Book Review: Barry Hannah's Yonder Stands Your Orphan

The Violent Implosion at the Heart of Confederate Honor: The New South's Heritage of Racism, Murder, Deception, Economic Deprivation, and Environmental Devastation in Barry Hannah's YONDER STANDS YOUR ORPHAN

The honor and glory of the Southland, the Confederacy, Dixie is the biggest lie ever perpetrated on the gullible and glory-hungry American people. This is the idea which pulses up from beneath every word of Barry Hannah's incisive serio-comic gothic black comedy masterpiece Yonder Stands Your Orphan. Set somewhere close to smack dab in the middle of today's Mississippi, the characters in Yonder Stands Your Orphan exist for the most part on the shadowy fringes of a fearful past well on its way to dragging these rooted people into a picturesque living grave in the middle of nowhere.

Mississippi is the throbbing hemorrhoid on the hairy ass of America and Barry Hannah knows it. If you don't believe me ask any black person in America what they want to see in their next visit to Mississippi. The sign "You Are Now Entering The State Of Mississippi" fading fast at 60 miles an hour in the rear view mirror is the only thing that pops up in my mind.