The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Grant, Richard. The Deepest South of All: True Stories of Natchez, Mississippi. Simon & Schuster, 2020.

Richard Grant's The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi begins with an auspicious meeting. Grant meets cookbook author Regina Charboneau, and she immediately asks him to stay at her grand antebellum home, Twin Oaks. Regina's kitchen buzzes with activity and gossip, a rich source for a journalist. Grant also spends time exploring Natchez by himself, and he is deeply affected by visiting the Forks of the Road memorial, which is the site of the second-largest slave market in the Deep South. Grant finds that the weight of slavery pervades Natchez and its surrounding area. The author also meets African American activists Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-CM Boxley and Jeremy Huston, both of whom work diligently to tell the stories of the slaves that have had no voice.

Also central to the story is Tableaux, an amateur pageant that tells the story of the South, often seeming to venerate Confederate generals while remaining silent about slavery. Grant also investigates Pilgrimage in Natchez. He interviews several of the women (and some men) who receive Pilgrimage guests in their antebellum homes while wearing full period costume. Always, the author tries to understand the motivation behind the tradition, and part of the answer seems to be that the past does not even seem past in Natchez. In addition to Tableaux and Pilgrimage is the all-important Tableaux after-party, an event thoroughly soaked in alcohol and often costing over $25,000. In the background of all crucial social events in Natchez are the warring garden clubs known as the Natchez Garden Club and the Pilgrimage Garden Club. These clubs exist as social outlets, but they also have the mission of raising much-needed funds to restore their antebellum homes.

Later, Grant investigates some of the lesser-known history of Natchez by means of a long interview with James Stokes, a founding member of the Deacons for Defense and Justice. Stokes tells Grant about the mission of the Deacons: to protect African Americans from the Ku Klux Klan and to support and protect Civil Rights workers as well. An added benefit of their armed resistance was that the Silver Dollar group (a vicious underground Klan cell) was kept in check. Unfortunately, Grant finds that present-day Natchez is still plagued by racial strife, especially in its public schools. Today, most of the white citizens send their children to private schools while Black children make up the public school population. The public schools in Natchez have been rated "F" by the state of Mississippi.

The book concludes with more Natchez traditions including Ginger's Jeweled Christmas (167 Christmas trees decorated with Ginger's costume jewelry) and the male only Santa Parade. The Santa Parade is actually another drinking party in disguise, but it does have the added bonus of collecting funds for an annual Christmas party for Natchez's most needy. After the Santa Parade, Grant returns to Regina Charboneau's house for an immense and delicious Christmas lunch. This time, his wife and two-year-old daughter are with him. Grant meditates on his time in Natchez and shares with readers the fact that he and his wife had considered relocating to Natchez, but because of the poor public schools and the endless gossip, they decided to settle elsewhere.

Interspersed with Grant's rich descriptions of life in Natchez is another important narrative that begins in 1781. This tale is told in episodic form and focuses on Prince Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima who was once a proud Faluni warrior. He had the bad luck of being captured by another warring tribe and sold into slavery. Ibrahima ended up in Natchez as a field slave and later a driver (an African American overseer) on Thomas Foster's plantation. He made several key diplomatic connections and was eventually freed by President John Quincy Adams. He and his wife Isabella try repeatedly to raise enough funds to bring their children to Africa with them, but they fall far short. Ibrahima dies in Monrovia with his children still enslaved in Mississippi.