Southern Lady Code: Essays

by Helen Ellis Narrated by Helen Ellis

Overview

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)
• “When to Write a Thank-You Note” in Garden & Gun (February/March 2018).

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2019 - AudioFile

Author Helen Ellis is the perfect narrator for her humorous essays. She has just the right inflections and tone for her anecdotes and words of wisdom. Hearing about the decades between the 1980s and the 2010s, listeners are quickly indoctrinated into a world of euphemisms, unusual customs, and genteel hospitality, both in Alabama, where Ellis was raised, and in New York City, where she currently lives. Whether discussing ghosts, birthdays, relationships, or clothing, Ellis draws listeners into her circle as if they were friends eager to catch up on the latest gossip. Listening to SOUTHERN LADY CODE is absolutely the best way to “read” this book. B.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

11/12/2018
A vibrant storyteller with a penchant for the perverse, Ellis pivots from short stories (American Housewife) to nonfiction in this ribald collection of essays on manners, morals, and marriage, all colored by her off-kilter Alabama upbringing. From Marie Kondo’s tidying-up magic to Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers and being a teenager in the 1980s, Ellis’s sharp eye for pop-culture preoccupations inspires smart-mouthed provocations. She humorously describes her 23-year-old self in Manhattan on her way to a date “with a panty liner stuck to my back. Yes, it was used,” and discusses happy couples and three-ways; the difference between gay men and Southern Effeminate men who “wear seersucker and bow ties... collect salt shakers and cookie jars”; and being a good airline passenger (“I wipe down the seat like I’m giving it a tetanus shot”). Ellis shares her mother’s etiquette advice for handling street crime (“Always carry money for a mugger—three one-dollar bills wrapped in a five... then throw the money and run screaming Officer down!”), and tells of her father staging pretend gun violence to liven up a birthday party. Ellis is a strong, vivid writer—and this book is gut-busting funny. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

"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
 
“Prepare yourself for some off-the-wall hilarity… Ellis is fun—like the Nutter Butter snowmen she serves at her retro holiday parties.” —NPR

“Wry, candid, clever, and occasionally downright moving.” —Alabama Public Radio
 
"Good advice and great reading. . . Ellis kills, whether on the page or at the poker table.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Expecting out-of-town guests who need schooling in the ways of the South? Hand them a copy of Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis.” —The Augusta Chronicle

“A set of viciously funny essays that tackle marriage, thank-you notes and marijuana. You’ll applaud the confidence she finds in donning a black-tie gown, and her paean to vacuuming will leave you in stitches. Ellis speaks her truth with a lipstick kiss.” —Observer

“Helen Ellis returns with an essay collection about shifting moral codes as seen through the lens of her Southern upbringing… Ellis’s sense of humor and honesty never fail to charm.” —Wall Street Journal

“Hilarious…Devilish… Grab a copy of the Southern Lady Code and let Helen Ellis whisper an outrageous story into your ear. She’s a hoot-and-half (that’s Southern Lady Code for funny as all hell)... Laugh-out-loud funny... A literary cocktail of hilarious insights, snark, and shockingly good advice—best consumed with a vodka lemonade.” —Due South

“Thank you Helen Ellis for writing down the Southern Lady Code so that others may learn. As a Southern Lady myself, I can not only confirm the veracity of the facts, I can tell you the book made me laugh like a hyena. A true Southern Lady loves anything that is both funny and profound, which this book is, so I loved it.” —Ann Patchett
 
“Helen Ellis’s Southern Lady Code lives between Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes and Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Ellis’s irreverent doses of humor are life lessons celebrating colloquial expressions, regional specialties and offering delightful commentary on everything from what should be served at cocktail parties to what should occur behind closed doors.” —A.M. Homes
 
“Helen Ellis is hilarious, brilliant, and utterly mad. Southern Lady Code will make you a better woman or a better man—once you have cleaned up the coffee you spit through your nose from laughing so hard. I loved this book: every essay and every word.” —Chris Bohjalian
 
“Helen Ellis's brilliant voice shines in this witty, weird, and utterly wonderful essay collection—a glitter bomb of delights. From bringing foam fingers into the bedroom to trying pot for the first time in your forties, there's something for everyone in Southern Lady Code. Reading this feels like settling into a comfy couch and having a martini (or three) with your most hilarious friend.” —Cristina Alger
 
"That Helen Ellis is at it again. Her brilliant essays are hotter than a five alarm Memphis BBQ, dirtier than a Jackson, Mississippi martini, sweeter than Mamaw's Alabama chess pie, and more poignant than the prom corsage you pressed in your family Bible. Helen's observations are witty, wise, elegant and down home, sometimes all at once. Savor like pimento cheese on crackers. Lucky us, her essays don't have a shelf life." —Adriana Trigiani

"Helen Ellis is so funny it causes me physical pain. I just want to sop this book up with a biscuit." —Samantha Irby, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

"A vibrant storyteller with a penchant for the perverse, Ellis pivots... to nonfiction in this ribald collection of essays on manners, morals, and marriage, all colored by her off-kilter Alabama upbringing... Ellis’s sharp eye for pop-culture preoccupations inspires smart-mouthed provocations... Ellis is a strong, vivid writer—and this book is gut-busting funny." —Publishers Weekly

"Ellis is a hoot and a half, which, as she might say, is Southern Lady Code for 'laughing 'til the tears flow' funny. In nearly two-dozen essays filled with belly laughs and bits of hard-won wisdom, Ellis’ self-deprecating wit and tongue-in-cheek charm provide the perfect antidote to bad-hair, or bad-news, days." —Booklist

"By turns lighthearted and heart-wrenching… Reminiscent of each character from the TV sitcom Designing Women, Ellis’s wonderfully amusing writing is hard to put down, and this book is no exception." —Library Journal (starred review)

Library Journal - Audio

★ 08/01/2019

Expanding on the entry of the same title in Ellis's collection of short stories, American Housewife, these 23 essays are a delightful jaunt through what it means to be a Southern Lady. Covering topics as diverse as thank-you notes, paranormal sightings, and doctor visits, Ellis is not afraid to tackle the serious side of life, but she does it with a positive attitude and penchant for doing it her way. Listeners are sure to be letting out not-so-ladylike laughter at such gems as "I look so preppy, you would think my tramp stamp is a monogram." With her drawling accent and enthusiasm Ellis narrates the book, immersing the reader in a true Southern experience. VERDICT Just like a Southern Lady, this book is graceful but skewering, a must-read for fans of authors such as Nora Ephron, Mindy Kaling, and Jenny Lawson.—Donna Bachowski, Grand Island, FL

JUNE 2019 - AudioFile

Author Helen Ellis is the perfect narrator for her humorous essays. She has just the right inflections and tone for her anecdotes and words of wisdom. Hearing about the decades between the 1980s and the 2010s, listeners are quickly indoctrinated into a world of euphemisms, unusual customs, and genteel hospitality, both in Alabama, where Ellis was raised, and in New York City, where she currently lives. Whether discussing ghosts, birthdays, relationships, or clothing, Ellis draws listeners into her circle as if they were friends eager to catch up on the latest gossip. Listening to SOUTHERN LADY CODE is absolutely the best way to “read” this book. B.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-02-03

Humorous essays from a sassy Southern gal raised in Alabama and now based in New York City.

Following her well-received book of short stories, American Housewife (2016), Ellis returns with a collection of witty essays filled with commentaries on a wide variety of aspects of her life. Though she pokes fun at the current tidying trend—sparked largely by organizing consultant and author Marie Kondo—that has people sorting through and discarding mountains of stuff, she discovers that she loves a clean house ("stepping into the Container Store for me is like stepping into a crack den"). Ellis shares her wisdom on staying happily married: "On his birthday, give him a singing card and shave above your knees….On Thanksgiving, dab a little Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup behind each ear. On Super Bowl Sunday, incorporate a giant "#1" foam finger into your lovemaking." The author also discusses why she didn't have children, the off-the-wall birthday parties her parents threw for her and her sister, what it's like to fly coach while seated in the middle seat, and a host of other zany topics. Throughout, she provides commentary on what certain words and phrases mean in "Southern Lady Code"—e.g., a "vintage" book means "dog-eared, with ballpoint notes in the margins"; when discussing potential pregnancies, the phrase, " ‘if it happens, it happens' is Southern Lady Code for we don't want kids." Whether she's out shopping for a special party outfit, swiping a trench coat, or sharing some of her own mother's witticisms, the author's brand of humor is subtle and mostly unforced. Her one-liners—"sex is like a funny cat video: everyone thinks theirs is special, but we've all fallen off a couch"—and consistently droll remarks keep the amusement factor high and the pages turning.

Feisty, funny, lightweight observations on life Southern-style.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171822248
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/16/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Making a Marriage Magically Tidy

I have the reputation of living what Marie Kondo would call a “magically tidy” life. My tights are rolled like sushi, my tabletops are bare, my kitchen is so clean I could perform surgery in it. But I wasn’t always this way. When I was twenty-three, I left my New York City apartment with a panty liner stuck to my back.

Yes, it was used. Yes, earlier that day, I’d taken it off and tossed it onto my twin bed like a bear throws salmon bones onto a rock. Once it was there, I guess I forgot about it. It was probably camouflaged. I promise you there was other stuff on the bed. My bed used to look like a landfill.

Maybe I threw my coat over it and it stuck. And then I put my coat back on and rode a bus thirty blocks with a panty liner between my shoulder blades. No, nobody said a word. I didn’t know it was there until my date gave me a hug and then peeled it off like he was at a burlesque show in hell.

This was not the man I married.

The man I married walked into my apartment and found Pop-Tart crusts on my couch. I can still see his face, bewildered and big-eyed, pointing at the crusts as if to ask, “Do you see them too?”

I shrugged.

He sat on the sofa. It is my husband’s nature to accept me the way that I am.

My nature is to leave every cabinet and drawer open like a burglar. My superpower is balancing the most stuff on a bathroom sink. If I had my druthers, I’d let cat puke dry on a carpet so it’s easier to scrape up. If druthers were things, and I had a coupon for druthers, I’d stockpile them like Jell‑O because you never know when you might need some druthers.

My husband fell in love with a creative woman. “Cre­ative” is Southern Lady Code for slob.

But it is one thing to accept a slob for who she is; it is another to live with her.

A year into our marriage, my husband complained.

He said, “Would you mind keeping the dining room table clean? It’s the first thing I see when I come home.”

What I heard was: “I want a divorce.”

What I said was: “Do you want a divorce?”

“No,” he said. “I just want a clean table.”

I called my mother.

Mama asked, “What’s on the table?”

“Oh, everything. Whatever comes off my body when I come home. Shopping bags, food, coffee cups, mail. My coat.”

“Your coat?”

“So I don’t hang my coat in the closet—that makes me a terrible person? He knew who he was marrying. Why do I have to change?”

Mama said, “Helen Michelle, for heaven’s sake, this is a problem that can be easily solved. Do you know what other married women deal with? Drunks, cheaters, pov­erty, men married to their Atari.”

“Mama, there’s no such thing as Atari anymore.”

“Helen Michelle, some women would be beaten with a bag of oranges for sass talk like that. You married a saint. Clean the goddamned table.”

And so, to save my marriage, I taught myself to clean.

Not knowing where to start, I knelt before the TV at the Church of Joan Crawford, who said as Mildred Pierce, “Never leave one room without something for another.”

Yes, I’ll admit she had a temper, but she knew how to clean.

You scrub a floor on your hands and knees. You shake a can of Comet like a piggy bank. You hang your clothes in your closet a finger’s width apart. And no, you do not have wire hangers. Ever.

I have wooden hangers from the Container Store. They’re walnut and cost $7.99 for a pack of six. I bought the hangers online because stepping into the Container Store for me is like stepping into a crack den. See, you’re an addict trying to organize your crack, and they’re sell­ing you pretty boxes to put your crack in.

Pretty boxes are crack, so now you have more crack. But wooden hangers are okay. They’re like mimosas. Nobody’s going to OD on mimosas. Wooden hangers give you a boost of confidence. They make you feel rich and thin. They make a plain white shirt sexy. You promise yourself you’ll fill one closet, and then you’ll quit.

But I didn’t quit. To keep my buzz going, I asked my husband if I could clean his closet.

He asked, “What does that mean?”

I said, “Switch out your plastic hangers for wooden ones. What do you think I mean?”

“I don’t know, something new for Saturday night?” He did the air quotes: “Clean my closet.”

My new ways were so new he assumed I was making sexual advances. It’s understandable—so much dirty talk sounds so hygienic: salad spinning and putting a teabag on a saucer. It’s like Martha Stewart wrote Urban Dic­tionary.

My husband opened his closet door and stepped aside. The man trusts me. I rehung his closet with military pre­cision.

He said, “I never knew it could be this good.”

We kissed.

And then I relapsed.

I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it was leaving the Dutch oven to soak overnight. Maybe it was tee-peeing books on my desk like a bonfire. Maybe it was shucking my panties off like shoes. And then my coat fell off the dining room table. And I left it there because the cats were using it as a bed. There it stayed along with laundry, newspapers, restaurant leftovers (that never made it to the fridge), and Zappos returns.

My husband played hopscotch, never uttering a word of contempt, seemingly okay to coast on the memory of a pristine home as if it had been a once-in-a-lifetime bucket-list thrill like white-water rafting or winning a Pulitzer. Sure, he could have put things away, but every closet except for his was bulging and breathing like a porthole to another dimension.

I scared myself straight by binge-watching Hoard­ers. What do you mean, that lady couldn’t claw her way through her grocery bag “collection” to give her hus­band CPR?

So I gave books I had read to libraries. Clothes I hadn’t worn in a year went to secondhand stores. I gave away the microwave because I can melt Velveeta on a stove.

And then came Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Or as I like to call it: “Surprise, You’re Still a Hoarder!”

Kondo’s big question is: Does it spark joy?

I took a harder look around my home and answered: Pretty boxes of novel manuscripts that were never pub­lished did not spark joy. Designer shoes I bought at sam­ple sales but never wore because they pinched my feet did not spark joy. My husband confessed that his inheritance of Greek doilies and paintings of fishing boats from his grandmother did not spark joy. So, out it all went.

And what is left is us. And my husband is happier. I’m happier, too. Turns out I like a tidy house. And I like cleaning.

Dusting is meditative. Boiling the fridge relieves PMS. Making the bed is my cardio, because to make a bed properly, you have to circle it like a shark. And all the while, I listen to audiobooks I would be too embarrassed to be caught reading. Not in the mood to clean a toilet? Listen to Naked Came the Stranger, and see if that doesn’t pass the time.

The downside is that my husband has created a mon­ster. I burn through paper towels like an arsonist. I joy­ride my vacuum—which has a headlight—in the dark.

And I don’t do it in pearls and a crinoline skirt. It’s not unusual for me to wear an apron over my pajamas.

I say, “Hey, it’s me or the apartment. We can’t both be pristine.”

Without hesitation, my husband will always choose the apartment.

Sometimes, I invite him to join in my efforts, offering him the most awful tasks as if I’m giving him a treat. I’ll say, “I’m going to let you scoop the cat box” or “I’m going to let you scrape the processed cheese out of the pan.”

My husband says, “You’re like a dominatrix Donna Reed.”

I say, “Take off your shirt and scrape the pan, dear.”

He takes off his shirt and scrapes the pan. In our more than twenty years together, my husband’s nature hasn’t changed.

Me, I’m a recovering slob. Every day I have to remind myself to put the moisturizer back in the medicine cabi­net, the cereal back in the cupboard, and the trash out before the can overflows. I have to remind myself to hang my coat in the closet.

And when I accomplish all of this, I really do feel like a magician. Because now, when my husband comes home, the first thing he sees is me.

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