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

[In the 1997 tobacco settlement] “. . . Big Tobacco would pay out $368 million to compensate for health costs related to smoking.” (page 65)

“The total amounts coming to Scruggs seemed incalculable. Some news accounts had him getting as much as $848 million . . . ” (Page 65)

“Looking back on the period a few years later, Scruggs would tell a friend, ‘The money was obscene. Nobody thought we’d make money like this. It was a frenzy.'” (page 65)

“. . . Scruggs had been given a title: King of Torts. It complimented his college nickname, Zeus, king of the gods.” (page 66)

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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My first connection with Caroline Herring was spending several summers together at Camp DeSoto. I was a counselor, she a camper but I remember her sweet, shy smile and long blond hair. Several years later, I was visiting DeSoto and she was there, on staff, and was in charge of the singing!

I don’t recall hearing her sing alone until years later when she was in Oxford and doing Thacker Mountain Radio. She was still shy and sweet but she was developing a sense of strength and poise that comes with genuine talent. Her winsomeness was tempered with a fierce determination to be heard and people have been listening ever since. Caroline Herring has grown into being an acclaimed artist; an incredibly gifted songwriter and a southern voice that has a way of slipping into one’s mind and never leaving! To see her now, I am so proud and quite amazed at her progression. She is a treasure whose time has come. Caroline has worked to be where she is and I, for one, am thrilled to know an artist of her caliber–pure gold inside and out.

I will use her own words to convey my feelings:

From “Fair and Tender Ladies”:

You write about a place so dear
In all its good and evil
A loving cup, an aching scar
You need no thread and needle
To sew your name into your clothes
Or hem a ragged line
All muscular and luminous
Oh, heroine of mine

-Norma

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

Editor Neil White will be signing at Lemuria on  Thursday, October 28th.

Purchase a copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

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

“. . . [Mike] Moore built name recognition by challenging the Jackson County [Pascagoula] Bosses.”

“One of them was the legendary Eddie Khayat, known on the Gulf Coast as ‘The Godfather’ long before Francis Ford Coppola made his sequence of movies with that name. Not only was Khayat the president of the Jackson County Board of Supervisors, but he had long led the statewide association of supervisors, acting as chief representative for their interests in the state legislature. He was the ultimate insider, a fixture in the vast political constellation established by Senator James Eastland.” (8)

After Hurricane Frederick, Khayat “deployed county workers and public equipment to clear private property, repair private roads, and install culverts contrary to law. It was the old-fashioned approach to government, but the new district attorney, Mike Moore, found it unacceptable and was willing to confront the system.” (9)

“Moore indicted Khayat on eight counts of misusing public property . . . Khayat fought the charges for a while, but in the end, he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor…” (9-10)

“[Scruggs’s] homeroom teacher [ninth grade] turned out to be the Godfather’s son, Robert Khayat . . . (21) In a way, Khayat, eight years older, represented the big brother Scruggs never had. Dickie called Khayat ‘Coach’. He used the honorific for decades . . .” (22)

“Appealing for leniency from Judge Biggers, the Scruggs Law Firm defendants mobilized a letter-writing campaign among their friends.” (314)

“. . . the letter that generated the most interest came from Scruggs’s old friend Robert Khayat. Writing on the university’s letterhead stationery, Khayat cited Scruggs’s ‘compassion and generosity’ and ended with a proposal:

‘It is my belief that any time he spends being incarcerated is an absolute waste of a great deal of talent and ability. He has much to offer society and is a public-spirited person. Furthermore, it would appear to be a waste of tax payers’ money. Punishment is relative to the individual. A man such as Dick has been amply punished by the loss of his profession and public stature.'” (315)

The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie goes on sale October 19th.

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)

“As they plotted into 1994, word of the plan to use Mississippi’s Medicaid program as the fulcrum for their [tobacco] lawsuit spread among politicians in the state, and it did not meet unanimous approval.” (page 52)

[Charlie Capps, legislator for Bolivar County]: “The state is not going to pay for a single pencil.”

[Mike Moore, Attorney General]: “You see how much help we’re going to get from the state.”

“Scruggs called P. L. Blake and told him, ‘We don’t want a rear-guard attack by this group.’ He promised to pay Blake ‘to keep his eyes and ears open.’

“For good measure, Scruggs called Steve Patterson . . . Scruggs wanted Patterson to stay on top of things, to serve as a back channel, passing on information quietly.” (page 53)

The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie goes on sale October 19th.

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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