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A classic that has been in print since its first publication in 1983, Womenfolks is both a personal memoir and a meditation on the often pernicious mythologies of southern cultural history. Shirley Abbott gives us the gritty, independent women of the backwoods, the South�s true heroines, whose hardscrabble world is one of red dirt and hard work�a far cry from the hoopskirts and magnolias of southern lore. As honest, vibrant, and remarkable as the women whose stories illuminate these pages, Womenfolks draws a vivid portrait of a rural culture beset by poverty and sustained by deeply rooted traditions. In her new preface to this edition, Abbott assesses what has changed�and what may never change�about the burdens of southern history and expresses her hope that the better angels of our nature may prevail in our still-new century.