Tracing Southern storytelling in black and white

Introduction: intertwining strings

Getting the joke: Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: his songs and sayings and Charles Chesnutt's The conjure woman

Paradise disrupted: William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Zora Neale Hurston's Their eyes were watching God

Getting the last laugh: Ralph Ellison's Invisible man and Eudora Welty's Losing battles

Haunted by stories: Ernest Gaines's A gathering of old men and Ellen Douglas's Can't quit you, baby

Epilogue.