Maybe you’ve had time to peruse Neil White’s Mississippians. It’s a great conversation piece. Maybe you’ve wondered at the individuals you’ve never heard of. Maybe you’ve wondered why a particular person was not included in the publication.

It could be because Neil views Mississippians as an on-going project; categories will be added and existing ones may be expanded. I think this make sense as there will always be new contributing and innovative individuals. These forthcoming editions will reflect growth and the dynamic nature our state.

As you share Mississippians with your family and friends, keep your ideas in mind. Add your ideas in the comment section below or keep your eye on our blog for future opportunities to share your ideas with Neil.

Tonight Neil will be signing and talking to us about how he put the book together. Come on over for a relaxing evening!

Click here to see other profiles in Mississippians.

Editor Neil White will be signing Mississippians at Lemuria today at 5:00. If you cannot be here, copies are available for purchase online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

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My first memory of Jackson’s later to be celebrated Sweet Potato Queen is still vivid in my mind.

In April 1983, Lemuria was having a book signing for Hannah’s cutting edge Tennis Handsome, still my favorite of Barry’s novels. Two kegs of beer were being consumed with Hendrix blaring at top volume. Barry in his rebel gear was handled by beloved pal Ronzo.

Jill (i.e., Betty Fulton) was hanging around, lovely in a yellow oasis lady Lemuria t-shirt (design=nude reading under palms). Later, we loaded the number two keg into a hatchback to hear Albert King at Gino’s Blues Alley. A thunderstorm exploded soaking us all up. What a memory, this lovely amazon in a soaking tee–I was sold, Jill was definitely a Lemurian.

Years later Jill with her Sweet Potato Queen book was kind to express so fondly her love for our bookstore. We worked hard for Jill, her first selling over 5,000 copies. Over the years, her dedication and friendship joined with her husband, our pal Kyle, has yielded many pleasant memories.

Her first reading with Roy Blount, draped in a rebel flag, celebrated her first book publication, as Betty Fulton, in the Norton Book of Southern Humor.

Share with us your first or funniest story about Jill. The more outrageous the better we’ll like it.

Click here to see all of “Lemuria Reads Mississippians.” Editor Neil White will be signing at Lemuria on  Thursday, October 28th.

Mississippians is available now! Purchase a copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

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In October of 1975, on the backside of the quarter shopping center, I opened Lemuria bookstore with my ex-wife Mel. We converted a 2nd floor apartment, bought books and went to work. We were located behind Poets, the best bar and hangout in town, at which I went to work quickly after opening to keep Lemuria’s doors open. Below the bookstore was a small art gallery known as The Artist 5.

One morning, I heard a commotion of some sort coming in front of the bookstore. From my front balcony, I saw people carrying on while focusing on a big pick-up truck. In the middle, Jerry Clower was holding court, loud and obnoxious. The cut up was about these raccoons the local artist had painted all over his ride. After a bit, a very pleased Clower cranked up and roared away while gaining everyone’s attention, sporting his prize coons.

Add your Jerry Clower memory in the comment section below.

Click here to see all of “Lemuria Reads Mississippians.” Editor Neil White will be signing at Lemuria on  Thursday, October 28th.

Mississippians is available now! Purchase a copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

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DEUCE!!!!

This was a common chant you would  hear when Deuce McAllister took the field in Vaught/Hemingway Stadium at the University of Mississippi on game day. It’s no wonder since he is one of the most decorated football  players in Ole Miss history and the only football player to have recorded 1,000 all purpose yards in three seasons.  I am an Ole Miss fan but I followed Deuce’s career more when he was with the New Orleans Saints.  He was a first round draft pick  in 2001 and throughout his career with the Saints he became and still is the Franchise’s all time leading rusher with 6,096 yards.  He also scored 55 total touchdowns and 49 of them were rushing touchdowns.  These are also both Saints records and he also was selected for the Pro Bowl in 2002 and 2003.

Deuce McAllister is probably one of the most loved Mississippi football players in recent history and it is really no wonder as evident from his work on the field and now that he is retired from his work off the field.  He has become a fixture in the Jackson area opening several businesses and being involved with the restoration of historic downtown buildings, The Edwards Hotel being one of them.  He also wanted to give back to the University and did so by donating $1 million dollars for a indoor practice facility for the Ole Miss football team. His Catch 22 Foundation was formed in 2002 and is dedicated to the enhancement of  children’s lives in the Gulf Coast Region. The foundation has grown by leaps and bounds throughout the years and is not only helping children in the Jackson and New Orleans area but throughout the entire states of Mississippi and Louisiana.  Oh, and of course Deuce hosts his Champions of Football Camp for children between the ages of 10-18…now you know that is a good time.

You could feel the electricity in the air in January 2010 when the announcement was made that the Saints had resigned Deuce the day before the playoff game against the Arizona Cardinals and he was going to be a honorary captain and lead the team out on the field.  I wasn’t at the game but I was watching and you have never heard a roar like that when the crowd saw Deuce.  We were even cheering at home!!  Even though Deuce formally announced his retirement from the NFL I know that he will always be in the public eye and hearts due to his philanthropic work he is doing throughout the region and to all of us, his fans–

HE IS ALWAYS A SAINT!!!!

Click here to see all of “Lemuria Reads Mississippians.” Editor Neil White will be signing at Lemuria on  Thursday, October 28th.

Mississippians is available now! Purchase a copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

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After other signings, talks and interviews in Jackson, Curtis Wilkie made it over to Lemuria and spoke to a packed house at our events building. Although I had finished reading the book several weeks ago, listening to Curtis talk and hearing the questions from the audience only made me want to read this intricate tragedy of Mississippi law and politics again.

Of all the things that impress me about the book, here are three:

1. Curtis conducted over 200 interviews with nearly all of the key players. I have heard people remark that Curtis Wilkie is probably one of the only people who could cover this case, having easy and open cooperation with the Scruggs family and so many others involved in the fall. Furthermore, he places the injustices on the broad canvas of Mississippi political culture of the past 40 years.

2. The FBI files had never before been made available to the public. This equals 6 months of audio and video that Curtis explored to write his book. If you have some time to spare, some video and audio are available online here.

3. The introduction of P. L. Blake to the citizens of Mississippi: So many questions still abound about Blake and it seems to be the consensus that he will never be successfully prosecuted. I wish we could get some buses together, gather crowds of curious Mississippi citizens and ride out to his house. I would like to say, “Mississippians are tired of you putting your sleazy money in our leaders pockets. It’s our state, not yours.” He doesn’t even live here anymore. He hides out in Birmingham, Alabama.

While Curtis signed books, we were lucky enough to spend a little time with him. On writing another book, Curtis talked about how much he enjoys writing and how he could have never predicted he would be writing Zeus. Regarding another book, he says, “Never say never.” Maybe we’ll hear more from Curtis.

Somehow, all of us book lovers managed to talk about our favorite books and what we’re reading. Curtis said he was reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and enjoying it very much despite a busy tour for Zeus. A Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was a recent favorite read. One of the first books that made an impression on him was Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron.

Mississippians are reading Zeus now, and I have noticed that they’re recommending Zeus to their friends. Zeus is an important book for our state, and Curtis Wilkie has given us a window to a world most of us will never encounter. At the very minimum we are all a little wiser for knowing some of what really goes on in the realms of politics and law. Change will only come from the bottom up.

Many have asked if this story could happen outside of Mississippi. Curtis has said yes. It seems that anywhere greed and poor judgment are the driving force it can happen. Watch for reviews of Zeus on the national scene.

Let us hear your thoughts and reactions as you read Zeus. Post a comment on our blog or on our Facebook page.

It was the year 1969. I had graduated from Vanderbilt in June, married Hinky in August. He started his first year at the University of Mississippi School of Law that September . My brother Mike and his friend John Evans, undergraduates, lived in a dark apartment that sunk toward the middle of the room and pans caked with the beans cooked a month ago sat on blackened burners.

After 4 years of constant intellectual stimulation and fireside chats at professor’s homes in Nashville, I felt adrift and alone, up in or down in (depending on one’s geographical perspective) Oxford, working as an assistant to the assistant to the Dean of the Graduate School at Ole Miss, “putting hubby through.” Just a few weeks into this existential isolation, I met Hinky’s professors one by one, either in the Grove or going by the law school after work to get Hinky from the law library with the one car we shared until he decided the one car was a tool to get to school and left me with my bicycle to get to and fro.

The first prof I met was Robert Khayat, outside the law school (sitting in my car while I still had one to use). He came over and introduced himself and I told him I was waiting for a student. He asked, “Which one?” I said Hinky, a name you don’t easily forget. He said, “Good choice. (in husbands?) He’s got a lot of promise. Very good student. And how are you?” I was charmed that this handsome, older (by 9 years) man who emitted downhome hospitality, gentility, charisma and smarts would take the time to chat with me. Ole Miss started to feel like a friendlier place that day.

I knew nothing about Mr. Khayat’s years at Yale, as an Ole Miss Hall of Fame student or his NFL football seasons as a kicker with the Washington Redskins. I started to hear from Hinky’s fellow students that this was the guy whose classes were on the prime list of most desirable courses. I learned that his students regarded him as a man of integrity and a mentor. To me, he was a most welcome ambassador to those of us who were making Oxford and Ole Miss our home for the next few years.

Click here to see all of “Lemuria Reads Mississippians.” 

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-Pat

The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie (Crown, October 19, 2010)

“Although the government’s pursuit of Scruggs smacked of entrapment to his supporters, that defense could not be used because he had not dealt directly with a federal agent or an informant when he covered Balducci’s original payments with a $40,000 check. Instead, the defendants from the Scruggs Law Firm settled on a defense built around the argument that the government had created the crime for which they were being falsely accused.”

“In a lengthy motion filed with the court on February 11, Keker asked for dismissal of the indictments on the grounds of ‘outrageous government conduct.’ The document not only accused the federal government of turning Judge Lackey into an agent involved in ‘manufacturing a crime,’ it charged that the government had ‘engaged in a pattern of concealing from this court’ exculpatory evidence helpful to the defendants.” (283)

Zeus is available now.

We hope to see you today at the signing/reading event with Curtis Wilkie. If you cannot attend, you can reserve a signed copy online.

Click here to open an account on our website and we can save your information for future visits to LemuriaBooks.com or just give us a call: 601/800.366.7619.

Read other excerpts from The Fall of the House of Zeus.

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The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie (Crown, October 19, 2010)

“Scruggs was approaching his sixtieth birthday, and he entertained the thought, as many aging men do, of moving on to something new. One grand possibility seemed within his reach: to become an American ambassador . . .”

“His desire to become an ambassador grew as strong as his earlier yearnings to make the big lick. South America became the heart of his ambassadorial affections: he even settled on Ecuador as his next home. Surely, he figured, Trent Lott could deliver that for him. After all, Lott had arranged for Tom Anderson to serve as the ambassador in the Caribbean during the Reagan years. . .” (99-100)

“Scruggs began taking Spanish lessons. Confidently, he purchased a sixteen-seat Gulfstream, a luxury jet with the capacity to fly from the Gulf Coast to Quito without refueling. He even chose the figures to be painted on its tail: DS 368, The numbers referred to the $368 billion the tobacco industry had to put up to settle their case. The DS, he said, did not stand for Dickie Scruggs, but for “dollar signs.”

“At the beginning of the Christmas season in 2002, Lott attended a one-hundredth birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond of Southern Carolina. Before abandoning the Democratic Party and becoming a talisman for the ‘Southern Strategy’ that lured segregationists into the Republican Party, Thurmond had been the presidential candidate for the racist States’ Rights Democratic Party, known as the Dixiecrats, in 1948. Mississippi was one of the four deep states to give Thurmond its electoral votes. In the flush of the moment, more than a half-century later, Lott toasted his ancient colleague and remarked, ‘I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.'”

“In the ensuing storm of criticism, Lott gave up his position as majority leader within two weeks, and Scruggs’s dreams of becoming an ambassador died.” (100)

We hope to see you at the signing/reading event with Curtis Wilkie on Thursday, October 21st, but if you cannot attend, you can reserve a signed copy online.

Click here to open an account on our website and we can save your information for future visits to LemuriaBooks.com.

You can also call the bookstore at 601/800.366.7619 and we can put your name on our reserve list.

Read other excerpts from The Fall of the House of Zeus.

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The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie (Crown, October 19, 2010)

“[Ed] Peters was seventy. His hair, which had grown gray years before, had now gone white and wispy. He was growing deaf and suffering from a cold . . . Though known as the chief fixer of Hinds County, he did not appear very menacing. He merely looked old and harmless . . .”

“[Steve] Patterson appealed to his old friend [Ed Peters] to help him in the case involving the bribe to Judge Lackey. Peters said he would like to help. After forty-five minutes of rambling conversation, [Joey] Langston and Patterson rose to leave.”

“Peters looked at his guests. ‘Boys,’ he said, ‘I’d cut my own throat for you.’ Then he made a slashing gesture across his neck with his hand.”

“Instead of protecting his old friends, Peters and his attorney, Cynthia Stewart, began meeting with federal authorities in Oxford . . . He was prepared to make a ‘Rule 11 proffer,’ in which he would tell all that he knew of the maneuvering with Judge DeLaughter in exchange for an agreement not to bring charges against him.” (265)

Zeus goes on sale today.

We hope to see you at the signing/reading event with Curtis Wilkie on Thursday, October 21st, but if you cannot attend, you can reserve a signed copy online.

Click here to open an account on our website and we can save your information for future visits to LemuriaBooks.com.

You can also call the bookstore at 601/800.366.7619 and we can put your name on our reserve list.

Read other excerpts from The Fall of the House of Zeus.

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