Are people in modern Mississippi really as venomous and full of hatred as the characters in Dixie?
Listen: if, in fact, there is a heaven, I am sure there are plenty of folks up there who are no different from the folks in Dixie. It’s just that in Dixie, we get to watch how people behave behind closed doors. All I, as a novelist, am doing is opening that door so everyone else can see what is otherwise done behind closed doors and despite overt attempts at political correctness. Look, what I’m doing here ain’t that different then what, say, Restoration Comedy did in the 1800s, what Oscar Wilde did in the 1900s, and what Seinfeld did in the 1990s—holding up a mirror to society and forcing us to look at ourselves from the most unflattering—if most necessarily examined—angles. But Carson, this isn’t just any mirror you are holding up—it’s more like a fun-house mirror. True. I won’t deny that my characters are in fact grotesque, spiteful, reclusive, egregious, racist, bigoted, egotistical, flawed, self-righteous, cartoon-like characters who are morally and spiritually bankrupt. But that
