Jamie – Page 3 – Lemuria Books

Author: Jamie (Page 3 of 3)

As I thumbed through Ken Murphy’s Jackson book, I was initially confused at the photo for Millsaps. While I was a student there, the observatory wasn’t used often. Occasionally, a campus-wide email would announce that the observatory would be open for viewing some lunar/ stellar/ otherwise spacey event, but I never managed to show up. And when I think of Millsaps, my iconography of the college revolves around other structures: the Christian Center, the Academic Complex, the bell tower.

Millsaps Observatory best_DSC2375

I didn’t understand Ken’s reasoning behind the observatory being the representative image of the college. But, since I have an English degree from Millsaps, I thought.

At the risk of sounding too metacognative, I thought about all of the thinking I did while I was there. [Metacognative: thinking about one’s thinking. A word I learned at Millsaps.] One of the texts I read my freshman year was Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” (thank you, Dr. Wilson) in which the philosopher challenges the idea that seeing something means it is absolutely true. When the poet John Milton met Gallieo, Milton’s understanding of what is versus what he could see was expanded beyond his own failing eyesight (thank you, Dr. Page). Despite my status as a WASP male, I was able to read and understand writers like Alain Locke (thank you, Dr. Smith) and Toni Morrison (thank you, Dr. MacMaster) and Palo Frerie (thank you, Dr. Middleton). I was introduced to Eudora Welty’s writing, and her stories have stuck with me like a kind memory (thank you, Dr. Marrs). With my minor in secondary education, I was given insight into the way students learn best (thank you, Dr. Schimmel, Dr. McCarty) and how to effectively transmit instruction to them (thank you, Dr. Vaughn, Dr. Garrett). I learned to see both broadly and tightly, to make connections between ideas and people that, at first glance, might be worlds apart. There is only one story that’s been written over and over and over again, and that story is the weird journey of humanity (thank you, Dr. Miller). So many of my professors forced me to think about things I had never considered, to look at things in a way that wasn’t easy or natural for me, and to understand that my view of the world isn’t the only way of seeing things.

It turns out, Ken was right. Observatories allow us to look beyond ourselves, to see what we normally wouldn’t be able to, just like Millsaps did for me.

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com.

The Story of Land and Sea

By Jamie

On August 26, 2014

In First Editions, First Editions Club

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My favorite books are ones that speak to my heart and head, ones that make me think but also affect my emotions. The Story of Land and Sea is one of these books. With lucid prose, historical and cultural accuracy, and a set of complex yet relatable characters, this debut novel from Jackson native Katy Simpson Smith has been one of the best I’ve read this year.

The novel’s plot follows three generations—John and Helen, their daughter Tabitha, and Helen’s father Asa—as their lives twine and separate and twine together again. Set in coastal North Carolina soon after the revolutionary war, the story’s themes of struggle and discovery mirror our then-fledgling nation’s obstacles of defining itself as something other than a former colony. But it’s more than just a parable for our country: the characters are so compelling and relatable, even for readers seated comfortably nearly four centuries later. John, the center of most of the plots, is a former pirate who marries Helen, daughter of the wealthy landowner Asa. Rather than falling into the trappings of cliché, Smith keeps the plot believable by focusing on the characters’ personalities, all of whom are likable, relatable, yet capable of much unsavoriness. (I’m being vague on purpose. If you want to know what happens, you’ll need to come buy a copy).

The cultural and historical Katy-Smith accuracy of this story is another place my affinity rests. Smith has a PhD in history from UNC, and she applies her knowledge of early America without turning the novel into a textbook. The sentences themselves flow so easily, I found myself lost in the beauty of the writing several times. Here’s an example, focusing on the wedding of John and Helen:

The marriage takes place in the summer, among the heaved-up roots of the live oak, the lone tree that curves over the front lawn, bend and contorted to the shapes the easterly wind made. Moll [a slave] fidgets in a yellow linen dress with two petticoats and holds a spray of goldenrod that she pulled from the back garden; no one else had thought to.

With writing this good, it makes sense that one of the central images in the book is water. Like water, this story, its characters, and its words are fluid and powerful.

Join us tonight at 5:00 as Katy kicks off her national book tour here at Lemuria with a reading and signing for The Story of Land and Sea!

Let’s Talk Jackson: The Feta Dressing

By Jamie

On July 24, 2014

In Gift Books, Newsworthy

I’ve always thought the phrase comfort food as utterly redundant, and anyone who’s spent a modest amount of time around me can testify to my love of all things edible. But Keifer’s is, to me, extra comfortable food. Before I lived in Jackson, I knew about Keifer’s. Coming to visit friends or volunteering a week at Camp Bratton-Green just north of Canton, Kiefer’s was a place I could always count on seeing while in town. While I was a Millsaps student, the restaurant offered a nearby escape from the bubble of academia and non-academia that filled so much of my time. Few things are better than a table on the restaurant’s wraparound porch. Add to that hypothetical table a group of friends, several plates of food, a few pitchers of beer, and the carefree laughter that a good meal can produce. Keifer’s was my first experience with humus, and I had never seen fries quite like their cottage fries.

And the feta dressing.

The Feta Dressing.

I fancy myself proficient in the kitchen, but I’ve never been able to recreate that stuff. Friends who have moved away from town wax poetic about dunking their cottage fries in it. I’ve even handed a container of the salty ambrosia, on ice, off to a former Jacksonian living in Birmingham as I drove through to Atlanta.

Keifer's_DSC2860

When I heard that the house the restaurant was in was being torn down to make way for The Belhaven building, I was a little concerned. Despite assurances from the staff that the new building would be almost identical, I was still unconvinced that the new digs would have the same raffish charm of the old place. As is often the case, I was wrong. The new location, literally across the street from its predecessor, is almost a mirror image of the old one with a few improvements. It’s easier to move around, for one, and I’m not worried that my girth will be too much for the old hardwood floors. It’s a touch cleaner, but still comfortable. Kind of like an old high school friend whom you haven’t seen in years, Keifer’s is still the same, if a bit more mature. And if you see me there, on the porch with a smear of feta dressing in my beard, hand me a napkin.

Written by Jamie

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

Fourth of July Creek

By Jamie

On July 15, 2014

In Fiction, First Editions Club

Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite novelists, is credited with a tidy 8-item list for would-be fiction writers. Number two is simply, ”Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.” Sounds reasonable enough. But then, in item six, writers are commanded to be “sadists” and “make awful things happen” to the character whom we readers are supposed to pull for.

Jacket

Smith Henderson must have been paying attention to Vonnegut when working on his debut novel Fourth of July Creek. Set in rural Montana, the novel follows Pete Snow, a social worker who rescues children from abusive and dysfunctional families and accidentally stumbles across Benjamin Pearl, son of paranoid homesteader Jeremiah. We like Pete. He does good work, despite the fact that he himself is broken. He gets kids out of dangerous houses with drug-dealing parents. He slowly gains the trust of Jeremiah Pearl, whose paranoid delusions forced him and his family into the wilderness, eventually sharing much-needed medicine and food with them. Pete does this all while in the background, his personal life is falling apart: his brother is in trouble with the law; his crumbled marriage threatens his relationship with his daughter; the interactions with his dad are too complicated to summarize. These bad things boost Pete’s “good-guy” credibility with us.

But then, we don’t like him, too. He slugs a client in the stomach. He admits to alcoholism but does nothing to correct himself, and his drinking often flings him into violent blackouts. He’s a bit of a misogynist.

The complexity of the book’s main character is just one of the highlights, though. The rest of the cast is just as delightful in their varying degrees of dysfunction and likability. They are all quite real. My mom is a retired social worker and, while she never punched a client (to my knowledge) I can assure you that the crazy people Pete encounters do honestly exist in real life. All of these characters are presented to us through Henderson’s lively prose, which allows us to follow several sub-plots at once without getting confused.

It might sound like a bleak book, but it’s not. Without spoiling the plot, I can assure you that Fourth of July Creek is suffused with hope, stubborn and fleeting it may seem at times. Pick up a copy and see for yourself.

Smith Henderson will be at Lemuria signing Fourth of July Creek on Wednesday, July 16 at 5:00.

Let’s Talk Jackson: State Fair Memories

By Jamie

On July 9, 2014

In Gift Books, Newsworthy

The Mississippi State Fair is dynamic: loud and quiet; simple and gaudy; here and gone. And this dynamism trickles down to the individual, too. During my childhood, the fair meant a day trip up from Hattiesburg and falling asleep on the return trip down Highway 49. As a Millsaps student, it was a distraction from whatever paper was due the next day. Now, as a parent, it’s something entirely different.

My son’s daycare closes so their staff can attend the annual Mississippi Early Childhood Association conference, and for the past three years, this has coincided with the opening week of the Fair. Since I had to take off a day of work to stay with him, and I love corn dogs, the Fair seemed a logical way to spend part of our day. He was two during our first outing, and he didn’t last too long; it was chilly that October, and the petting zoo kind of freaked him out. But each subsequent year, he’s enjoyed it more.

The next year he rode the carousel with me in tow till the both of us were nearly laid out with vertigo. Last year he rode his first ride alone: a kiddie roller coaster shaped like a cartoonish centipede whose track waved a lazy oval. Wanting something a bit faster, he and I did a few tandem trips down the big slide, becoming airborne on the last hump and laughing like . . . well, like a dad and his 4-year-old. No longer afraid of the petting zoo, he cackled and made up an impromptu song as the goats nibbled carrot chips from his hand.

For my son, the Fair means ice cream, funnel cakes and rides. Right now, it means a day with dad. Sooner than I’d like to think, it’ll be a place where he goes with his friends, shunning his goofy dad’s presence as teenagers are supposed to do. I hope that the Fair will mean nostalgia for him as he treads through memories with fondness similar to mine. The rides he’ll ride will be bigger, faster, more fun, more dangerous. For him, the Fair will be an ever-increasing whirling blur of excitement and screams and light, just like when he was growing up. But for me, part of the Fair will always be me sitting on a square of burlap, my kid locked between my knees as we zip down the fiberglass slide, our laughter trailing behind us.
State Fair_DSC2457-2

Written by Jamie

Dads and Books

By Jamie

On June 10, 2014

In Newsworthy

I’m a dad, I have a dad, and I work in a bookstore. Thus, I’m a qualified expert on Father’s Day recommendations.

Book of Hours by Kevin Young

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There probably aren’t a lot of poetry books on lists like this, but hear me out. Young’s latest book consists of poems that mourn the death of his father in a hunting accident and lay them over poems about the birth of his first child. While these two things happened in the span of ten years, Young’s poems show the emotional connections between losing a father and becoming a father. And don’t let the poetry intimidate you: Young’s verses are easily accessible without being childlike. Perfect for dads who: are contemplative thinkers and enjoy quiet.

Bourbon: An American Spirit by Dane Hucklebridge

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This isn’t a drunken memoir chronicling the author’s history of bourbon: rather, it’s literally a history of America’s (and my) favorite spirit. Hucklebridge gives an easy to read yet informative romp through the birth of bourbon, starting with a compressed history of distillation in Europe, then following it over the Atlantic to America, where corn (a new crop to Europeans) yielded not only nutrition but cocktails. Hucklebridge’s prose is anything but dry as it gives life to individual characters and the general culture(s) in which bourbon came of age. Pair this book with a bottle Bulliet (or whatever dad drinks) and you’ve got a winner. Perfect for dads who: like quirky trivia, enjoy bourbon, enjoy American history, or enjoy bourbon (that’s worth mentioning twice).

Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fenelley

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This novel, set during the 1927 flood of the Mississippi River, follows the stories of a bootlegging husband and wife, a pair of Federal revenue agents, and a just-orphaned newborn. Franklin and Fenelley’s story is well-paced with lively, endearing characters and a fantastically researched historical setting. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away here, but trust me: this is a fun book. Perfect for dads who: like history (particularly Mississippi history), like telling stories, or like listening to them.

Author: Jamie (Page 3 of 3)

Let’s Talk Jackson: Thinking about one’s thinking

The Story of Land and Sea

Let’s Talk Jackson: The Feta Dressing

Fourth of July Creek

Let’s Talk Jackson: State Fair Memories

Dads and Books

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