The Ghosts Of The South

by Zack Beauchamp

Margaret Eby reviews the collected works of Kathryn Tucker Windham, a Southern writer of ghost stories who recently passed away:

Windham’s voice was unforgettable. In high school, I would listen to All Things Considered every couple of weeks to hear her explain, in her rolling, sticky Southwest Alabama accent, the canoe-fighting of the Creek Indian War or the boll weevil statue in Enterprise, Alabama erected in honor of the pest that forced local farmers to diversify their crops. She hunted through cemeteries, traced old wives tales back to their sources, and described the grandeur of crumbling mansions, spared by the Union army only to rot from neglect. “I don’t care whether you believe in ghosts,” Windham was fond of repeating, “The good ghost stories do not require that you believe in ghosts.”