Burkhard Bilger: Noodling for Flatheads

By GILBERT WONG books editor

Burkhard Bilger, an editor at Discover magazine, has a hobby: tracking down those who still practise the traditional good ol' boy pursuits and pastimes in the American South.

Some, such as moonshine-running and cockfighting, smack of the illicit; others, such as noodling, fishing for giant Mississippi catfish by using the fingers and hand as bait, or coon-hunting were once essential ways to put food on the table.

Today's urbanites are likely to make easy jokes about the hillbilly implications: cue the theme from Deliverance. But Bilger's writing enjoys a clarity that is almost conversational and as a southern boy who now makes his living among the easterners, his recollections and visits are tinged with sentiment for simpler days.

Many might think that these pursuits would soon end up part of a dying folklore but, as Bilger finds, concealed in the prosperous and picturesque new South landscape, the pastimes continue largely untouched, fed by sub-culture magazines such as Feathered Warrior (for cockfighting) and American Coon and a largely unnoticed brotherhood of working-class southerners who would no sooner give up their right to hunt defenceless creatures than their right to bear arms.

Random House

$45