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Start giftingSouthern Lady Code
Essays
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“What a delightful and funny audio book! Southern Lady Code is the perfect book to listen to if you are looking for clever, witty and charming essays on how to live like a proper Southern Lady.”
Mary,
Anderson's Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“SOUTHERN LADY CODE is Southern Lady Code for the perfect essay collection. It's sharper than a shattered Christmas ornament, but an ornament with a sense of humor. You might cut yourself, but you'll laugh about it. Would I give just about anything to spend a Friday night at her apartment, drinking and puzzling? Why, yes. Yes, I would.”
Tyler Goodson,
Avid Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“I had forgotten how to laugh, but after opening this book and starting to read, I couldn’t help myself—it just came bubbling up. What a wonderful thing it is to hold in your hands something that has the power to make one erupt with hoots and howls. Helen Ellis is a treasure and a gift from the gods; she tells it like it is in Southern lady speak and we love her all the more for the joy she has given us.”
Beth Reynolds,
Norwich Bookstore
Summary
"I loved it." —Ann Patchett
The bestselling author of American Housewife ("Dark, deadpan and truly inventive." --The New York Times Book Review) is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady.
Helen Ellis has a mantra: "If you don't have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way." Say "weathered" instead of "she looks like a cake left out in the rain." Say "early-developed" instead of "brace face and B cups." And for the love of Coke Salad, always say "Sorry you saw something that offended you" instead of "Get that stick out of your butt, Miss Prissy Pants." In these twenty-three raucous essays Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a $795 Burberry trench coat, witnesses a man fake his own death at a party, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.
Several pieces in this collection originally appeared in the following publications: “Making a Marriage Magically Tidy” in the New York Times column “Modern Love” (June 2, 2017); “How to Stay Happily Married” in Paper Darts (Winter 2017); “Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1979” in Eating Well (November/December 2017); “How to Be the Best Guest” as “An American’s Guide to Being the Best Guest” in Financial Times (March 2016); and “When to Write a Thank- You Note” in Garden & Gun (February/March 2018).