In a South of stories and characters, the prose and images flow sweetly.

Writers and artists have always been some of the South's greatest assets. We dispatch the best of the lot out into this fetching region—the finest photographers too. And they return with essays and images of the South and the Caribbean... of the river roadway of jazz along the Mississippi, of an Italian-trained artist whose frescoes rise on Carolina walls, of Doug Marlette's chance meeting with Walker Percy, of Clyde Edgerton's wildest plane ride, and of Pat Conroy's South.