Southern Gothic
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Gothic

anybody ever read any?

I'm planning on reading As I Lay Dying (yes, it was a book long before it was a second rate metalcore band), and I'm reading In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. It's great, and not actually that hard to understand.

In Cold Blood is great...I wouldn't necessarily call it Southern Gothic, though, as it's creative nonfiction. It's what prompted my (perhaps creepy) fascination with criminal psychology.

If you like Capote, I'd suggest Other Voices, Other Rooms. It's...beautifully eerie.

Given that the genre that basically entails William Faulkner and a couple Tennesee Williams plays, your options are limited.
I suggest you read The Sound and The Fury before As I Lay Dying, as it's less a stream-of-consciousness tirade and more a traditionally 'gothic' work, lacking such experimental crap as five word chapters and the like.
I won't even talk about Truman Capote because doing so makes me upset.

I hated In Cold Blood. It squandered the opportunity for real insight, and instead wallowed in nastiness.

On the positive side of the genre, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is quite a fun read, and the movie wasn't half bad either.

Only ever read To Kill a Mockingbird, as it was mandated by the school. It was nothing amazing to me, but as far as required reading goes, it was alright. I might pick up some of the others at some point in my life.

I read it in 8th grade. It's still one of my favorites. I've never actually disliked anything I've been made to read for school... They're usually great books..like Lord of the Flies

Yeah, I've heard things about how strange Faulkner is from many a person. I'd still like to read it.

I took a class in high school that was all about southern literature, I suggest A Rose for Emily, by Faulkner. That one was one of my favorites and it won't take long to read, as it's a short story.
Being from the South myself, I can say that most things I write are technically Southern Gothic. ^_^

I finally finished it. By no stretch is it truly gothic (I didn't actually realize it was nonfiction until I read about it on wikipedia after I discussed it here.) He got the characters dead on.. I really actually felt that they were real... etc. You know, the usual stuff people say about a good book.