On Matters Southern: Essays About Literature and Culture, 1964-2000

This volume presents 26 of his essays, selected and Editor(s): Michael M. Jordan with a foreword by noted historian Eugene D. Genovese. It is a good introduction to the thinking and writing of a man who speaks for southern conservatism with passion and imagination, with head and heart, exercising both faith and reason. This work is divided into five sections -
The Author at Work and Home,

On Place and Region,

On Fugitives, Agrarians, and New Critics,

On Individual Authors
and
On Books and Schooling.
In the essays Montgomery discusses the importance of place in all serious literature, but especially in southern letters. He notes differences between southern and northern fiction. He pays tribute to Andrew Lytle, Madison Jones, and M.E. Bradford, and explicates the fiction of Walker Percy. Taken together, the essays reveal Montgomery’s gifts and temperament: a keen intellect combined with a reverential awareness of the importance of tradition.