DIRTY SOUTH

Dirty South
by Ace Atkins
304 pages
ISBN: 0-06-000462-2
Harper Collins
March 2004
Hardback $24.95

“People like to talk and divide us. People like to break us apart. But we all the Dirty South.”

Dirty South is the fourth book with Nick Travers, a former professional football player for the Saints, turned blues music historian college professor who helps his old time friends whenever he can. This book immerses the reader in the culture and the street language of New Orleans including the smells, and definitely the music, both rap and the blues.

Travers helps his friend, Teddy Paris, a former football teammate, turned recording company owner discovering a con job involving one of Teddy’s music rap finds, ALIAS. ALIAS is only fifteen years old, uneducated, street-wise, and so far is a recording success story.

For the protection of ALIAS, Travers takes him to an old friend, JoJo, to teach the kid some of the normal realities of life. Much of the humor, sensitivity, and love of the characters are shown through the relationships of longtime friendship with JoJo, his wife, and his old-time buddies.

Teddy has less than twenty-four hours to return the money that he borrowed or he be killed. Nick has agreed to help his friend and tries to find the money that was conned from ALIAS. In just a few hours, Nick discovers much more than what he had hoped for and all of it is very much “Dirty South”.

The characterization is wonderful. Personally, I would not have chosen to read a book about street language and the black sub-culture of New Orleans. I was delightfully surprised in finding this book very readable, fast-paced, and having within in the plot, a motivation with constant twists. Each character is well-developed with both their positive personality qualities being exhibited, as well as their faults.

I found myself in Nick’s shoes through the excellent writing of Ace Atkins. The book possesses an internal energy which makes me want to read more books by him.

Ace Atkins has been a journalist with even a Pulitzer nomination. He is very similar to his main character, Nick Travers, in that he teaches at the university level. He now lives near Oxford, Mississippi with his dogs. He played football while studying at Auburn University and was a member of the championship team. (Also, if you look at his pictures on his web-site, he looks like a male model or a Chippendale’s dancer. Is he for real or did he use a stand-in for his pictures?)