Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South

The first collection of the beloved humorist's sly, dry, hilarious essays in more than a decade focuses on a perennially popular topic: the South vs. the North. “"When [Northerners] ask me to explain grits, I look at them like an Irishman who's been asked to explain potatoes." "When I was a boy in Georgia, college sports was Bobby Dodd versus Bear Bryant immemorial. Compared to that the Harvard-Yale game is a panel discussion." "Anybody who claims…not to have 'a racist bone' in his or her body is at best preracist and has a longer way to go than the rest of us." Hard-working humorist Roy Blount Jr. lives in the North but he's from the South, a delicious tension that has always informed and shaped his work. In this new collection, he directs his acerbic wit and finely-tuned insight toward the persistent and colorful differences between the two.