The following is an excerpt from Madison County Magazine.
Lemuria embarked on a bold endeavor a couple of years ago when John Evans suggested to photographer Ken Murphy that they create a book on Jackson in the same classic style as Ken’s previous books: My South Coast Home, Mississippi, and Mississippi: State of Blues. Lemuria had never published a book before, but we wanted to contribute to our community. What better way than to publish a book? When Ken began submitting photographs of downtown Jackson I could not help but remember Eudora Welty’s recollection of the first time her family went to the top of the Lamar Life Building:
“When the new Lamar Life Building was going up, I remember my father, who in those years was General Manager of the company, taking the greatest pride and a daily exhilaration in the workmanship of it. No wonder he was proud of the beauty of what was happening. I think he felt its climax was the clock; but all the way up to that tower he personally loved and endorsed every stone that was laid, every gargoyle that peeped forth from the various stages . . . My father led the whole family by the fireescape, a romantic climb; and it was lovely and worth every step to stand on the roof where the tar was just hard enough to receive our weight, and the clock just as close as your hand, and to look out at the wonderful and unfamiliar view of Jackson, seen for the first time as a whole, in one sweep.” -Eudora Welty from “A Salute from One of the Family” Lamar Life Insurance Company, Tower of Strength in the Deep South: 50th Anniversary 1906-1956.
Even if our contribution is not as grand as the Lamar Life Building, we know the pride that grows when we contribute to our community. Whether it be the St. Paddy’s Day Parade or Fondren Unwrapped or familiar neighborhood hangouts, like Bully’s or Brent’s, these scenes come from the hard work and creativity of Jackson’s people, who make it a wonderful place to live. Put yourself on the page and support Jackson’s culture through your time and your patronage to our many local businesses, museums, landmarks and parks. While our homes are scattered across the metro area, our support of each other will grow the vibrancy of the entire region.
Please join us on August 5 at 5:00 at Lemuria as we launch Jackson: Photographs by Ken Murphy.
Written by Lisa Newman
Madison County Magazine is Madison County’s only lifestyle publication covering the arts, culture and entertainment and covers events and areas all over the state of MIssissippi.
Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!
story line, in great fashion. The writing does the job, but it is the story is just spectacularly done: great world building and characters that you care so much about that putting down the book becomes so difficult that you should just go to the doc before starting it to get a catheter installed. Brett never gets bogged down in trivialities, yet you are given a thoroughly detailed imagining of everything. Think Robert Jordan at his very best, without any of the boring meandering, and more realistic toward the darker parts of life. A lot more gritty. Sort of like Jordan and Joe Abercrombie mixed.
series by Scott Lynch. If not, it’s high time you jump into this rollicking tale of thievery and witty dialogue. Think Ocean’s 11 heist, the grit of Game of Thrones, set in a world where there are cities created by an ancient people that had some powerful magic.
If you’re not familiar with Elizabeth Spencer’s work, now is a wonderful time to get to know one of Mississippi’s most highly regarded writers. I have the opportunity at Lemuria to work with many fine first editions. If I am unfamiliar with an author this is a great way to put my mind to the time when the books came out. Each first edition carries the artwork, marketing and language of that era. And so I pulled out some of the first editions of Elizabeth Spencer we have at Lemuria. Maybe you have some in your library at home?
I decided to investigate The Voice at the Back Door: A Novel. Elizabeth Spencer is well known for her short stories, but The Voice was intriguing to me since it had been recommended for the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, though the prize was never awarded to anyone at all. Additionally, the book addresses the racial tensions of the South. It was a brave book to write in 1956. 
Edward? What does he mean to Patricia and Boyd? Where has he been and why? The story is just full of this subtle suspense — almost dread. A family that can’t really talk about their history, their problems? How Southern is that.
Cereus Readers book club meets on the fourth Thursday of every month. Unless otherwise stated, the book club meets in the Lemuria’s Dot Com building. We always welcome newcomers and no previous reading experience of Eudora Welty is required.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (Houghton Mifflin edition, introduction by Eudora Welty)
THURSDAY, MARCH 27 AT NOON:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 AT NOON:
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23 AT NOON:
This is a reading group open to all level of readers–anyone interested in learning about Jackson’s most important writer. Eudora Welty considered Lemuria her bookstore, and we want to honor her by discussing her books and authors she loved–meeting in the store where she shopped and signed her books.
“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up with themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them–with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”
This Saturday, December 7th, we will celebrate our love of the physical book and the books of Eudora Welty from 2:00-4:00.
We’re calling Saturday Welty Day. We hope you’ll join us in the spirit of community, in the very community Miss Welty loved so much.