, but I do think there is something to be said for please and thank you. I don't mind yes ma'am, no ma'am. I still say it sometimes. I like it.
Hunter McLendon [00:42:52] Yeah. The only time I don't do that is whenever someone's looking a little butch and I'm not sure.
Annie Jones [00:42:57] Can you be careful to gender the wrong person?
Jeff Zentner [00:43:00] I like that people say have a nice day when they get off the elevator. I think that's really nice. I don't like talking to strangers, so I don't do that myself. But I think it's really nice when people do that and they only do it in the South.
Annie Jones [00:43:11] Jordan did it the other day in the elevator, and I remember thinking, what are you doing? I'm also introverted, and I was like, what are you doing? And then I was like, no, I think this is embedded in Southern culture. There's a friendliness that sometimes is in direct opposition to my introvertedness that I do find a little confusing sometimes about life in the South. But the friendliness, the warmth, and so I think the Southern hospitality, Southern manners go hand in hand for me. Yeah, so that'll be mine. Okay. Your turn.
Jeff Zentner [00:43:42] Southern television, baby. I am getting all my top picks. This is so exciting. So I definitely grew up watching Andy Griffith with my dad. I grew up watching Dukes of Hazzard takes place in Georgia. Like, here I am. I feel like...
Annie Jones [00:43:57] Full circle.
Jeff Zentner [00:43:57] I know. Right now I'm shaking hands with four-year-old me like, buddy, you made it. Here you are. You're sitting on a stage in Georgia where the Dukes of Hazzard takes place. And you are talking about being a Southerner. Like, you did it. You did. I think two of the masterpieces of Southern gothic storytelling have come out of television in recent years. True Detectives season one.
Annie Jones [00:44:22] I was going to say that one.
Jeff Zentner [00:44:25] That is perfect Southern gothic. And then a show that is not well known, but y'all should watch it, called Rectify that takes place in Georgia, it's this gorgeous, slow, quiet, contemplative. The pacing of it is very Southern. It unspools in a way that feels very rural Southern, but it is a kind show. It's a generous show. It's funny. It's dark. It, to me, really embodies the South. So Southern television.
Annie Jones [00:44:59] Okay, Southern TV. Okay. Hunter.
Hunter McLendon [00:45:03] I'm so glad this last one is the last one that's available, because that's the one I was most passionate about. It's sweet tea. And I love sweet. So I'm predisposed to be diabetic, but my family's diabetic. And I love to put my life in danger. And so actually it's really funny because when I think about sweet tea, I do think about my life in the South. Because I think about the first time I ever made sweet tea, which was when I was I think like 11 or 12, I was visiting my mom and my stepdad, and my stepdad said, "We're running out of low on sweet tea, go make a new thing." And I said, okay. And I didn't know how to do it. And it's because everyone had always made it for me. And so there was like a little tea brew and I brewed whatever. And they said, okay, you've got to put the sugar in there. And I said, how much? She goes, just a couple cups. And so I grabbed a cup. and I just took a couple of cups. A plastic cup. It was like an eight ounce tumbler. And I was like, this tastes great. And so the thing is I do think there's something about making sweet tea. I've had people make me sweet tea, like, who are from up North or from somewhere else. They rarely ever do it right. Like some people will put ice in the pitcher and it gets watered down, or they just do these little things or they don't know how to make it sweet enough. There's like all these little tiny things that also they'll try to use fancy teas. And it's just like don't do that. But there's something that coming back down here to visit, I've been getting sweet tea. I've been like that's just the drink I'm getting.
Annie Jones [00:46:38] Where's your go-to, what do you think in as far as like fast food or [inaudible] like where do you think is the best sweet tea?
Hunter McLendon [00:46:45] Okay.
Annie Jones [00:46:46] If you're in Alabama, I think it's Milo's. People love Milo's.
Hunter McLendon [00:46:50] I'm trying to think because the thing is that, honestly, I'm always focused on the fried chicken, but I will say one of my favorite meals is I'll go to Zaxby's and I'll get a boneless Wings &Things nuclear with an extra Zax sauce and I'll get a large sweet tea with lemon. And it is such a satisfying just like cohesion that it just always feels good. It feels good in my heart, not my belly. The only place I don't like sweet tea is McDonald's because it's just like syrup. But most everywhere else, I pretty [inaudible]. You took me to Sonny's for the first time.
Annie Jones [00:47:27] You're welcome.
Hunter McLendon [00:47:28] And let me tell you, their sweet tea is so good. [Inaudible] you don't like it, but that's fine. It is something that every time I have it, I'm like, oh, home.
Ashley [00:47:36] Yeah. Do they have sweet tea in Philly?
Hunter McLendon [00:47:40] No.
Ashley [00:47:40] I didn't think so. I've been up north and asked for sweet tea and they were like, what?
Hunter McLendon [00:47:44] It is a major disappointment in my life.
Jeff Zentner [00:47:47] They've got water rice in Philadelphia.
Annie Jones [00:47:51] I think it is fascinating in the South. I had a teacher in high school, I'll never forget. She had a big gulp that she brought to class and it was sweet tea at eight in the morning. And still to this day, I'll see somebody even maybe coming to The Bookshelf with a giant... and it's sweet tea, this early. But Southerners, there are no boundaries.
Ashley [00:48:11] Sweet tea and Jesus.
Hunter McLendon [00:48:12] Wait, do you not think about sweet tea-- is that not like a morning drink?
Annie Jones [00:48:15] No, I don't drink sweet tea at all.
Hunter McLendon [00:48:18] But you have, like, coffee? People have, like, hot tea.
Annie Jones [00:48:20] I don't drink any of-- I drink water for breakfast.
Jeff Zentner [00:48:23] Can I throw out my breakfast philosophy? Anything that I will eat at any point in the day, I will eat at any point in the day. That means I'll have a half rack of ribs for breakfast if the opportunity presents. I'll have a salad for breakfast. So if I'll eat it at any point during the day, I will eat it for breakfast. People will be like, well...
Ashley [00:48:48] Jeff, you just lost again.
Jeff Zentner [00:48:50] Well, I don't care at this point. I don't know what I'm going for. But people are like, well, would you eat cereal with lemon juice on it? It's like, no, because I wouldn't eat that at any point. You're not listening to me. I wouldn't eat it at any point in the day. So I won't eat it for breakfast. But if I'll eat it at any point in the day, I'll eat a hamburger for breakfast, whatever.
Hunter McLendon [00:49:15] That feels like some rock star energy.
Annie Jones [00:49:20] That does feel like rock star energy.
Jeff Zentner [00:49:21] Because nothing says rock star like, yeah, I'll eat a big piece of apple pie for breakfast. That classic rock star thing.
Annie Jones [00:49:27] Look, apple pie or pound cake. You could sell me on pound cake for breakfast, but a McRib for breakfast? I won't even eat Chick-fil-A breakfast. Because I think chicken for breakfast, what are we doing?
Jeff Zentner [00:49:40] We engage in a lot of pretty arbitrary boundaries setting for our breakfast foods. You won't eat a piece of cake for breakfast, but you will eat a muffin. What's the difference? So I could make a pretty strong case that there's not a huge difference between ribs and bacon and sausage. See, right? Am I getting you back a little bit, huh? Am I bringing you back in?
Hunter McLendon [00:50:07] I will say my breakfast at seven was a Dr. Pepper and a giant Hershey bar with almonds and my breakfast at 12 was a half-gallon of Oreo ice cream and a canister of Slim Jims.
Annie Jones [00:50:23] Look at Ashley's face! I drink a smoothie every day. I don't know!
Hunter McLendon [00:50:27] I wish that was what I was like. Like nobody taught me. I was like granny why do I keep gaining weight? She goes, I don't know little baby
Jeff Zentner [00:50:35] It feels like he's just doing a convenience store Madlib for what he's [inaudible] today.
Annie Jones [00:50:41] He's back home, so that's his tradition. Okay, did we all, did we...
Ashley [00:50:46] We're covered. I'm going to recap what everybody chose and then after I recap we will go down the line and you will vote on who won the snake draft by applause, okay? So recap first. We have Jeff with comfort food, country music, and Southern television.
Annie Jones [00:51:04] That's pretty good.
Ashley [00:51:05] We have Hunter with Southern gothic literature, Southern accents, and sweet tea. And we have Annie B. Jones with college football, Southern hospitality, and manners. Okay, let's go. Votes for Jeff. [Applause]. And for Hunter. [Hunter] Annie B. Jones. [Applause]
Annie Jones [00:51:34] Finally, I have never won one of these. We have been hosting these for a long time. Annabelle Monahan won. I never win. Thank you. Thank you so much. I owe my grandmother's manners for this win. Thank you so much.
Audience [00:51:49] It was football.
Annie Jones [00:51:52] College football ball. Woo-hoo.
Ashley [00:51:54] Of all things.
Annie Jones [00:51:56] I'm so proud. I feel like I need a crown. [Inaudible] suit my crown? We need a...
Ashley [00:52:03] Snake draft crown?
Annie Jones [00:52:05] Yeah. Okay, lightning round.
Ashley [00:52:06] Lightning round. Okay. I have for you today a list of titles names that could be either a book title or a country song. So I will read one aloud and then I guess the three of you will cast your vote, and I will set your fate. I will say book titles and country songs. There's nothing new under the sun; so there probably is some overlap where one is both but we will be going based off of what I have chosen to do.
Annie Jones [00:52:36] Okay, that's fair.
Ashley [00:52:38] Okay. So first up, we have This Side of Paradise. Book title or country song?
Jeff Zentner [00:52:46] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:52:47] Book title.
Hunter McLendon [00:52:47] Book title.
Ashley [00:52:48] Correct.
Annie Jones [00:52:50] F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Ashley [00:52:52] Dang it! I'm trying so hard to stump because I know these are smart people. Okay, Wild Eyes.
Jeff Zentner [00:53:00] Country song.
Annie Jones [00:53:01] Country song.
Hunter McLendon [00:53:01] Country song.
Ashley [00:53:02] Book title, baby.
Hunter McLendon [00:53:03] I almost said that.
Annie Jones [00:53:06] A point for Ashley.
Ashley [00:53:07] Points for Ashley. Somebody keep score, because I'm not. Okay, Fifty Shades of Green.
Annie Jones [00:53:15] A country song.
Jeff Zentner [00:53:18] Country song.
Hunter McLendon [00:53:18] Country song.
Ashley [00:53:19] Country song By Johnny Cash. Okay, Sweet Tea and Southern Grace.
Hunter McLendon [00:53:24] Country song.
Jeff Zentner [00:53:26] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:53:27] Book title.
Ashley [00:53:28] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:53:30] Who wrote it.
Ashley [00:53:31] Sweet Tea in Southern Grace by Glinda C. Manus.
Annie Jones [00:53:35] Glenda's a good name.
Jeff Zentner [00:53:36] It's a good name. It's a good Southern name.
Ashley [00:53:38] All right. They call her dirty-- no, They Call Her Dirty Sally.
Jeff Zentner [00:53:45] That definitely could be a certain type of book, but I'm going to say country song.
Annie Jones [00:53:48] Country song.
Ashley [00:53:53] Book title. That's two. They Call Her Dirty Sally by Amy Mateo.
Annie Jones [00:53:58] Now I'm curious what the plot is. I got to be careful with my Google search.
Ashley [00:54:05] Heaven Says Hello.
Annie Jones [00:54:07] Country song.
Jeff Zentner [00:54:07] Country song.
Hunter McLendon [00:54:07] Book title.
Ashley [00:54:09] Country song by Sonny James. The Ways to Love a Man.
Jeff Zentner [00:54:19] Book title.
Hunter McLendon [00:54:19] Book Title.
Annie Jones [00:54:20] Country song.
Ashley [00:54:20] Country song by Tammy Wynette.
Hunter McLendon [00:54:22] Oh my god, [inaudible]
Ashley [00:54:25] I know. The Time Has Come.
Hunter McLendon [00:54:29] Country song.
Annie Jones [00:54:29] Book title.
Jeff Zentner [00:54:30] Book title.
Ashley [00:54:31] Country song by Martina McBride.
Jeff Zentner [00:54:36] This game is hard.
Ashley [00:54:37] Thank you. You're doing great, though. An Outlaw's Heart.
Hunter McLendon [00:54:42] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:54:43] Country song.
Jeff Zentner [00:54:43] Country song.
Ashley [00:54:44] Book title, by Shelly Gray. Can you see I'm trying to shield him from what I'm doing?
Hunter McLendon [00:54:45] I didn't even know. I was like, why is she-- I get it.
Ashley [00:54:46] This is just like default. Have we already done Rodeo Cowboy?
Hunter McLendon [00:54:57] Book title.
Jeff Zentner [00:54:58] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:54:58] Country song.
Ashley [00:54:58] Country song baby.
Jeff Zentner [00:55:00] Man, it's tricky because you do ones that sound so obviously like a country song.
Ashley [00:55:05] I did a lot of research for this.
Jeff Zentner [00:55:07] You really crushed this game.
Ashley [00:55:09] How much time do we have? I got a ton of these.
Annie Jones [00:55:11] Do just a couple more.
Ashley [00:55:13] Okay. Dumb Blonde.
Hunter McLendon [00:55:14] Country song.
Jeff Zentner [00:55:16] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:55:18] Country song.
Hunter McLendon [00:55:19] Country song by Dolly Parton.
Ashley [00:55:22] Woman of the World.
Annie Jones [00:55:23] Country song.
Hunter McLendon [00:55:25] Book title.
Jeff Zentner [00:55:25] Country song.
Ashley [00:55:27] Country song.
Annie Jones [00:55:29] Even the way we're slowly saying country song, like the way we're slowly devolving into like...
Ashley [00:55:37] All right, let's see last one, If the Creek Don't Rise.
Jeff Zentner [00:55:42] Country song.
Hunter McLendon [00:55:43] Book title.
Annie Jones [00:55:43] Country song.
Ashley [00:55:44] Book title, Leah Weiss. I don't know who won. Good job, everybody.
Jeff Zentner [00:55:51] You won by making this game.
Annie Jones [00:55:58] Okay, and as part of our Reader Retreat, we did ask for audience questions during our happy hour, so Ashley has a couple of questions. And if we have time, we might ask from the audience. We're also blinded by the light, so we may just stick with the ones that Ashley has written from y'all's notes.
Ashley [00:56:15] Alright, just a few. We'll start with Jeff. Where did the inspiration for a country singer protagonist come from?
Jeff Zentner [00:56:22] Where did the inspiration for a country singer protagonist come from? So I wanted to write a book about a very public and messy fall from grace that resulted in somebody having to move back home and live with their mom again in their little town in Kentucky. And as it happens, it is very difficult to do that in most areas of media and entertainment. For the most part, if you are somebody in the entertainment world and you've very publicly and rapidly fallen from grace, it's for a reason that I don't want to be writing a protagonist about. That sentence didn't make any sense. That was a terrible sentence. It means you've got a scummy protagonist, for the most part. They've said something awful, or they've harassed somebody. Except in country music, you can have a situation like Natalie Maines, where they fell from grace in the world they were in by expressing an opinion that many, many reasonable people held. So that can happen in country music. So that was part of what drove the decision. But part of it, too, is I'm from Nashville and I love country music. I love the country music world and I wanted to write somebody from that world. So all of those things really fit neatly together to drive that decision.
Ashley [00:57:48] All right. Next question. We'll go to Annie. Annie, are you entertaining literary names for baby boy Jones?
Annie Jones [00:57:58] So, mostly we have kept the name under wraps, but I will say that Jordan and I have been married for 16 years, we've known each other for 20 plus, so I do think it's very funny that his sister, who knew us when we met when we were like 18 in the Great Books program, she just knew we were going to name our child Aristotle; and I am here to tell you we are not. We are not naming our child Aristotle. And then his parents thought we would name our child Atticus, and I will tell you we are not. And so I appreciate those literary guesses. I'll also tell you I'm married to someone who probably five to ten years ago came home and he was like, "I have the perfect baby name," and I was like, oh, what is it, and he was like, "Benaiah." And that is biblical. it is literary, I suppose. It is biblical, and I said absolutely not. So you can imagine that picking a name has been quite the adventure. I am pleased with what we have come up with, but I would say we have gone the family route rather than the literary route.
Jeff Zentner [00:59:06] By the way, you know what's a Biblical name that blows my mind? Chloe.
Annie Jones [00:59:11] Yes.
Jeff Zentner [00:59:11] I just learned that like a month ago and that absolutely blew my mind.
Annie Jones [00:59:15] The Bible has a lot of names that we don't...
Jeff Zentner [00:59:18] think of.
Annie Jones [00:59:18] Like, Phoebe, I think might be one. Anyway, there's a lot that you just don't, yeah.
Hunter McLendon [00:59:23] Did I ever say that at one point I was desperate to have triplets and I was going to name them Charmaine, Jocasta, and Zipporah.
Annie Jones [00:59:33] You and Jordan should get together. I feel like you guys got some really great names
Hunter McLendon [00:59:38] Well, Zipporah is in the Bible. And Sephora, the makeup store, derives from Sephora. Jocasta was Oedipus' mom's name. You all know what happened with that. And Charmaine, I just thought was really cute.
Annie Jones [00:59:49] You and Jordan have similar reasoning.
Jeff Zentner [00:59:52] If you did Aristotle Jones, your kid could become the protagonist in like a quirky middle grade series. Like the grand adventures of Aristotle Jones.
Annie Jones [01:00:01] You're onto something. Maybe that's my next book.
Ashley [01:00:06] Okay, question for everyone, starting with Hunter. What are your audio book preferences? Fiction, non-fiction, speed
Hunter McLendon [01:00:14] Okay. So if I'm listening to something that's-- it's so funny, I have a lot of them. If I'm listening to something that's really poorly written, or if I'm reading something that's really poorly written, I'll have to listen to it because it kind of disguises some of the poor writing. If it's a celebrity, I love to listen to them. I like to listen to memoir if the person who wrote it is reading it. If it's a book that I'm having a really hard time finding like the cadence or the rhythm of the language, hearing it on audio, at least for like the first chapter or two will really help me kind of like fall into it. And even if I don't finish on the audiobook it's like a really great way for me to-- and as far as speed goes....
Annie Jones [01:00:51] Yeah, I don't know the answer to this.
Hunter McLendon [01:00:53] So when I start a book, it's between 1.3 and 1.5. If I'm loving the book, I might go up to like 1.7, just because that's where my brain kind of naturally goes for most of them. Sometimes it'll go up to two. If I'm hating a book, I listened to the last 50 to 100 pages of that Court of Thorns and Roses book at 3.4. And so you can just imagine that there's like [inaudible] and I was like, ah, yes, the thorns and the roses.
Annie Jones [01:01:29] That is mind boggling to me. I can't wrap my brain around. Do you listen to audiobooks?
Jeff Zentner [01:01:34] I do almost all of my reading through audiobooks now.
Annie Jones [01:01:37] Okay.
Jeff Zentner [01:01:37] And I do about probably 90% fiction to 10% non-fiction. I do love to read non-fiction, but if I play you just a very small snippet of the speed I listen to audiobooks at, will I get you into copyright trouble?
Annie Jones [01:01:54] No. Do it.
Jeff Zentner [01:01:55] Okay. So I do 2.2x speed, and this is Stephen King reading Bag of Bones at 2.0x speed. One of my [inaudible] just came in. Sorry, hang on one sec. Okay. All right, cool.
Annie Jones [01:02:15] You just won them over.
Jeff Zentner [01:02:16] Okay, so here we go. Stephen King reading 2.2x speed. See, that just sounds normal to me. It sounds completely normal to me. Now when I listen to a normal audio book, like Julia Whalen is a friend of mine, and I told her this to her face, like, now when I listen to an audio book at normal speed, it sounds like, “Then Mike opened the refrigerator and pulled out a cold coke." It's like unlistenable to me at this point.
Annie Jones [01:03:00] That is wild, yes.
Hunter McLendon [01:03:03] I don't know if this is entirely true, but I have this theory that people sometimes listen to the audio books at the speed that they talk.
Annie Jones [01:03:10] Okay.
Hunter McLendon [01:03:11] So if you're like a fast talker you'll probably like speed up.
Annie Jones [01:03:13] Okay, so my answer is I will listen to both fiction and nonfiction, but I find that I can pay better attention to a nonfiction audiobook, whether that's a memoir or general nonfiction. So I will listen to fiction, but I often find myself wishing I was reading it because I read physically faster than I can listen, and I'd rather switch to physical format. So I listen to both, but I prefer nonfiction. And then I think the highest I have ever gone, and now I'm like, am I weird? That is 1.4 or 1.5 is the highest I can go. Am I a slow talker?
Hunter McLendon [01:03:48] You're not a slow talker, but I think that you know how to speak, like enunciate. And so I can always understand you. Whereas, there are people up North who they think it's my Southern accent. And I'm like, no, no, no, I just like slur every word into the other. It's like a car crash of like, you know.
Annie Jones [01:04:04] Car crash of language. I cannot listen to higher than-- I think maybe the highest I did was 1.5 And it was partly just to like finish a book. I can do 1.1 or 1.2. I think mostly.
Jeff Zentner [01:04:17] Well, the beauty of 2.2 is you are taking down books. I read like 100 books last year, and that was on top of the day job, and all the writing, and the traveling for the writing. And any time I'm doing any chore that's going to take more than five minutes, my earbuds are in, and I'm taking down another, like, ten pages of the book.
Annie Jones [01:04:41] I mean, more power to you. I feel like I would feel frenzied. I feel frenzied right now just listening to it. I'm like all stressed.
Jeff Zentner [01:04:48] Just the sample.
Annie Jones [01:04:49] Yeah. I'm stressed. I'm on edge.
Ashley [01:04:53] All right, next up for everyone, favorite gravy. Examples, red eye, chocolate, sausage.
Hunter McLendon [01:05:02] I was thinking about, like, Popeye's Cajun gravy.
Annie Jones [01:05:05] I know. I was thinking Whataburger's gravy is great. Okay, the sausage gravy for me.
Jeff Zentner [01:05:12] Yeah, I'm a sausage gravy man.
Ashley [01:05:14] Is that what they put with biscuits?
Hunter McLendon [01:05:16] Well, wait, so what's Cajun-- like, have you ever had Popeye's Cajun gravy?
Ashley [01:05:21] I've never had Popeye's.
Jeff Zentner [01:05:23] By the way, Hunter, I feel like I should tell you I had Church's chicken tonight for dinner. I feel like you can relate to that. I love it. Well, and that's, I don't have a Church's near me, so I had to go while I was here in Thomasville.
Annie Jones [01:05:37] Their biscuits are legitimately great.
Jeff Zentner [01:05:39] They are excellent. Every time I eat fast food chicken, I am never thinking, boy, I wish that I could get this, but at three times the price. That's one of those things that I feel like doesn't improve with fancy restaurants. I feel like trashy fried chicken is the best fried chicken.
Annie Jones [01:05:58] You are speaking his language now.
Ashley [01:06:01] Last question of the evening. Rest in peace, Carl Dean. What is your favorite Dolly Parton song?
Annie Jones [01:06:11] Okay, I do like a lot of them and this feels like a very common answer, but I tell this anecdote in the book, but I will say it is I Will Always Love You. And it is because I have a very distinct childhood memory of my best friend. We were 11 and she was moving and I was staying and we were getting together one last Sunday afternoon. Like her dad was our minister and so we frequently got together on Sunday afternoons and we karaokeed and sang I Will Always Love You to each other as like a duet. I have a distinct memory of standing on top of her brick fireplace, singing that song to each other, and so that is my very earnest answer, even though it's a slightly typical one, I guess.
Jeff Zentner [01:06:59] Well, I'm going to out-typical you here with my answer, which is Jolene. It's a perfect country song. It sounds like an ancient ballad. It's got that weight of history. Speaking of Carl Dean, the legend I've heard is that it was about a bank teller who was flirting with Carl, who, so instead of getting mad at Carl and writing a song about Carl, Dolly Parton wrote a song about how hot the woman flirting with Carl was. And by the way, what a legend this Carl Dean was. The man laid asphalt, apparently for fun, because they didn't need the money. I'd been to Dollywood, they were doing fine. But he worked laying asphalt, I guess, because he liked it. And that man is a legend.
Hunter McLendon [01:07:53] My favorite Dolly Parton song is actually Here I Am. And for anyone who doesn't know, the chorus says, "Here I am reaching out to give you love that you're without. I can help you find what you've been searching for. Here I am, come to me, take my hand because I believe I can give you all the love you need and more." And the first time I ever heard it, I burst into tears because I just thought it was so beautiful. And it's one of those things where the first time I ever heard it I was sitting in my car. I was like just feeling very lonely in the world. And I don't know why, but I just imagine like Dolly like telling me this. And I was so moved that I was, like, Oh Dolly, thank you for being there for me. And it's so funny because every time that anyone has shown me love, whether romantic or platonic, like familial, that is the thought that kind of goes, it's like someone showing up and saying here I am. And my granny especially, like, oftentimes if that song comes on I do often think of my granny just being here. And so that is my favorite Dolly Parton song.
Jeff Zentner [01:08:59] I'm from Tennessee and I don't know how like attuned y'all are to Tennessee politics, but anytime there's a movement to rename something-- this was named after a Confederate general. We're going to rename this. Every time the suggestion is to rename it after Dolly Parton. Every time. Does not matter what it is. There could be like a cannon, like a statue in the town square, and it's named like General Ruford B. Rufus, whatever. And they'll be like let's name it the Dolly Parton Cannon, or whatever.
Annie Jones [01:09:36] I think she is one of the last things that we can all rally around.
Jeff Zentner [01:09:42] Truly. The least divisive celebrity.
Annie Jones [01:09:44] Yes, and I hope it remains that way until the day of her death because she is like the last kind of-- I don't know.
Ashley [01:09:54] The last good thing in the world.
Annie Jones [01:09:57] Thanks Dolly, no pressure
Ashley [01:09:58] Okay. I'm going to interject my favorite Dolly Parton. It is the song Apple Jack. It's not her best song. It is my current favorite song. It's about the banjo. It's about a man named Jack who picks apples and he picks the banjo. It's very cute. But also, I think it's important for you to know that Dolly Parton has a whole album that she did with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris called Trio. And it is harmonies from angels. It's so good.
Annie Jones [01:10:25] Yes, that was worth watching.
Hunter McLendon [01:10:27] Wait, last thing, but I love whenever they were doing it, whenever Linda Ronstadt said they were doing an interview about her, like whenever she had to retire because of, what was it, Parkinson's, I think? And whenever they told Dolly Parton that they were going interview her, they were like, oh, you're really going to interview her? I didn't know she could do the camera work. And I don't know why, but I think it's the most charming thing.
Annie Jones [01:10:49] Yeah. You and Dolly have similarities, I think. Thank you so much, Jeff, for being our special guest this evening. Thank you to Ashley and to Hunter for always being along for the ride. I'm very grateful to not be on the stage alone. And thank you all for being here tonight. That was From the Front Porch Live.
Jeff Zentner [01:11:06] Thanks, everyone.
[01:11:07] Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website:
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Gene Queens, Beth, Jammie Treadwell…
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins
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