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Author Q & A with Helen Ellis

On April 21, 2019

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 21)

Alabama native and author Helen Ellis has lived in New York City for more than a quarter century, but says she still wears her accent “on her sleeve,” which explains why her newest book is titled Southern Lady Code.

The premise of the 23 true essays which capture as many hilarious and often poignant episodes she’s gotten herself into, is one simple rule: “If you don’t have something nice to say, you say something not so nice in a nice way.”

Ellis also authored Eating the Cheshire Cat and American Housewife. In addition to–and often instead of–calling herself a writer, she also proudly claims the title of “housewife.”

A serious poker plays who learned the game from her father as a child, Ellis competes on the national tournament circuit. She and her husband happily reside in Manhattan.

You grew up in Tuscaloosa and, at age 22, you left for New York City in hopes of becoming a writer. Tell me about the career twists that landed you in the role of housewife–which eventually, with the help of Twitter, led to your success as a writer.

Helen Ellis

It was 1992, and I–dressed in my Talbot’s turtleneck, ankle-length wool plaid skirt, and penny loafers–walked from publishing house to publishing house, dropping my resume at reception desks like calling cards. I had the hopes of being an editorial assistant, but no publishing house called me. I walked into Talbots and got a job on the spot.

Two years later, I got a job at a financial magazine with the hopes of being an editorial assistant. They hired me to drum up subscriptions. I met a young reporter, who drummed up my heart.

A year later, I got into the NYU creative writing program, temped as a secretary, and through that temp agency, landed a long-term job in the chairman’s office of Chanel. I worked four days a week and wrote three.

Scribner published my first book, Eating the Cheshire Cat, in 2000.

I married that young reporter, who became an editor, in 2001.

And then I wrote another book, and nobody published it. And then I wrote another book, and nobody published it. And then I quit my secretarial job to write full time, supported by my husband, wrote another book, and nobody published it. And then I quit writing, and nobody cared.

I settled into a happy life as a housewife. And when people asked me what I did, I didn’t say writer, I said, “Housewife.” The next question was always: “What do you do all day?” I started an anonymous twitter account called @WhatIDoAllDay.

I tweeted about housework and hosting parties and book clubs and the beauty of banality. And then I wrote a story about how a housewife cleans up murders. And then I wrote a story about a book club recruiting a new member with a sinister motive. And then I wrote about what a woman left to her own devices could ultimately do all day. I wrote what I knew. And, 16 years after my first novel, Doubleday published my short story collection, American Housewife. And three years after that, they’ve published Southern Lady Code. This time, the stories are all true.

Explain the phrase “Southern Lady Code,” and how it became the title of your newest book.

Southern Lady Code is: if you don’t have something nice to say, say something not so nice, in a nice way. Twenty-five years in Manhattan, I kept finding myself translating what I’d say to people. “She’s a character” means drunk. Or “He’s an archivist” means hoarder. Or “Bless her heart” means “What an idiot.”

I’ve been tweeting these translations for more than five years. I turned some of those tweets into a short story in “American Housewife.” My … true stories … are now this book. Each essay has a line of code. So, for example, in “Making a Marriage Magically Tidy” I write about how my husband fell in love with a “creative” woman. “Creative” is Southern Lady Code for slob.

The essays which make up Southern Lady Code are not only hilarious, but packed with meaning that makes us pause. Tell me how humor has been important in your life, and how it has become your signature writing style.

I come from a funny family. Some of the best times I’ve had have been at funerals, where relatives and friends try and outdo each other with the most outrageous memories of the deceased. With humor, you can ease pain. And with humor, you can be honest. It’s easier to get your point across when you make the person you’re pointing at laugh. Especially when you’re pointing at yourself.

Poker has been a passion of yours since childhood. Tell us about its role in your life.

There have been times when I wasn’t writing, but I’ve always played poker. Poker is a chance for me to really be myself. I can be nice, but I don’t have to play nice. I can be at the table, but I don’t have to entertain. I can confront bullies and make them back down. I can be brave. And when I lose, and I most certainly do lose, I know there’s always another game. And as with after my losses in writing, when I am lucky enough to win and get published, the success is all the sweeter.

I’ve interviewed many writers who, like you, have moved away from the South, yet no matter how much time passes, they still consider themselves to be Southerners. How would you explain that sentiment?

My roots run deep. And I wear my accent on my sleeve.

Helen Ellis will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, April 24, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Southern Lady Code.

Author Q & A with Ali Benjamin

By Former Lemurians

On April 18, 2019

In Oz: Middle Grade

Interview with Ali Benjamin by Oz Books manager Trianne Harabedian.

Ali Benjamin is the author of two middle-grade books, the newly released The Next Great Paulie Fink and 2015’s The Thing About Jellyfish, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Benjamin will be at Lemuria on Thursday, April 25, at 5:00 to sign and read from The Next Great Paulie Fink.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

Ali Benjamin

I grew up about an hour from New York City, in a community along the Hudson River. At the time, my hometown was where NYC suburbs gave way to something more ex-urban. As a result, my schools had kids from varied socioeconomic backgrounds. There were the “commuting” families, who tended to be wealthier and white collar, as well as many less affluent blue-collar workers.

Most houses in my neighborhood were newer ranch houses (often with freshly mowed lawns). My family’s home was…different. It was about 200 years old, with peeling paint and the occasional rotting floorboard. Most of the neighborhood kids thought it was haunted (though I never saw evidence of that). My parents were hippies, which other families in the neighborhood definitely were not! It’s funny; my sister became an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and I became a writer. Sometimes I wonder if growing up a little different from your peers is a natural springboard into storytelling!

We had lots of freedom back then; kids wandered the neighborhood, organizing games of kick-the-can or flashlight tag. I tried to capture some of that sense of freedom and expansiveness in The Next Great Paulie Fink. In fact, there’s a story within the book about a game of team-tag that comes directly from a specific moment in the neighborhood!

Today I live in Western Massachusetts—I’m only a few miles from both the Vermont and New York state borders. There are still many small farms in this area, so I’ve had a little experience with goats, an animal that appears repeatedly in The Next Great Paulie Fink!

Can you tell us, in your own words, what The Next Great Paulie Fink is about?

The Next Great Paulie Fink is about an oddball group of seventh grade students who organize a reality TV-style competition to “replace” their legendary class clown, Paulie Fink, who mysteriously doesn’t return at the start of the school year. The story goes back and forth between a straightforward narrative—told through the eyes of “new girl” Caitlyn, who is reluctantly put in charge of the competition—and interviews with Caitlyn’s classmates as they share memories of Paulie’s most ingenious pranks.

But the book is also about the stories we tell each other and to ourselves: how can we know if the stories we tell are “true?” Where, exactly, is the line between reality and myth? What if the stories we tell ourselves no longer serve us? Who might we get to become if we choose a new story? The book is also about celebrity culture; whom we elevate into legendary status, and why, and whether we ever know these idols —or anyone—as well as we think we do. These bigger questions, though, are woven into a very lighthearted narrative, so kids can access the book at different levels.

Even though the kids in the book talk a lot about Paulie Fink, the story is really about Caitlyn Breen. What made you want to tell her story?

A couple of years ago, I got ahold of my middle school diary. I was so excited to read it and become reacquainted with my 12-year-old self. I thought I remembered, more or less, who I’d been back then. In my memory, I’d been a nice kid—kind of nerdy, very distracted, pretty immature, and definitely in over my head in the chaotic world of middle school. But I was kind…or so I thought.

Except that’s not what the pages showed me. My diary was filled with page after page of nasty comments about my classmates, my friends, my family, my teachers. I was also obsessed with where I stood in the middle school hierarchy, almost as if I were a reality star trying to claw my way toward the top. But as I read through the pages with my adult eyes, I could also see how incredibly insecure I was, how lost. And of course, that’s precisely why I was so mean! Genuinely confident people don’t need to put others down.

Caitlyn’s in a similar place as I’d been. At the story’s start, she’s not particularly nice, and she’s clinging to “rules” that she thinks will help her gain social currency. But as the competition to find the Next Great Paulie Fink unfolds, she begins to realize that those old ways aren’t actually serving her. So, she begins to do what my middle school self wasn’t able to: to set down her obsession with popularity, to really see and value the people around her, and to have a little fun for a change. I think I gave to Caitlyn what I myself needed when I was in middle school!

Can you tell us about myths and legends and why they’re so important in this book?

Stories drive the world forward. They always have. They don’t merely reflect who we are, and what we value, they actually shape us in ways that are active and direct. This is something I tried to show throughout the book. For example, at a critical moment, Caitlyn thinks of a kindergarten student who idolizes her. By asking herself, “what if I were the person this child sees? What would that version of me do now?” she’s able to become a little better than she might have been otherwise.

Every character in The Next Great Paulie Fink gets the opportunity to try on a new story. In doing so, they open themselves to new possibilities. Their worlds get a little richer.

And it’s worth noting that no story—not even a true story, in which every element is 100 percent factually accurate—ever reflects the full reality of this world. Every story involves a series of choices: who is the protagonist? Who’s the villain or the scapegoat? Which details are brought to the forefront? Which are left out altogether? These choices are what makes it a story, instead of merely a collection of facts.

Too often, our stories are so baked into our experiences that we don’t notice them. We’re like fish who don’t notice the water we’re swimming in! The Next Great Paulie Fink is a very lighthearted way to explore some of these issues.

What is the most important lesson that you want us to take away from this story?

First, I hope it gives kids permission to let themselves have some fun. The kids in The Next Great Paulie Fink are goofy. They’re totally un-self-conscious. They love to laugh and to be silly. They do ridiculous dances. They wrestle like zombies. They imitate robots and aliens, chase runaway goats, and they love every minute of it! I’d like to see more kids give themselves permission to be so free.

Second, I hope the book encourages them to think critically about their world. Human beings tell each other, and themselves, a lot of stories. Not all of them are true. Some of them have elements of truth, but are inherently incomplete. I wanted to give kids a way to begin to really examine the stories that drive them, to open themselves up to the possibility that their stories are part of a much bigger tapestry. The more they can see that, the bigger, and more meaningful, their lives can become.

Curl up with a middle grade mystery with Haddix’s ‘Greystone Secrets: The Strangers’

By Former Lemurians

On April 16, 2019

In Oz: Middle Grade

by Trianne Harabedian

Thrillers, mysteries, books with suspenseful intrigue? They have never been my idea of a good time. I often find them frightening and too intense, which can sometimes mean nightmares. Yep, I’m an adult who gets scared of the dark.
So when I heard that Margaret Peterson Haddix was coming out with a new book, Greystone Secrets: The Strangers, I hesitated. She has a reputation for being an amazing mystery writer for kids, keeping her readers in suspense and elevating tension while staying age-appropriate.

“But it’s a middle grade book,” I told myself. “It’s for ages nine to twelve. How scary can it be?” Not scary at all, as it turned out! In fact, I devoured it like pizza on a late night. It was the most engaging middle grade novel I’ve read in a long time.

The book is about the three Greystone children: Chess, Emma, and Finn. Their dad died when they were young, and they live normal lives with their mom. At least, everything is normal until their mom stumbles across a news article about three kids across the country who have been kidnapped. The Greystone children are bewildered when the article lists their own names as the lost children! These others look different from Chess, Emma, and Finn, but they share first names, middle names and birthdays.

But this is only the beginning of the strangeness. Before the children can ask questions, their mom leaves on a mysterious work trip and sends them to stay with a friend they hardly know, whose own daughter wants nothing to do with them. The Greystones begin to worry when their mom doesn’t call to check on them, returns their texts with cryptic messages, and appears to have completely vanished. The suspense only grows as the children investigate, find clues, and decode messages that lead them on adventures beyond their belief.

With a hint of A Wrinkle in Time, lovable characters, and a well-woven story, I’m excited to present Margaret Peterson Haddix’s The Strangers as one of our picks for the First Editions Club for Young Readers! It’s engaging, literary, and perfect for the middle grader in your life–whether they are easily frightened or not!

‘On the Come Up’ cements Angie Thomas’s powerful voice

By Former Lemurians

On April 15, 2019

In African-American, OZ: Young Adult Fiction

By Andrew Hedglin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 14)

Angie Thomas created a cultural phenomenon from Jackson to Hollywood two years ago with her debut, The Hate U Give, a young-adult novel about the aftermath of a police shooting of an unarmed black teenager. However, the book contains so much more than that, from the coming-of-age tale of protagonist Starr Carter, to its beautiful, real depictions of life in a black community.

Thomas returns to the fictional Garden Heights community of The Hate U Give in her follow-up novel, On the Come Up. In this book, 16-year-old Bri Jackson overcomes other people’s expectations for her to find her voice and use her talent for hip-hop to communicate her place in the world. From the “ring battles” in a local boxing gym to the SoundCloud-inspired accounts of the internet, Bri always goes forth boldly to remind the world that “when you say brilliant that you’re also saying Bri.”

Part of those expectations are from people in her community expecting her to carry the mantle of her father, the underground hip-hop legend Lawless, who was tragically murdered when Bri was a child. Bri is proud of her father’s legacy, but she has her own unique experiences to share.

The other side of the expectations is weighted with racial anxiety. Bri attends an arts-based magnet school in the posh Midtown neighborhood, bused there every day with her friends Sonny, anxious about grades and his online crush on a neighborhood boy, and Malik, her other best friend, her secret crush, and a budding political activist.

When Bri is stopped by security guards while smuggling contraband snacks into school, an ugly incident takes place in which she is forcefully pinned to the ground by security guards with a history of racial profiling. The cell phone videos of the incident have the power to reveal the truth of what happened, but they also have the power to distort. The image imparted partially depends on what the viewer wants, or expects, to see in the first place.

So it is with the lyrics to the song that Bri records in response to the incident, called “On the Come Up.” Students use the song in a school protest that goes wrong. A local DJ baits Bri in a radio interview, because Bri, while talented and thoughtful, is often prone to emotional, hot-headed responses. Bri laces her song with plenty of irony and nuance, yet those meanings are sometimes hard to convey in a song that’s also catchy enough to become a viral hit.

Meanwhile, Bri has to make important decisions, including her choice of manager. Should she stick with her beloved Aunt Pooh, a gangsta with a heart of gold and amateur to the business? Or should she side with Supreme, her father’s old shark-like manager with opaque motivations?

Bri is vulnerable to being sorely tempted to temper her image to achieve success. Self-expression is fine for what it’s worth, but real financial pressures await at home when her single mother is laid off from her job as a church secretary in the aftermath of the riots from The Hate U Give.

Her mother Jay and her brother Trey tell her not to worry, that she shouldn’t make long-term decisions based on immediate financial circumstances, but Trey has already put grad school on hold, and Jay has a history of not always being there for them, including a long stretch of drug addiction after their father and her husband was murdered in front of her.

In addition to this mesmerizing world-building, Thomas carries her spirited first-person narration into this new tale. Thomas does a very fine job balancing the personal and the political. Her style and solid writing will appeal not just to young fans who see themselves represented, but to older fans as well who wish to peek into the world a young, vibrant world populated with strong, three-dimensional black characters.

Andrew Hedglin is a bookseller at Lemuria Books, a graduate of Belhaven University, and a lifelong Jackson resident.

Signed copies of Angie Thomas’s books are available at Lemuria and on its web store.

Author Q & A with Shelby Harriel

By Guest Author

On April 14, 2019

In Civil War, Southern History, War, Women's Studies

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 14)

Shelby Harriel fell in love with history at a young age when she was shocked to find out that her own state had left its country in order to start a new one.

That curiosity eventually led to published research in newspapers, magazine, website, and blogs about the role of women in the Civil War.

Her new book, Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi) encompasses much of that information, with an emphasis on women’s motivation to secretly join the military and fight, the hard work they put in alongside the men in their units, and the roads they paved for a future for women in the military.

By day, Harriel may be found at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville–teaching . . . math!

Please tell me about your long interest in history–and specifically, the Civil War and women who fought in the Civil War. Do you have an approximate number or percentage on the fighting force that were women?

Shelby Harriel

I became interested in the Civil War in elementary school when we were first introduced to the subject in our Mississippi History class. I was absolutely fascinated to learn that my state had left the United States and formed a whole new country. I had to find out more. Eventually, my studies led me to participate in reenacting, but I just couldn’t find my niche. As an athlete my entire life … sitting on the sidelines in a hoop skirt never appealed to me. I was more interested in learning about the experiences of the common soldier.

One day, (someone) remarked that there were women who served as soldiers. Suddenly, I found a whole new exciting realm to direct my interest and research. That was in the late 1990s when researchers began to take a fresh new look at women soldiers, and books were published. So, I had all this new exciting material to consume. The more I read, the more questions I had. This naturally led to me examining primary sources myself. Soon, I had accumulated a great deal of new research that I felt needed a broader audience.

We will never know how many women served as soldiers during the Civil War because they were hidden behind male disguises. Estimates range from the hundreds to the thousands. When you consider that millions of men fought, this number is insignificant. There weren’t that many of them.

What motivated women–some as young as 16–to risk the dangers and hardships of war by secretly enlisting in the military and fighting in the Civil War, disguised as men–and how did they get through the physical exams that allowed them to pass as men?

In some cases, it was the same motivational factors that led men to enlist that also prompted women to join the ranks: patriotism, adventure, and economic opportunities. There weren’t many well-paying, respectable jobs available for women then. But when they disguised themselves as men, they could double or triple their income in a variety of jobs previously closed to them. This afforded them a more independent lifestyle they would not have been able to enjoy in traditional feminine roles. Women also enlisted to avoid separation from male loved ones who went off to war. Other women joined to escape these male family members. Vengeance for a fallen loved one led some women to enlist–or attempt to.

Military regulations called for a soldier to strip for a medical exam upon entering the service. However, pressure to fill depleting ranks or incompetency resulted in cursory examinations where, in some cases, all surgeons did was to ensure that a recruit had a working trigger finger and two good teeth to tear the paper cartridge that held the ammunition. There are quite a few accounts of soldiers testifying that all they had to do was to show their hands and teeth. Some women even had men take the exam for them. So it was actually not terribly difficult for a woman to get past the examination. There are accounts, however, of thorough examining surgeons discovering women trying to sneak into the ranks.

You point out several times in your book Behind the Rifle that pursuing research into the stories and even the names of women who fought in the Civil War is difficult. Could you explain why this was, and do you plan to continue your efforts to identify these women and tell their stories?

At the time, women could not serve in the military, so if a woman wanted to join the army, she had to disguise herself as a man. She cut her hair, put on male clothing, and assumed a male alias. It was actually not that difficult because they did not have forms of identification, but it was a risky venture. Back then, it was not only illegal but also socially unacceptable for a woman to even wear pants. If caught, she served jail time and/or paid a fine. Clothing defined the genders, and anybody caught crossing those lines brought shame upon themselves and their families.

If these women were caught, they often told newspaper reporters wrong information about themselves–including their own feminine name–so this information would not get back home to their families. Sometimes, writers would afford women privacy by not reporting their name, or by assigning them another alias. There is also evidence that the military may have expunged the records of women soldiers. There are instances where male soldiers were court martialed when women soldiers were discovered in their units. Therefore, it is not surprising that many people didn’t want these stories told–making it excruciatingly difficult for those who do want to tell them.

Yes, I plan to continue researching women soldiers because I think there is more to learn. All it takes is the discovery of one soldier’s letter or diary entry, or one newspaper article to provide a missing piece of the puzzle-such as a correct name–that will either bring that woman’s story to fruition or debunk it.

I plan to include new research in a second book on women soldiers. It will have a broader focus that will encompass all women soldiers of the Civil War, not just those with Mississippi connections.

All in all, what would you say these women, who fought on both sides, contributed to the war effort–and why do we need to know about them?

As mentioned earlier, they were statistically irrelevant. Their presence on the battlefield didn’t change the course of an engagement or the war. They weren’t there promoting social change. They weren’t feminists fighting for women’s rights. These women were simply uncommon soldiers experiencing the common trials of war alongside men. They performed the same duties as men, endured the same hardships. They suffered debilitating wounds. They sacrificed their lives for causes that men shared. And we should honor them all the same. These women soldiers helped pave the way for women to serve in our current military.

Shelby Harriel will be at Lemuria on Saturday, May 4, at 2:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi.

Author Q & A with Nell Freudenberger

By Guest Author

On April 7, 2019

In Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 7)

In her latest novel, Lost and Wanted, Nell Freudenberger’s admitted “language brain” delves deeply into the world of science, as complicated theories meet complicated characters–both of whom merit the time and curiosity of an intense examination.

Named one of The New Yorker‘s “20 Under 40” nearly a decade ago, Freudenberger is one author whose career continues to shine, collecting an impressive array of awards along the way.

As the author of novels The Newlyweds and The Dissident and the story collection Lucky Girls (which was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction afrom the American Academy of Arts and Letters), Freudenberger has also captured a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whitling Award, and a Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library.

She and her family make their home in Brooklyn.

In a book as much about relationships as science, Lost and Wanted tugs at heartstrings even as it posits scientific theories of Nobel Prize level. To set the stage, please tell us briefly about main characters Helen, Charlie, Terrance, and Neel.

Helen is a theoretical physicist at MIT, who had a baby on her own in her late 30s. Her primary relationships are with her son, Jack, and with her work, which she loves–maybe too much to get close to anyone else.

Her college friend, Charlie, is similarly driven in her own field, but they’ve faced different challenges as a white scientist in academia and a black screenwriter in Hollywood. Charlie is one of those people who is magnetic and wonderful in person, but elusive as soon as you leave her side. When she dies suddenly, from complications of lupus, Helen doesn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

She seeks out Charlie’s daughter and husband, Terrence, in an attempt to understand more about her friend’s death. Terrence is reserved and hard to read; with his brother, he runs a Los Angeles-based surf shop, and he and Helen seem to have little in common–except that they’re suddenly both single parents, grieving for the same person. Just as they’re starting to trust each other, Helen’s charming and emotionally clueless ex, Neel, drops two bombshells–one personal and one scientific–and Helen’s carefully organized existence starts to fall apart in ways that challenge her most closely held beliefs.

The depth of your use of science knowledge and theory is impressive! What inspired you to write this story of advanced theories about “five-dimensional spacetime” and cutting-edge discoveries about the mind, the brain, gravitational force–and the possibility of ghosts?

Nell Freudenberger

I knew that I wanted to write a book about women and work, and at first, I tried to play it safe; I made Helen a novelist. That didn’t work at all, maybe because I couldn’t get out of my own head enough to find her voice. I thought I might make one of the minor characters an astrophysicist, and so I started reading an introductory college level textbook that a friend recommended. I don’t have a science background, and I was intimidated, in part because I’d always been told that I was a “language person” or that I didn’t have a “math brain.”

One book led to another, though, and I found that I was fascinated by particular topics, especially the gravitational wave detection project known as LIGO. I thought it was incredible that Einstein had theorized these “ripples in the fabric of spacetime,” but never believed human beings would be able to detect them, and that almost exactly 100 years later, scientists were doing just that.

My interest led me to cold e-mail some physicists, who were extremely kind. They spent hours explaining their work to me and showing me the lab that appears in the book. Their passion to communicate what they knew–for no reason other than the pleasure they took in it–was the real spark for Helen’s character, and convinced me that I could learn enough to make Helen believable as a physicist.

As for ghosts, I don’t believe in them–most of the time. None of the physicists I met told me that they did either, but they did often subscribe to counter-intuitive theories about space, physical forces, or the origins of the universe. Like Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, their explanations of physical phenomena had to be taken on faith or derived mathematically; they didn’t make sense inside a human being’s three-dimensional experience of the world. Talking to physicists about these wild ideas stretched my own capacity for belief.

Please tell me about the poem read at Charlie’s funeral–and explain how that became the title of the book.

The untitled poem by Auden that begins “This lunar beauty…” made a deep impression on me when I was an undergradate. Some people in our seminar thought the poem was about death; our professor insisted it was about pregnancy–his wife was about to have a baby; others argued that it was just a poem about the moon. To me, that indeterminacy was what made the poem so beautiful, and spoke to our different conceptions of an afterlife.

Those metrically regular and perfectly rhymed lines–“Where ghost has haunted/Lost and wanted”–gave me a natural title for the book. They seemed to suggest an interim pace that was more mathematical than purgatorial, maybe even a digital space somewhere between life and death.

Tell me about the meaning of “unseen communication”–a phrase that is referenced several times in Lost and Wanted. Does it hold more than one meaning among the characters and their discoveries about life, love, grief, acceptance, and unknown mysteries of the universe?

Science is never finished, and I love the physicist John Wheeler’s idea that each generation suggests a paradox for the next to solve. That’s one kind of “unfinished communication” that appears in the book; another is the mistaken belief that we’ll always have time to say the things we want to say to the people we love.

When a relationship ends–in death or another kind of rupture–we sometimes panic or become depressed about what we wish we’d said while there was still time. Technology now complicates this equation, because we all leave digital records behind, rarely as neatly as we’d like. Sometimes the presence of this stray information make it even more difficult to believe that the loved one is really gone.

For the children in the book, whose experience of time is more abstract than that of their counterparts, there’s a very real sense that it may still be possible to communicate with the people they’ve lost, if only they can find the right medium.

What are we to make of Charlie’s apparent attempts to communicate with her loved ones even after her death, as is demonstrated in the final pages of the book?

I’ll let you make what you will of that!

Nell Freudenberger will be at Lemuria on Friday, April 12, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Lost and Wanted.

Janet Brown’s ‘Deadly Visits’ creates cold, creepy read

By Guest Author

On April 3, 2019

In Mystery, Southern Fiction

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Monday print edition (April 1)

For a seemingly demure and grandmotherly-type lady, Janet Brown knows how to scare the crud out of you. Her fourth thriller, Deadly Visits, conjures ghostly visions, creepy critters and elemental disruptions amid a high-tech whodunit.

Brown spent several years in the shivering climes of South Dakota, where the temps make this part of the country laughable. Bundle up and head north, where Emily Dunham, hunkered down in rural Aberdeen, South Dakota, spots a ghost treading down her hallway. It’s a young girl in an old fashioned, long yellow dress, who vanishes as quickly as she’s spotted. Emily’s job-driven husband Alex shrugs the vision off; he’s more interested in dinner.

The call comes at 4 a.m. that night. Emily’s brother Carl relays the bad news: their father is near death. Emily flies south to her childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi, just a hair too late to say goodbye to dad.

After visitation, Emily meets former boyfriend Richard at Old Trace Park. He comforts her and asks that Emily drop by and his tell his wife hello. Emily finds the request strange, especially when she learns the truth about Richard. And his daughter resembles the ghost girl.

Back in South Dakota, Marlis Peterson speaks with the ghost of her childhood friend while waiting in line to pick up her kids from school. Soon more people are seeing dead students walking the halls of the school.

While Emily’s husband Alex argues with fellow worker George Kwivinan, George spots strange lightning closing in on the car they’re travelling in. Yet only George can see it. George also comes across a terrifying mist around his kids’ ankles in the play yard. And what’s with the odd triangles?

If you feel like you’re in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, that’s certainly the vibe Deadly Visits puts forth.

Still in Mississippi, Emily tells a local priest of her odd visions. The priest refers Emily to a local detective who’s dealt with stranger things in his career. M.A. Klugh listens to Emily’s story. He finds it so fascinating, Klugh flies back to South Dakota with his new client.

Emily passes Klugh off as her long lost uncle to her three kids and leery husband. One of Alex’s co-workers has recently died in a plane crash. Or was it murder? Alex is jailed as the most likely suspect while Klugh comes to his defense.

The strangeness continues as Emily and M.A.’s relationship grows. Everything centers around Audio Tech, the mysterious company Alex works for. A nun who speaks to spirits and an aging scientist hold the keys to why the dead have risen. Brown introduces the reader to Augmented Virtual Reality and the very real possibilities it holds.

“A lot of the book is made of short stories,” Brown said. Her late husband told the author she should put them together. The idea came from science fact.“What if you could take your brain and see things that weren’t there, like television.” Or perhaps ghosts.“I like to scare people,” Brown chuckles.

Tune in to the mind-numbing freakiness that arrives with Deadly Visits. Janet Brown’s sci-fi thriller is short and deadly and will definitely keep you up at night.

J.C. Patterson is the author of the Big Easy Dreamin’ series, a collection of New Orleans stories

Janet Brown will be at Lemuria on Thursday, April 4, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Deadly Visits.

Author Q & A with Lovejoy Boteler

By Guest Author

On March 31, 2019

In Southern History, True Crime

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 31)

Fifty years have gone by since Lovejoy Boteler, then 18, was abducted from his family’s farm near Grenada by two escaped convicts serving time at Parchman Penitentiary for murder.

In his first book, Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard (University Press of Mississippi), Boteler chronicles his decision two decades ago to get on the road and dig into the background of his kidnapper, in a quest to find some answers about what happened on that fateful June day.

His journey resulted in more than 70 personal interviews with family members, law officers and ex-convicts who ran with Lepard, along with unearthing numerous historical records that helped piece together the story of the short and violent life of this poverty-stricken, illiterate killer.

During his 14 years of incarceration for the murder of his 74-year-old great aunt in 1959, Lepard would escape six times. Born in 1934 in rural Attala County, his life would end with a bullet in his chest 40 years later, during a smalltime robbery.

Boteler went on to finish college, have a family, and enjoy some colorful career turns (including stints as a deck hand on the Mississippi River and a rodeo hand in Colorado), along with clerking for the Mississippi Legislature and teaching construction technology and instrumental music in public schools. Today he enjoys building custom furniture.

You were kidnapped in 1968 at age 18 by Albert Lepard, an escaped convict from Parchman Penitentiary, who was serving time for murder charges. After contemplating the shock of this life-changing event for more than three decades, you finally decided to go in search of information about your kidnapper. Why at this time did you feel like you were ready to tackle this project?

Lovejoy Boteler

Actually, my wife said I should–must–write the story of my kidnapping, if for no other reason than to pass it down to our children. She has heard me tell the story to other folks at least a hundred times! So, the ‘spark was struck’ and I began remembering the events of that strange day, first through the old scrapbook my mother made of the newspaper articles, photos and the mysterious silver dollars left by the convicts in the glove box of the truck. Then through some basic archival research, one thing turned up another, and another, and ultimately, I discovered the life and crimes of the notorious prison escape artist, Lepard.

In your search for information about Lepard’s background, you found that he had grown up poor and illiterate, with an alcoholic father, and a mother he loved dearly but who died when he was only 13. Did any of this affect your feelings about him, and if so, how?

Discovering that Lepard had committed a brutal torch-murder of his elderly aunt certainly did nothing to endear him to me. In fact, it gave me an overwhelming sense of disgust, revulsion. However, as I gained a gradual understanding of his childhood circumstances–grinding poverty, physical cruelty, and crushing hopelessness–I began to feel sort of ambivalent about him, and that made me think in depth about the complexity of human nature, and specifically that of forgiveness.

Lepard broke out of Parchman Penitentiary six times during his incarceration there from 1959 to 1974. He had been charged with the spectacularly brutal murder of Mary Young. Can you tell us briefly how that came about?

Lepard and his cousin committed the ghastly murder of their great-aunt in an instance of berserk greed and near insanity. Both were captured, tried, and sentenced to life in prison at Parchman Penitentiary, and while his cousin Joe did “good time” and was paroled after 10 years, Lepard just couldn’t make himself do the time. He bolted every chance he got, and abducted me on his fifth, next-to-last, escape from Parchman.

Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard reveals that although Lepard had a violent nature, he lived by his own code of morality that ensured he would keep his word to someone, no matter what. What examples proved this side of his nature and what do you make of that?

The Lepard relatives that I interviewed always said that he was a ‘good boy’ when he was young and stayed close to home and hearth. Obviously, his life took a downward turn as an adult, but he displayed a loyalty to those he admired, or those who showed a certain respect for him. In a robbery, he would sometimes give an unlucky victim a few dollars back, if he felt they were the ‘under-dog.’ If he stole food or clothes from other poor folks, he might leave money for them to find later. He felt honor-bound to return from one of his escapes with weapons he had promised for certain Parchman inmates. I’ve wondered if he ever heard of Robin Hood, but thought probably not, given his illiteracy.

In what ways have you carried the fear of this assault with you through the years, and did researching and writing this book help you deal with those feelings?

Truthfully, I have not carried “fear” with me since the summer of 1968. Yes, the events of my kidnapping left indelible memories of that day, and I was shaken up for a while, but remember, I was an 18-year-old boy and the possibilities of life in the future soon brought back the youthful feeling of being invincible.

Talking to the 70 extraordinary people who make up the larger portion of the book–lawmen, ex-convicts, family members, and other victims just like me–helped me bring my own story full circle and allowed me a sense of closure on an eccentric slice of history.

Signed copies of Crooked Snakes: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard are still available at Lemuria’s online store.

Elvis intrigue infuses Philip Shirley’s ‘Graceland Conspiracy’ with energy

By Guest Author

On March 31, 2019

In Mystery

By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 31)

What if Elvis Presley’s death didn’t occur as thought at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977?

What if he was murdered by a rogue government agency? Or his death was faked and he’s still alive?

In a fast-paced page-turner, Philip Shirley weaves a tale of intrigue and nation-jumping that renews the debate over Elvis in the mystery novel The Graceland Conspiracy.

Shirley addresses questions and conspiracy theories that arose after the “death,” including: Why did the medical examiner’s report say Elvis was 170 pounds when there was ample film footage at the time showing him at well over 200 pounds?

“There was no shortage of theories about how Elvis might have died, or why, or who might have wanted him dead,” Shirley writes. One said flat-out that Elvis was part of a three-year undercover operation and the mob was out to get him before he could testify. “The only thing that was clear was that Elvis’ death created more conspiracy ideas than President Kennedy’s assassination.”

In Graceland, Shirley chooses the time for his novel as the lip of the millennium, in the final days of the Clinton administration, and before 9/11 in Birmingham. His protagonist, Matthew Boykin, 27, is drawn home there from a wasted life as a biker and pool hall denizen in Texas after his father dies in an unexplained car crash.

As his father is dying in the hospital, Boykin finds that he was perhaps not an “accountant” with a seemingly marginal Department of Justice branch called the National Security Enforcement Office (NSEO) years before an early retirement after Elvis’ “death.”

Boykin had left home seven years before as his father succumbed to alcoholism, raging at the world, and spending his days before a TV set with a bottle of whiskey by his chair. He only came home because a shadowy figure tracked him down in a bar and told him that his mother needed him.

Turns out, shortly before the car cash, his father had sobered up after years of trying to drown his remorse and shame over an event he witnessed that he would not name and was trying to make amends for it.

In a thriller that never slows its pace, Boykin vows to find the reason for his father’s death, the act that caused his spiraling into alcoholism, and to seek revenge in a saga that extends to Europe amid a trail of bodies. Along the way, he mends the wounds in his own life, finds love, and creates lasting friendships—ultimately, solving the mystery of Elvis’ “death.”

This is the sixth book for Shirley, who splits his time between Dauphin Island, Ala., and the Madison area, including two novels and a collection of short stories.

It’s a great read that’s sure to resurrect the Elvis debate anew.

Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at the Clarion Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.

Philip Shirley will be at Lemuria on Monday, April 1, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from The Graceland Conspiracy.

Dream come true becomes hellish nightmare in Peter Heller’s ‘The River’

By Guest Author

On March 26, 2019

In Fiction

By Paul Rankin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 24)

I once heard that suspense in a work of fiction should feel like watching a balloon expand steadily. Each detail, each new turn or development in the plot should function like another breath going in, applying another ounce of pressure as the skin swells and grows taut until at last it reaches the breaking point.
From the opening line of Peter Heller’s The River, when we read of how the main characters Jack and Wynn “had been smelling smoke for two days,” the balloon begins to inflate creating a long line of tension which will escalate more and more as the drama unfolds.

It is maybe the most threadbare cliché of all, but in this case also literally true: where there’s smoke there’s fire. And the fire is upwind. And the fire is ravenous. Devouring the forest on a collision course with the country our heroes must traverse in order to reach their destination.

And they are heroes in every best sense of the word, honest and upright, loyal to one another and their noble ideals, all of which will be put to the most strenuous test as the friends come in conflict with such elemental forces as fire and ice, howling winds and raging white water rapids as well as the colorful cast of human villains they encounter along the way. Add a damsel in distress to the mix, and you have all the ingredients for a thrilling page turner.

For all its powerful narrative momentum, however, the novel ultimately becomes a profound meditation on the inherent dignity of human life and a poignant celebration of the value of friendship. Initially drawn together by a host of shared affinities ranging from classic literature and cowboy stories to fly-fishing, paddling, rock climbing, and various other forms of wilderness exploration, Jack and Wynn finally present a study in opposites.

Raised in New England, “a country of brooks and rivers, ponds, lakes; a world of water,” Wynn is a 6’5” gentle giant with a penchant for “ephemeral art” and a generous spirit that prompts him to expect the best from every person or situation. Jack, by contrast, grew up on a Colorado ranch “in the heart of the Rocky Mountains…high desert, higher peaks” He is “the mean one,” compact, fierce, and practical with an engineer’s mind and a way of assessing each new situation with cold calculation. “Jack was comfortable with heights and exposure, Wynn loved to be immersed … and never minded the chaos of whitewater.”

While the differences lead to some playful banter and a few genuinely tense moments, the divergence brings each character into sharp relief, revealing the various ways the friends complement one another, achieving “a strong but delicate balance of risk versus caution.”

The trip itself consists of five long lake crossings with portages between plus a hard paddle north along the Maskwa River through rugged backcountry to the Cree village of Wapahk on the Hudson Bay. The friends both “hungered to immerse themselves in the country…to hike, to hunt…to forage for berries…to feel what it was actually like to live in the landscape.”

What seems like the chance of a lifetime and a dream come true quickly turns into a hellish nightmare, though, as the eerie combination of advancing fire and early freeze combines with a gradual accretion of human mischief to expand the balloon more and more hurtling the story forward even as the characters develop and deepen.

Reading this novel feels something like paddling a turbulent rapids—exhilarating, dangerous, and virtually impossible to stop once you’ve gotten caught up in its flow. The River deserves a place alongside Deliverance and even the likes of Huckleberry Finn and Heart of Darkness in the elite cannon of great riparian adventures.

Paul Rankin is a freelance writer and editor with an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. He lives with his family in Jackson where he is working on a novel and sundry other projects.

Lemuria has selected Peter Heller’s The River as its April 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Page 11 of 257

Author Q & A with Helen Ellis

Author Q & A with Ali Benjamin

Curl up with a middle grade mystery with Haddix’s ‘Greystone Secrets: The Strangers’

‘On the Come Up’ cements Angie Thomas’s powerful voice

Author Q & A with Shelby Harriel

Author Q & A with Nell Freudenberger

Janet Brown’s ‘Deadly Visits’ creates cold, creepy read

Author Q & A with Lovejoy Boteler

Elvis intrigue infuses Philip Shirley’s ‘Graceland Conspiracy’ with energy

Dream come true becomes hellish nightmare in Peter Heller’s ‘The River’

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