Southern Lady Code

Essays

By: Helen Ellis

Narrated by: Helen Ellis

"I loved it." (Ann Patchett)

The best-selling 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 23 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 listeners 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).

©2019 Helen Ellis (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Sassy…her essays are like being seated beside the most entertaining guest at a dinner party. Ellis is a refreshing entry into the annals of women humor writers that includes Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck and Hollis Gillespie…[she] mines her Alabama heritage for all its worth, giving her essays a Southern spin that readers below the Mason-Dixon Line in particular will find relatable.” –Atlanta Journal Constitution

“With a voice that’s equal parts Nora Ephron and David Sedaris, this Alabama-raised, NYC-honed author should be your new woman crush. . . Full of piss and vinegar and hilarious one-liners that beg to be read aloud. Best of all, Ellis—a woman of spiky, unrepentant complexity—makes the case for living according to no one’s rules but your own.” –Family Circle

“It’s hard to adequately describe these delightful autobiographical essays. Maybe that’s because Alabama-born Ellis’s take on Southern manners and mores is a unique blend of sardonic and sincere. More likely because it’s difficult to formulate sentences when you’re laughing this hard.” –People

Cute!

This is cute and funny until it gets tedious. However, really liked her piece covering the trial and her prosecutor friend. That's when things got real, and sometimes things need to get real. (note: I'm writing this during the pandemic, despite the book being published prior to it, and sh@+ is real right now.)

Funny, charming and full of life lessons.

I enjoyed this book as it was a series of short vignettes that reflected every day life for many people. Listening to the author/narrator was like sitting at the Well worn kitchen table with your best friend and a glass of sweet tea.

Worth Listening to Twice

I was so disappointed when I got to the last essay. so I started over.

For all the southern girls who no longer live in the south!

Loves the cadence of the book. Loved hearing the all about the should and should nots of social graces. Helen Ellis is right on with everything! I could listen to this over and over again! Now if I can only get my yankee husband to listen. I get teased where I live about my cooking, thank you cards and being completely dressed and ready it’s 9am even if I’m not leaving the house. The hissy fits I throw when the house is messy. Helen is truly relatable to all southern girls!

Hilarious read especially if you know the South

This was a quick quirky read, or listen to; the topics were light hearted but had some heavy and true meanings behind them. I literally laughed out loud at many of the short stories. I am not from the South but my grandmother was and like Helen’s upbringing I recall several of the sayings and ways that young women were reared and expected to act and behave, which was a nice trip down memory lane. I can’t wait to pick up other titles from Helen Ellis.

Love the sassy, southern, narration!

Essentially a book of comedic essays written by a long time happily married southern woman now living in Manhattan. Funny, warm, personal, self deprecating, and focused at least in part, on aging. For me the best parts of the book are any of the times she quotes her mother who has spent years instilling good southern manners in her daughter. Each passage begins with her mother yelling...Helen Michelle! And is immediately followed by some tidbit of perfect advice. Her mom should write a book.

There are a couple of very jarring mentions of graphic violence, the worst is the description of a real murder, relevant because the author attended a murder trial to support her friend, the District Attorney. As well as some graphic descriptions of porn on Twitter. Both felt very out of place in a book of comedic essays. But most of the essays are about life, food, friendship, marriage, middle age, and of course manners. And I loved the narration, it was like Reese Witherspoon but turned up to 11 on the southern accent dial.

Southern Woman thinks we're interested in her

I definitely struggled to finish this one. I guess I have no interest in a former Southern woman's struggles. Oh well.

fantastic

I love listening to every minute of this book I have asked my friends to read it is the best book I've read in a long time