Celebrating the southern landscape

Turns out Thomas Wolfe was wrong: you can go home again.

So declared Frances Mayes, who returned to the South in 2007 to live in Hillsborough, N.C., after decades of exile in California and Italy (the latter serving as a beguiling setting for several memoirs, including Under the Tuscan Sun).

Its changed drastically, in most ways for the better, Mayes said of the South, counting greater racial and gender equality among them. But I feel a deep familiarity, too.

It is the past, not the present, that fuels her new memoir, Under Magnolia, which poignantly recounts her upbringing in Georgia.

Recently Mayes talked about places that played significant roles in her childhood, from her hometown, Fitzgerald, to Georgias verdant barrier islands. The following are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: Is there any place from your childhood you return to often?

A: That whole string of islands, the Golden Isles of Georgia, is a favorite of mine. Theyre spectacular: marshes on one side, wide sandy beaches on the other. As a child I loved Jekyll Island. It was a playground for Northern robber barons, but after World War II it was largely abandoned. So there were all of these beautiful, deserted, shingled mansions, which were oddly enough called cottages. It was a mysterious place for a child to explore. Now a lot of the houses have been restored, and the Jekyll Island Club, which was private, is now a hotel. Its a very gracious place to stay, with croquet courts, a swimming pool, enormous moss-strewn oak trees.

I absolutely love Little St. Simons Island, which is a private island, and has only one place to stay, the Lodge on Little St. Simons Island. Id say its comfortably rustic, but what makes it so special is that its a 7-mile beach with no one on it. To paddle around in the marshes, alone privacy is the ultimate luxury to me.

Q: You grew up in Fitzgerald. Any reason for a tourist to pass through?

A: Im not sure if it would hold as much interest to a tourist as it does to me, but its nice just to ride around and see how its laid out. It was built by soldiers, Northern and Southern, after the War between the States, as a colony dedicated to reunifying the country. Many of the streets in the town center are named for Northern and Southern generals, and the towns four borders are named after Southern and Northern battleships. Even the cemetery is laid out like the Battle of Gettysburg. It has one bizarre aspect: This particular breed of exotic chicken roams the town freely, which means you cant sleep beyond 6 a.m. because theyre making so much racket.

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Celebrating the southern landscape