Andrew Hedglin – Page 2

Tag: Andrew Hedglin (Page 2 of 6)

by Andrew Hedglin

The first book that I fell in love with after I started working at Lemuria was Harrison Scott Key’s The World’s Largest Man, a memoir Key had written about his father. In addition to it simply being hilarious, it helped me contextualize the travails I’ve encountered when trying to write about my own family.

Key has returned with a metatextual sequel called Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, large parts of which detail the process of writing the first book. When Kelly, our store’s manager, first explained this concept to me, I was a little worried. Not because I thought the book wouldn’t be good (which it is, very good). But because I was worried that having to read another book first, in order to enjoy this one, seemed like a high barrier for entry. As in, the audience would naturally be a smaller piece of the initial audience.

But that’s not really true. What Key points out, early and often, is that this is not a book about his previous book. It’s about dreams.

The reason people could relate to his father-memoir is not that they knew Key’s own father personally, but that most people have had a father or father figure in their life. A story can hold up a mirror to our own experience.

Now, I’m a bookseller, and I love all the inside-baseball stuff here about how a book is made: the talk about the early morning coffee house writing, the publisher bids, the advance, the author tour, the Terry Gross king-making. I will personally treasure and adore for years to come a particularly exquisite and profane paragraph about the bookstore’s view of author events. Book people and wannabe writers will find lots here to enjoy.

But dreams come in all shapes and sizes. They have different rewards and consequences. What’s interesting here is how Key’s original dream was just to make people laugh, and it took him a while to figure out that writing a book was the method he would use to achieve that. When he fist made decisions to make this goal come true, he was thrust into roles such as acting, academia, and even fund-raising.

On the other side of having written his book, he has to deal with success. Which suddenly seems important, but was not part of the original plan to begin with. Where Key ends up, as with his last book, is surrounded by his wife and daughters (hilariously given the nicknames Stargoat, Beetle, and Effbomb here for their protection). I don’t think this is designed, but it’s not a coincidence, either. I imagine that for most of us, our loved ones have a way of ending up at into the center of our dreams.

So, if you have any kind of dream, I think this book is worth reading. Even if you’re not familiar with Key’s own dream, he’s got an amusing way of explaining it and casting that reflection back onto us, the readers.

Harrison Scott Key will be at Lemuria on Friday, November 9, at 5:00 to sign and read from Congratulations, Who Are You Again?

Stephen Markley’s ‘Ohio’ explores tragedy, nostalgia of early adulthood

By Former Lemurians

On October 1, 2018

In Fiction

By Andrew Hedglin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 30)

Stephen Markley’s gripping debut novel Ohio tells the story of events, both private and national, quotidian and shocking, that reverberate tragic consequences in the once seemingly-idyllic heartland of America.

On one fateful summer night in 2013, four former classmates are compelled to visit their struggling hometown of New Canaan, Ohio, after they thought they had left it behind for good.

Bill Ashcraft is a drug-addled, abrasive political activist on a mission to deliver a mysterious package. Stacy Moore is a thoughtful grad student, in town to meet with the disapproving mother of her high school love. Dan Eaton, an unassuming Iraq War veteran, has been convinced by his former fiancé to visit a gravely ill favorite teacher. Tina Ross, a big box-store worker who moved a few towns over, comes back to gain closure from a traumatic event.

The stars of the book, however, are the memories of those left behind: Rick, Bill’s childhood best friend and deceased Iraq War vet; Ben, who was Bill and Rick’s go-between friend and songwriter who died in a drug-related accident; Lisa, Bill’s girlfriend and Stacy’s best friend, presumably gone to look for her lost father in Vietnam; and Todd, Tina’s boyfriend and has-been football star, whose life has been sidetracked by poverty and poor choices.

The story is, at its core, about longing, love, and lost innocence, and for that, ghosts dominate the landscape.

There is no anchor scene in which the four main characters are together, but the story is tightly bound together by their collective experience, deftly portrayed in flashbacks from ten years earlier. While the narrative slowly builds, Markley is particularly adept at never quite tipping his hand as to where the story is going, leading to several crescendoing shocks. The contrivances needed to make this happen are relatively minor.

The pre-release publicity and certain subsequent reviews for this book like to talk about it in relation to the zeitgeist: this is what 9/11, the Iraq War, economic decline, and the opioid crisis have wrought.

Those cultural markers do feature heavily in the story, but they serve to enhance, not limit, the characters. National problems have personal consequence. Ohio is a human story, with timeless themes. How many generations have returned from war? For how many has the economy been robust? This novel could have been set in the 1970s with minimal alteration to the essence of the story or characters.

Even the town itself is claimed to be cursed, at least by its woebegone denizens. They say its misfortunes are the result of The Murder That Never Was. Less substantial than even a rumor, this urban legend is propagated by those have little evidence to support it. For the more cynical characters, such as Bill, the point of the theory is to make those whose repeat it feel elevated, as if their problems couldn’t be merely the results of a combination of larger forces and inner demons.

The experience of reading the novel, while melancholic, flows smoothly. It is occasionally buoyed by delicious dramatic irony, such as when characters stubbornly misremember or misinterpret relationships between characters, events in the high school parking lot, and the song lyrics of their dead friend and minor troubadour Ben Harrington.

The main characters are, at their core, primarily driven and deceived by love, some to greater detriment than others.

Each has the burden of heartbreak to show for it. And a broken heart is the price paid by the reader for sharing in their worthwhile story.

Andrew Hedglin is a bookseller at Lemuria and a life-long Jackson area resident.

Signed first editions of Ohio available here. Ohio was Lemuria’s September 2018 selection for our First Edition Club for Fiction.

Remarking on ‘An Absolutely Remarkable Thing’ by Hank Green

By Former Lemurians

On September 25, 2018

In Science Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

Hank Green, the author of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, is sort of famous. He is famous in the online video community, helping to create and host the educational YouTube series Crash Course and SciShow. He also has a YouTube channel and podcast with his older brother John Green, author of several successful YA novels, some of which have been turned into movies (you’ve probably heard of the The Fault in Our Stars, if you haven’t seen or read it, and didn’t know who created it.)

So, even if he’s not like famous like a pop star or president, he’s had occasion over the past decade or so to consider the ramifications of fame, celebrity, and influence in our culture. And he’s put these ideas to use in his smart, fun debut novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.

The hero of his novel is harried recent art school graduate, April May. On her way home from a late night at a demanding start-up app company, she passes by what she initially assumes is a fantastic, if neglected, art installation on the streets of New York. Sympathetic to the indifference this tall sculpture (which she nicknames “Carl”) receives from the public, she contacts her videographer friend Andy Skampt. They make a gag video, in which April “interviews” the statue, which they post online and stop thinking about.

Until the next day, when it is revealed that dozens of Carls have shown up simultaneously and spontaneously in almost every major city on Earth. The mystery of what, or who, these things are, how they got there, and what their purpose is occupies our heroes (and just about everybody else) for the rest of the book.

April finds herself thrust into the role of the “discoverer” of the Carls, and later spokeswoman for their benevolence. Of course, soon an opposition “Earth first” counter-movement called the Defenders springs up, led by the odious but seemingly credible Peter Petrawicki.

There’s great action, dialogue, characterization, and first-person narration in this novel, but even with all that, theme is this book’s strong suit. April, only in her early twenties, has to figure out who she is as a person while making decisions that could affect the future of the human race–both at the same time. Fame and celebrity distort her ability to see herself, her friends, or the Carls with the clarity that she needs. This book has a lot to examine about the nature of our contemporary–often online–discourse and the polarization of political opinion–all about a science fiction concept that does not (yet?) exist. The believability of what transpires seems to suggests that often what we argue about has less to do with the issue at hand, and more to do with something more basic in our natures.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is an exceptionally well-crafted debut that stands on its own, apart from his brother’s books or even his own other, previous creative work. I absolutely encourage you to pick up a copy of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and read for yourself what a remarkable book this is.

Signed first editions of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing are currently available at Lemuria.

Long Live Los Angeles: ‘The Mirage Factory’ by Gary Krist

By Former Lemurians

On July 18, 2018

In History, Nonfiction

by Andrew Hedglin

I fell in love with Gary Krist’s previous book, Empire of Sin: A Story of Jazz, Sex, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans, a couple of years ago when I was preparing for a short trip to the Big Easy. The next spring, I caught up on another of his books, City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to a Modern Chicago.

mirage factory I have come to the conclusion that Krist is the great pop urban historian of today. In lucid, well-researched prose, he tells not of great American city’s beginnings, but the genesis of the idea of that city–what each metropolis has to offer to the culture and popular imagination of this country. He returns this year with The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles.

More so than his previous two books, Krist structures The Mirage Factory around three seminal individuals. Each of these titans contributed to the incredible growth and out-sized influence of L.A that we know today. These three figures were William Mulholland, who built the Los Angeles Aqueduct, D.W. Griffith, who helped shaped the motion picture industry and directed its first (albeit highly problematic) blockbuster, and Aimee Semple McPherson, a wildly successful Pentecostal evangelist who helped establish the city as a place for alternative spiritual seeking.

L-R: Mulholland, Griffith, McPherson

My favorite sections were about the grit and glamour of nascent Hollywood, but McPherson also lived too interesting a life not to be magnetized by it. And while Mulholland’s sections might be the least enthralling, they are never dry, technical, or impossible to get through. Indeed, there is plenty of land intrigue such as that would inspire the story of Chinatown decades later. And the cataclysmic end to his career has to be experienced in full detail to be believed.

Los Angeles may not have the immediacy of New Orleans to those of us living in and around Jackson, but its story enthralls us because Los Angeles radiates an important portion the American dream: dreaming itself. The ability to remake your fortunes if you can only get there. After all, neither Mullholland, Griffith, nor McPherson was a native Angeleno. Mullholland and McPherson weren’t even from America.

At each turn, Krist emphasizes how these figures made what should not be possible, possible. Sometimes they accomplished this through illusion, such as in movies, or at great cost to those living around them, such as the aqueduct. But Krist is deft at reminding us of our country’s greatness, and the cost of that greatness. I myself thoroughly enjoyed my third trip into a bustling, alive American city at the dawn of the twentieth century with Krist as my guide.

The Mirage Factory is Lemuria’s August 2018 selection for our First Editions Club for Nonfiction. Gary Krist will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival Aug. 18 as a participant in the American History panel at 10:45 a.m. at the C-SPAN room in Old Supreme Court Room at the State Capitol.

Open a Book to the Open Road: ‘The Long Haul’ by Finn Murphy

By Former Lemurians

On July 12, 2018

In Biography/Memoir, Nonfiction

by Andrew Hedglin

I can already tell one of my deep regrets during my time here at Lemuria will be that I was not here when Finn Murphy came last October to promote his trucker memoir, The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tale of Life of the Road. He brought a rig with a custom decorative wrap on the trailer. It looked awesome. Alas, I was visiting my brother in Nashville at the time.

While I was preparing to take a road trip this summer and visit my other brother in Indianapolis, I unboxed Norton’s new releases only to find The Long Haul had just come out in paperback this June. I bought a copy to read on the road.

Murphy is not interesting in further mythologizing the trucker as seen in popular culture–your Smokey and the Bandit, your “Convoy.” He acknowledges that many other truckers are influenced by it, but he paints himself as both in and outside what brotherhood does exist.

It turns out that within trucking, Murphy explains, as with any other profession, there exists a myriad of castes and specialties to which a trucker can ascribe. While freight haulers dominate the popular imagination, Murphy establishes himself as a long-distance mover–and these days, one usually contracted to help VIP clients for big bucks.

This gives Murphy an unexpected vantage point: he certainly illuminates his world on the highway; I could see into the cabs of trucks from the Greyhound bus I was riding. Cummins, a diesel engine manufacturer whose existence I had spent decades being oblivious of, had a headquarters in Indianapolis that I noticed immediately upon arrival.

But here’s the funny thing: Murphy not only shows us his world, but shows us our world in a mirror. He drives through countless American towns decimated by sprawl and globalization, enters our homes for moving assignments, weary from materialism and impermanence. He ruminates on the economy and race. What makes this trucking tale so fascinating ultimately is its access to so many entrances and intersections into our larger culture.

This is not to say Murphy has written a philosophy book. It is first and foremost a story. Occasionally (literally) unbelievable, often uproarious (the piano story had me cackling), and filled with distinct and intriguing personas and characters, The Long Haul is the perfect book to read this summer when you’ve decided you need to get away for a while.

Piece by Piece: Anne Tyler’s ‘A Patchwork Planet’

By Former Lemurians

On June 7, 2018

In Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

I know that Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer Prize (in 1989, for Breathing Lessons), but I still believe that she doesn’t really get her due in the modern literary cannon. Her audience is probably half as large as it should be, probably because many men (wrongfully) don’t see her novels about untranquil domesticity as relevant to them. I feel this worry is short-sighted, because when her novels have male protagonists, she does not ask them “what does it mean to be a man?”, but “what does it mean to be a person?”

One such novel, A Patchwork Planet, (as well as Saint Maybe, one of my favorite novels ever and one I hope to write about on the blog some day soon) exhibits Tyler’s keen eye for characterization and humanity’s relentless search for a meaningful life.

I picked up A Patchwork Planet (originally published in 1998), for the first time twelve years ago, during my first year of college, and recently again in anticipation of the release of Tyler’s new novel, Clock Dance (coming out in July). As you might imagine, it read very differently during very different points in my life.

A Patchwork Planet tells the story of Barnaby Gaitlin, an underachiever from a wealthy family, who progressed from a mild juvenile delinquency to a manual labor job helping elderly people accomplish their household tasks. He’s divorced with a daughter he sees once a month, and rents a room in somebody else’s house.

In addition to laboring under a set of generalized expectations, Barnaby is also yoked with a very specific and peculiar expectation: that every Gaitlin heir will meet his angel and be provided with guidance, wisdom, and purpose, just as the family’s paterfamilias had, long ago, when Grandfather Gaitlin invented his mannequin that made the family fortune.

Barnaby thinks he might have met his angel, a strait-laced blonde bank manager named Sophia, on a train to Philadelphia. As usual, Barnaby manages to complicate his quick, clean encounter by getting involved with her. But then again, maybe everything seems to progressing forward in Barnaby’s life: he’s picking up more work, makes headway on a decade-old debt he owes his parents, and starts seeing Opal, his daughter, more frequently.

Then, Sophia’s Aunt Grace accuses Barnaby of theft after learning of his troubled past. Sophia tries to intervene, thinking she can help, but she only confirms her own secret distrust of Barnaby while supposedly trying to help. Barnaby soon has to figure out whether he is capable of change, or if he is merely defined by his past actions, even to new friends and acquaintances.

One thing I did struggle with during this book, one that isn’t often much of a problem in Tyler’s writing, is that Tyler does struggle a little bit to manifest a believable blacksheep. Barnaby drinks in moderation, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t curse, sleeps around a little bit but not a worrying amount; he is a genuinely good worker. He’s a disappointment relative to his opportunities, but he’s not quite the mess of a human being with a long list of bad habits he’d acquire in real life to merit such a soiled reputation.

Barnaby does have a yearning, however, to be a better person for the people around him, and it’s this quality that breathes life into his character. It’s also what makes him such a distinctly Tyler creation, another denizen of her Baltimore worlds that keeping bringing us back, making us look into ourselves and keep asking questions.

May the Force Read with You

By Former Lemurians

On May 4, 2018

In Science Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you. It’s been a busy year for Star Wars fans, with Solo coming out soon, Rebels just ending its four-year run, and The Last Jedi coming out last December.

What may have slipped past your radar, if even if you’re more of a Star Wars fan than not, are three fantastic books set in the galaxy far, far away that were released this last year. The books can serve as excellent jumping off points to the “Expanded Universe” of Star Wars, because, for different reasons, they absolutely don’t require (although they do reward) deep foreknowledge of much of the Star Wars universe.

The first book I would recommend, which ties in the Solo movie coming out on May 25, is Last Shot by Daniel José Older. The story follows Han Solo and Lando Calrissian and they face off, over the course of 20 years, with a demented doctor who plans to lead a droid uprising and wipe “organics” out of the galaxy.

Older has a tricky job to pull off with Last Shot, because we’re so used to the main characters (especially Han) that it’s easy to make a misstep and write dialogue or choices that don’t jibe with at least some reader’s conceptions of the characters. Overall, though, I feel he does a good job with both of them while integrating new characters, including another hotshot pilot, an Ewok hacker, and a Twi’lek love interest for Lando.

The story is less enthralling than the character work, but still serviceable. Structured like a mystery/thriller, the novel can sometimes get choppy, going back and forth between three or four different timelines. Ultimately, it gives the characters something to do while providing a real sense of danger and unease.

phasma The next movie-based genre-bender I’d like to recommend Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson. This book might be my favorite of the three. Captain Phasma is the chrome-plated stormtrooper who menaced and glowered throughout the first two films of the sequel trilogy. If you’ve seen The Force Awakens, you know everything you really need to in order to enjoy this book.

Phasma sort of fills a very Boba Fett-type role in the new trilogy. She looks fierce and awesome, she is shrouded in-universe by myth and reputation, and…well, if you’ve seen either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, she shares one other disappointing trait with Fett as well.

Nevertheless! If it’s myth and reputation you’ve come for, this excellent origin novel by Dawson crackles with danger and menace. She wasn’t always a faceless servant to the First Order. A scant few years ago, she led a brutal life on the failing planet of Parnassos. She and her brother Keldo jointly rule a small band of survivalists called the Scyre [pronounced SKYur], until one day General Brendol Hux of the First Order falls from the sky in a damaged ship. Everything changes for Phasma and her small but deadly band of warriors as they risk everything to return Hux to his ship so they can, ostensibly, reap the beneficence that the First Order is able bestow upon them in the form of advanced technology.

Phasma shows a side of the Star Wars universe that is typically ignored by the flashier parts of the franchise. Some aliens species do exist on Parnassos, but most of the space-age technology is even more unfamiliar to them to than it would be to us. Phasma is a post-apocalyptic road novel as much as it is a part of the Star Wars universe. You can see Phasma’s character development from cave-dweller to the silver-suited character that you see on the silver screen, but it’s her personality that shines in this tale, not her later shiny accouterments.

The other book I have to recommend, which relies heavily on its movie source material, is From a Certain Point of View, an anthology of 40 short stories that retell the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV: A New Hope, even though the title is taken from Obi-Wan’s line in Return of the Jedi). Released in honor of the 40th anniversary of that movie’s release, each of its protagonists are either minor or unseen characters that provide fresh perspective on the story we see onscreen. It also includes a story apiece from both Delilah Dawson and Daniel José Older.

The tone and quality of the stories do vary wildly, but when they are good, they’re really good. Some of funny, some are serious, but at best they really expand the universe and make it feel lived-in. Some of favorites were about a random Jawa who decided not to erase R2-D2’s memory, and observing the final moments of Alderaan from the queen’s point of view on its surface, and the circuitous hi-jinks of the motley cantina crew, and the toll the mission to blow up the Death Star took on regular, anonymous members of the Rebel Alliance flight crews.

From a Certain Point of View takes you back to the start, completing a circuit of wonder and awe, that I, and surely many other Star Wars fans, were looking for when we first made our trip into outer space.

The Clue is in the Cards: ‘Bluff’ by Michael Kardos

By Former Lemurians

On April 5, 2018

In Mystery

by Andrew Hedglin

I am not a card sharp. When I was in middle school, my nickname was “Ace” (a play on my initials), which made me fascinated with the look of playing cards. Also, I play a pretty mean game of double solitaire. But I am not a card sharp.

bluff Still, the aforementioned interest in card iconography made the cover of Bluff by Michael Kardos an alluring draw, so deciding to judge a book by its cover, I picked up an advanced copy with anticipation and was not disappointed.

Natalie Webb is a professional close-up magician, already washed-up by the ripe old age of 27. While still immensely talented, she has burned bridges with the gatekeepers at the upper echelon of her profession. And when a frustrating holiday magic show goes dangerously wrong, Natalie finds herself in financial and legal limbo.

What begins as a journalistic investigation into cheating at private poker games soon leads to a bigger–and riskier–opportunity with an enigmatic partner who Natalie can only hope is trustworthy enough to hitch her wagon to her star. But the characterization of Natalie as a complex person is as integral to this thriller as the plot. Her inner drive for greatness is as big an inducement to joining her partner’s devious plan as any financial gain.

Bluff is told from a likable, almost breezy, first-person perspective. But it is not afraid to go a little dark, either in its backstory or its denouement. The ending, without giving anything away, has some wicked sleight-of-hand that would make its main character jealous. Kardos, the author of Before He Finds Her and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State, has studied and mastered the mystery genre, and added a little magic to it as well.

Michael Kardos will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, April 24, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from Bluff.

The Spectacular Perils of Grace: ‘Anatomy of a Miracle’ by Jonathan Miles

By Former Lemurians

On March 15, 2018

In Fiction, Southern Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

“The secret to a happy ending,” Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers once sang, “is knowing when to roll the credits.”

Cameron Harris was a one-time high-school football phenom in Biloxi who lost his mother in a car accident, and then nearly lost his home to Hurricane Katrina. He enlisted in the Army, only to be paralyzed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. In what can only be described as a miracle, he suddenly regains the ability to walk four years later. The Catholic church begins an investigation to certify this as an official miracle and a reality television show is soon set to premiere about Cameron’s new life.

Any feature journalist or newspaper reporter worth his or her salt would stop the narrative right there. But he novelist Jonathan Miles, in his new faux documentary Anatomy of a Miracle, knows this story is just beginning.

Cameron’s miracle sets into motion a chain of outwardly expanding satellites struggling to make sense of this cosmic anomaly, to figure out what it could mean to live in a world where miracles might be real. First, there is Cameron’s 91 year-old black neighbor Eulalie Dooley who needs him to pray for her grandson. Then it spreads to Lê Quynh and Hat, the financially-strapped Vietnamese immigrants who own the convenience store wherein Cameron gets healed and who stand to benefit from the resulting publicity. Next, to Dr. Janice Lorimar-Cuevas, Cameron’s rational, skeptical VA doctor who is on the emotional run from her fabulist Delta father. On to Scott T. Griffin, the Southern mythos-obsessed reality television producer who knows a great story when he sees one. And further, to Euclide Abbsscia, the bemused Vatican investigator who is hired to find out the circumstances that surround Cameron’s miracle and his past. The ripples go ever onward and over Cameron and his devoted older sister and caretaker, Tanya.

If that sounds like a lot of names to keep up with, don’t worry. Miles fastidiously constructs all the characters in this community of Cameron. They all have complex histories and motivations. Characterization and setting are perhaps this finely crafted novel’s forte.

Cameron has always had a private, repressed personality, so the spotlight only begins to settle on him when his status as a spiritual celebrity is interrupted by a very public bar fight captured by the TV cameras. Cameron then is forced to reckon with his biggest secret that will threaten not only his own reputation, but the faith of many others looking to him.

Anatomy of a Miracle is a fantastic story that continually managed to surprise me. Just as I thought I had figured out what type of book I was reading, the story shifted to encompass something else. It always returned to Cameron as its axis, though. I would recommend this book especially to fans of The Nix by Nathan Hill.

I think the image I’ll keep coming back to, as its most lasting impression, is toward the very end, when Cameron visits his local parish priest Father Ace. Cameron is trying to negotiate a truce between himself and the church (and, symbolically, the public) that had drawn him in close as a sign of God’s work, then spat him back out as imperfect. Although unsuccessful, Cameron at least manages to draw a truce between himself and his very nature, defiantly and finally proclaiming his wholeness:

He wheeled around and faced the open church door, the flooded veins of his neck surging. “I’m not living in a state of grace?” he said aloud, unconsciously shifting from foot to foot in a defiant shuffle-step every one of his lower body’s nerves thrumming and twitching his voice climbing from a choke to a shout. “I’m not? I’m not?”

Jonathan Miles will be Lemuria on Tuesday, March 20, at 5:00 to sign and read from Anatomy of a Miracle. Anatomy of a Miracle is one of Lemuria’s two March 2018 selections for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

‘Hidden History of Jackson’ educates, haunts, inspires

By Former Lemurians

On February 20, 2018

In Southern History

by Andrew Hedglin

I’ve lived almost almost all of my life in the Jackson area, but by my own admission, I know too little of its rich history. In fourth grade, I took a Mississippi history class, but at a private school in the suburbs, the curriculum wasn’t concerned with teaching much about Jackson, or anything especially problematic.

hidden history jxn Perhaps others among you received a more comprehensive education at your own schooling or by your own volition, but for anybody who considers themselves a true Jacksonian, I cannot recommend highly enough Josh Foreman and Ryan Starrett’s Hidden History of Jackson. It’s published by the History Press, purveyors of, among other tomes of local history, 2016’s well received The Civil War Siege of Jackson by Jim Woodrick.

Hidden History goes out of its way to deny itself as a comprehensive chronicle, but even at a slim 144 pages of text (several more pages of well-documented sources follow the narrative itself), the book is packed with Jackson history at moments fraught with consequence. Reading it, you will come across the men with names that continue to label our shared landscape: LaFleur, Hinds, Dinsmore, Manship, Galloway, and (shamefully) Barnett. It even details the area’s encounters with its namesake, Andrew Jackson himself.

Foreman and Starrett prove themselves up to the historian’s task, documenting with primary sources and searching for the truth, whether it glorifies, damns, or merely humanizes its subjects. Of particular interest to me were the sections of Jackson’s founding as a trading post near the Natchez Trace, its prohibition battles preceding the nation’s own, Theodore Bilbo’s plan to relocate the state’s main universities all to Jackson, and a soulful coda about one of Jackson’s unassuming treasures, Malaco Records.

Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” was recorded on Northside Drive at Malaco Records

Hidden History weaves in tales of the Choctaws, confederates, churchmen, criminals, civil engineers, and civil rights champions that helped shaped Chimneyville into what it has become today. If you have been around long enough to remember personally much of the last section (detailing the civil rights struggle and the Easter flood of 1979), it will give you a chance to revisit where your personal history and the city’s itself converge. Perhaps the book’s greatest achievement is to re-kindle my interest in the history of my hometown. I urge all of you to pick up a copy of Hidden History of Jackson and experience the stories that Jackson contains for yourself.

Josh Foreman and Ryan Starrett will be at Lemuria on Saturday, February 24, to sign copies of Hidden History of Jackson. Copies can be ordered and pre-ordered at Lemuria’s online store.

Tag: Andrew Hedglin (Page 2 of 6)

He Dreamed a Dream: ‘Congratulations, Who Are You Again?’ by Harrison Scott Key

Stephen Markley’s ‘Ohio’ explores tragedy, nostalgia of early adulthood

Remarking on ‘An Absolutely Remarkable Thing’ by Hank Green

Long Live Los Angeles: ‘The Mirage Factory’ by Gary Krist

Open a Book to the Open Road: ‘The Long Haul’ by Finn Murphy

Piece by Piece: Anne Tyler’s ‘A Patchwork Planet’

May the Force Read with You

The Clue is in the Cards: ‘Bluff’ by Michael Kardos

The Spectacular Perils of Grace: ‘Anatomy of a Miracle’ by Jonathan Miles

‘Hidden History of Jackson’ educates, haunts, inspires

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