According to Pete Candler, “Whether we are good at telling stories, the truth is every human being is a story bearer.”
Candler himself is quite good at telling stories, a fact further revealed in his new collection, “A Deeper South: The Beauty, Mystery, and Sorrow of the Southern Road.” The book is structured in the form of a road trip, replete with the meanderings, side-roads, and traffic stops that deliver the magic of being on the road. Although the trip is presented as a single movement, it’s actually a composite of multiple trips that Candler has taken over the last 25 years.
On Monday’s edition of “City Lights,” Candler spoke to host Lois Reitzes on what drove him to take these trips.
“[It was] a willingness or an ability to look around with a sense of curiosity that doesn’t predetermine what it is you’re looking for.”
A simple set of rules has guided these excursions, namely, “We didn’t allow ourselves to use interstates, we didn’t use maps if we could help it, and we didn’t stay in hotels… It’s this idea of following this mysterious logic of the road.”
