rural life in the contemporary Carolinasn(with side excursions to other parts of thenSouth). Smith focuses her sharp eye onnthe manners, mores and morals of peoplenone has known all one’s life. Nontowering tragic figures like Thomas Sutpennfor Smith, but rather housewives,nadolescents, salesderks and an occasionalndotty—but lovable—character. A sensitivitynto the dramas of seemingly banalnlives infuses these stories; Smith understandsnwhat James Jones once advised ancreative-writing class: “Show me thensympathetic insurance man.” One doesnnot need to stoop to television soapnoperas to know that housewives andnsalesderks hurt, and that they wrestlenwith the vicissitudes of life in an effort tonbring order, beauty and meaning to theirnlives. Lee Smith examines this worldnskillfully, but if one wants to see a supremenartist at work on this material onengoes to Eudora Welty. Why drink domesticnbrandy when one can have Courvoisiernat the same price?nIn an essay in the October 1981 TexasnObserver Larry McMurtry provoked thenire of Texas chauvinists by arguing thatnthe state’s writers had yet to produce annovel of commanding stature. The problem,nwrote McMurtry, lay in the refusalnof Texans to realize that their homelandnhas more to offer than longhorn steers,nGary Cooperish Texas Rangers and laconicncowboys. Where is the novelist whoncan capture the blend of raw energy andnurban sophistication found in the citiesnthat now dominate the state? PerhapsnMcMurtry’s animadversions stemmednfrom personal frustration: he has himselfntried unsuccessfully to write the novel ofnthe new Texas cities. For whatever reason,nMcMurtry struck a truth: Texansn—those peculiar creatures, half-Southernnand half-Western—have imprisonednthemselves in the tried-and-true themesnof the past as surely as has a whollynSouthern writer like Willie Morris.nCowboys can tyrannize the imaginationnas much as decadent aristocrats or downtroddennblack sharecroppers. Texasnnovelists must come to terms withnHouston just as Flannery O’Connor’snSOinChronicles of Cttltiirenheirs need to penetrate the glass towers ofnAdanta.nMcMurtry excluded from his mminationsnthose novelists who have immigratednto Texas; Beverly Lowry, author ofnDaddy’s Girl, a novel set in contemporarynHouston, thus will not fit Mc­nMurtry’s bill: she was born in Memphisnand raised in Mississippi. Still,nLowry enables one to see what Southernnwriters can do with the urban experience,na mode of life remote and alien to thosenwho propelled Southern fiction to thenforefront of American letters. Writers ofnthe older South shied away from thencities that had already begun to burgeonnin the 1920’s. They stuck to rural andnsmall-town folk, people whose lives hadna rhythm and a timelessness upon whichnthe novelist could play out his tale, securenin the knowledge that he trod firm andnfamiliar ground. The rural and smalltownnworld of eccentric maiden aunts,nblack domestics, sharp-tongued gossips,noveralled rednecks and yearning adolescentsnsupplied the novelist with readynmaterial. The quirks, foibles and thinlynveiled—but rigorously enforced—hypocrisiesnof these people presented a richnDependent literaq^nWriters at Work; Edited by GeorgenPlimpton; Penguin Books; New York.nGeoffrey Bocca: Bestseller; WyndhamnBooks; New York.nby Gordon M. PradlnW hether we choose to acknowledgenit or not, our educational institutions arenas much involved in socializing youth asnthey are in passing on information, skillsnand knowledge. This fact in itself shouldnnot alarm us; rather, our concern oughtnto be directed at the frightening discrepancynbetween the processes of schoolingnDr. Pradl is professor of English educationnat New York University.nnnand seemingly inexhaustible vein of ore.nWhen the city appeared at all, it generallynhovered on the fringes without intmdingndirectly into the world of Southernnfiction. The city has now intmded,nboth in practice and, as Miss Lowry illustrates,nin the imagination as well.nIf Daddy’s Girl is a fair sample ofnwhat this turn of events signifies, thensight is not a pretty one. Coherence andnorder have given way to disorder and dissolution:nrandom individuals bouncenabout in the urban arena, cut loose fromnthe supports once supplied by the land,nkin, religion and a common past. Thenwomen of Lowry’ s world have been liberated—NonMore Pedestals!—but the bestnthey can do with their new-found freedomnis to waste it on empty fornication.nPerhaps Lowry’s protagonist says it bestnabout the new Southern woman, whonbecomes a frequently prone participantnin the sexual revolution: “Other peoplenhide a sordid past. I put the lid on propriety.n” Her last words are: “Turn up thenmusic. I plan to dance.” So the newnSoutherner dances. But who will pay thenfiddler? Dnand its hoped-for outcomes. Consider,nfor instance, our schools’ organizationalnpatterns of mindless obedience and dependency,nand how this conflicts withnour recognition that the genius of Americanas a cultural/political entity is basednon the qualities of initiative and self-assertiveness—innshort, independence innthe face of all those agents that wouldnhave us get back in step, conform to thendominant drummer. The tension betweennthe individual and the bondingnpower of the group will, of course, neverngo away; we have succeeded as a civilizationnprecisely because of our special creativenharnessing of this tension, because ofnour mediation of these opposing forces.nToday the manipulating power of otherdirectedncontrols appears to be swamp-n