'Three Not-So-Ordinary Joes' wonderfully explores the links of literary influence
On the surface, the new book by Julie Hedgepeth Williams, Three Not-So-Ordinary, is the story of the long and winding genesis of literary culture in the post-Civil War American South. One of the “not-so-ordinary Joes” referred to in the title is, after all, Joel Chandler Harris (whose childhood nickname was Joe), author of the Uncle Remus stories that sold astoundingly well both in postwar America and around the world and influenced an entire generation of writers, playing a large role in creating a distinctive Southern literary tradition.
