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Author Q & A with Karl Marlantes

On August 11, 2019

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 11)

Karl Marlantes says his penchant for writing long novels comes naturally: he has much to tell through his stories and the undercurrents he masterfully weaves just below the surface.

His latest case in point is his second novel, Deep River, which fills more than 700 pages as it winds its way through the tale of three sibling Finnish immigrants in early 20th century America.

His award-winning debut novel, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, was a New York Times bestseller that also had much to say, as Marlantes draws on his own experiences as a highly decorated U.S. Marine during that conflict; and his autobiographical What It Is Like to Go to War explores his personal impressions on war.

An Oregon native, Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he now lives in rural Washington.

What influenced your interest in history (in general), and the specific time and location of Deep River, set in the Pacific Northwest from 1893 to 1932?

Karl Marlantes

I’ve always loved reading history. It provides great lessons for anyone who cares to think about what has gone on before. One of the quotes in my non-fiction book, What It Is Like to Go to War, is from Otto von Bismarck: “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” That time period was also interesting to me because it was, in my opinion, the time of most dramatic change. My grandmother went from no electricity, no running water, horses and buggies, to freeways and landing on the moon. The question of how to adapt in a human and loving way to changing technology is still with us, and still inadequately answered.

The book chronicles the saga of two brothers and a sister who are forced to leave their farming life in Finland and migrate to a logging and fishing community in Washington state to escape the harsh Russian occupation of their homeland. The siblings come to America with differing dreams and personalities: there is Aino, the activist who was introduced to socialism at age 13 by her teacher; Ilmari, a blacksmith with dreams of church building; and Matti, the fortune-seeker. Tell us briefly about each of these characters, and their ultimate roles in the novel.

All of us adopt a stance toward life, based on such things as character, aptitude, and what happened to us as we were growing up. Kierkegaard refers to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. These stances are how we deal with such imponderables as our own death and destiny.

Aino is an atheist–she firmly believes no one is coming to help, so we must build heaven on earth, in her case through communism and then the IWW (International Workers of the World). Her brother Matti learns early that rich people suffer much less than poor people. He is like many Americans who think we can just take out an insurance policy against mortality by driving virtually indestructible SUVs to soccer games. Ilmari is traditionally religious. There is a heaven, and we’ll all get there, but in the meanwhile, there are some serious unanswered questions, like why some children suffer and go to heaven just like the ones who don’t. He moves from traditional Christianity to an amalgam of Christianity and mysticism, which has been my own spiritual journey.

The characters are also highly influenced by their counterparts in The Kalevala. Aino who refuses marriage to an older man through suicide; Matti, hot-headed Lemminkäinen; Ilmari, the powerful blacksmith; Ilmarinen, who forged the magic sampo, the mill that grinds out eternal bounty; and Jouka, who echoes Joukahainen, the celebrated minstrel.

Explain “sisu” and its importance in the lives of the characters in Deep River.

Sisu is what won The Winter War of 1939 against the overwhelming might of the Russian army. As a child, if I fell and hurt myself and even started to whimper, my mother or grandmother would ask, “Where’s your sisu?” I would find it and not whimper. It’s courage, stubbornness, stoicism, many such traits combined and very hard to define.

In the lives of my characters, it is a major force in surviving, getting done what must be done to put food on the table, standing up against odds that any reasonable person would run from. Sisu is not reasonable. And, as Vasutäti points out, it is not always applicable.

Along with your debut book Matterhorn, you are developing a reputation for lengthy, robust narratives that fully develop your characters, their timelines and their settings–and both are packed with historical details and sweeping landscapes. Did you set out to produce epic works (that would rise so quickly to bestseller status), or did your stories just work themselves out to be generous volumes?

I swear I’ll correct that image with my next novel, but then again, stories tend to just keep happening to me while I’m writing. I never set out to write epic works. I do know, however, that among my favorite novels are War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Brothers Karamazov, all hefty volumes. As a reader, I like to get into a world, and if the writing is good, feel disappointed when I leave it. So, in that respect, long novels are good. I am also much taken by true epics, the “Táin Bó Cúailnge” of the Irish, the “Song of Roland” of the French, “The Iliad and Odyssey” of the ancient Greeks, “The Aeneid of the Romans,” and “The Kalevala of the Finns.”

Many reviews note that Deep River is, in part, somewhat of a comment on today’s political state in America. Could you address that?

The two major protagonists, Aksel and Aino, are almost allegorical figures for this tension in American political life between the collective and the individual. We seesaw between the two, The Great Society followed by Ronald Reagan. The Roaring Twenties followed by The New Deal.

Aksel and Aino both learn that they need each other to make it through life. It’s called compromise, something we have lost in today’s political scene. There are many parallels between the time of the novel and now, not even remotely allegorical: wars being fought that involved no immediate threat to our own security, opposition to those wars being characterized as unpatriotic, giving up individual privacy and freedom to the Espionage Act of 1917, which was sold to protect us from “bolshevism” and used to crush the IWW in the name of national security, and the Patriot Act of today, which was sold to protect us from terrorists and justified by the same reasoning, horrible income inequality, the struggle to make a living wage, the unconscious destruction of our natural environment, the problems associated with immigration, false stories in biased newspapers, all compounded by a feckless federal government.

Karl Marlantes will be at the Lemuria on Wednesday, August 14, at 5:00 to sign and read from Deep River. Lemuria has selected Deep River as its August 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

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Marlantes will also appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 in coversation with Tom Franklin and Kevin Powers at 12:00 p.m. at State Capitol Room 113.

Hailman’s ‘Foreign Missions’ is a fast-paced world tour through eyes of a federal prosecutor

By Guest Author

On August 9, 2019

In Biography/Memoir, Law, Travel

By Charlie Spillers. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 4)

Early in Foreign Missions of an American Prosecutor, author John Hailman refers to himself as an “old traveler looking back on his life.” He then takes readers along on a fascinating and incredible journey.

Hailman’s fifth book gives us a world filled with adventures, romances, and intrigue he experienced during a lifetime of international travels, beginning as a university student living in France. Traveling the world later as a representative for the U.S. Justice Department, Hailman encountered criminals and conspiracies, including a plot in Ossetia, Georgia, to hijack his helicopter and kidnap him. He brings these adventures to life in this engaging and exciting book.

In 1991, the Justice Department established its own Foreign Service, a unit named Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development and Training, known by its acronym, OPDAT, and Mississippi’s John Hailman became its top diplomat.

It’s easy to understand why he was selected for a leading international role. The U.S. Ambassador in Tunisa said it best in a letter commending Hailman: “With his excellent language skills, vast experience, and personal charm and candor, Mr. Hailman has been warmly and respectfully welcomed into Tunisian circles.” With those attributes he was well-received throughout his foreign missions. Hailman was also a skilled lawyer with a brilliant legal mind and a diplomat’s fine tact, which made him effective in promoting the rule of law. These were important missions that could influence a nation’s legal system.

Worldly and sophisticated, fluent in French, and a nationally recognized wine expert, Hailman is also a skilled writer. This passage from a mission to Switzerland is a prime example of the author’s incomparable experiences and vivid descriptions:

My own two weeks in Switzerland were probably most memorable for the several days I spent in their deliberately simple, primitive mountain dwellings in the Alps in January with Inspector Billant and his detectives, where the only heat was from wood-burning fireplaces and where we drank fine, clear, icy water from snow-melt. Those were . . . rustic retreats where we had simple but magnificent meals from local sheep, goats, and cattle: dried beef with white gravy, pots of delicious cheese fondue, and raclette with bright nights deep in the snow of the Alps.

Raclette is a national Swiss dish consisting of cheese melted over a fire and then scraped onto bread or boiled potatoes. Reading the passage, one can almost feel the chilled air, see the beautiful mountains, and taste the hearty dishes.

This book is actually a memoir in two parts, with the second describing his international missions. The first part details Hailman’s adventures and romances as a young man studying in Paris, living with a French model, visiting London with a beautiful Parsee, his colorful exploits in Algeria, tending bar on the island of Mallorca and the Greek islands, and working for Air France to entertain clients in exotic locales. It’s a life most could only dream about.

Hailman’s fluency in French was an essential element of his early and later success. As a young man he lived in Paris for two years studying at the Sorbonne. His studies may have suffered, however, because during that time he became a gigolo to wealthy Parisian women. That may have been early training in diplomacy and delicate international relations. Fortunately, he continued to pursue international relations on a different level for the Justice Department.

And happily for readers he recounts an amazing life in this well-written and captivating memoir.

Charlie Spillers is the bestselling author of Confessions of An Undercover Agent: Adventures, Close Calls and the Toll of a Double Life. and Whirlwind: A Frank Marsh Novel. His next book, Flashpoint: A Frank Marsh Novel, will be released soon. He’ll moderate the panel “Crime and the Law” at the Mississippi Book Festival.

John Hailman will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Crime and the Law” panel at 4:00 p.m. at the State Capitol Room 201 H.

Author Q & A with Lisa Howorth

By Guest Author

On August 4, 2019

In Fiction, Southern Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 4)

Oxford’s Lisa Howorth combines a humorous twist with the looming realities of an America on the cusp of the 1960s in her sophomore novel, Summerlings.
Set in 1959 and narrated by 8-year-old John, the story centers around the boy’s world during a summer he would never forget: at once a carefree season spent planning shenanigans with his friends, but living with his grandparents and missing his parents, longing to make his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., a more friendly place to live, and surviving an unexplainable spider infestation that has taken over his town.

Lisa Howorth

Howorth’s narrative makes a case for more than a few obvious comparisons of the America of 60 years ago with today’s social and political climate–with a bit of nostalgia thrown in.

The Washington, D.C. native and former librarian is also the author of the novel Flying Shoes, as well as stories about art, travel, dogs and music that have appeared in the Oxford American, Garden & Gun, and other publications.

Howorth and husband Richard are the founders of Square Books in Oxford.

Summerlings packs a lot of grown-up worries into a heartfelt story about the summer of 1959 for close childhood friends and neighbors growing up in Washington, D.C. There are social and political alignments left over from World War II, the heartbreak of divorce–in a time when it was an anomaly–and the Cold War that reinforced suspicions of neighbors against each other. Since you grew up in Washington, D.C., does the setting of this story align itself with your own memories and feelings about that time and place?

Yes–absolutely! The fictional setting of Summerlings is very similar to the ‘hood of my early childhood–Chevy Chase at the District line. It didn’t really occur to me until late in life that mine was an intriguing and unusual neighborhood; typical for D.C., but for nowhere else. To us kids, of course, it was just our ‘hood, and the Washington we knew.

The story is narrated main character John, who, at 8, has his hands full with his parents’ divorce, his mother’s extended hospital stays for what he is told is a case of tuberculosis, a neighborhood bully, a spider plague of Biblical proportions, and a plan to make his neighborhood a friendlier place. As played out with his best friends Ivan, Max, and Beatriz, John’s assessments of his day-to-day challenges often reveal a degree of wisdom beyond his years, always tempered by the judgment of a child. In many ways, the story reminds us that each generation faces its own share of grave problems. What is it about John that reveals his resilience despite his problems?

The story is narrated by John as an adult looking back. As an 8-year-old, he does have a degree of wisdom beyond his years, as traumatized children do. Also like such children, he’s resilient, because what choice do kids have? John understands that his world is shaped by the incomprehensible–and sometimes cruel–actions of adults, but he has no power and must navigate the best he can, resigned to his belief that “the world is the weirdest place on earth.”

There is a fleeting scene in the story in which John’s mother is home for a brief visit, and the family sits down for dinner. He calls it “heartwarming,” and says “I was content. We were like a normal family.” Why was this such an important experience for him?

John is bereft of both parents and he longs for them, especially his mom. When she briefly returns from St. Elizabeth’s, he’s so happy, reveling in her attention and love, and hoping her “TB” is cured. And most kids want stability and normalcy–whatever that is–in their family life, and he’s able to briefly feel that. Unfortunately, as you say, his comfort is fleeting, not even lasting through their crab cake dinner.

The spider plague of that summer was like no other, and was a great equalizer that ensured a common suffering among the city’s residents – and even IT carried political suspicions. Explain the spider plague for readers.

I created the spider plague because I thought it would be fun to capture the goofiness of kids with their collecting obsessions, and would also make the adults seem a little ridiculous with their own obsessions in the Cold War years: the plague must be another plot by the Soviets to “bury” us, as Khrushchev famously said.

Also, I love writing about the natural world in a place, and I’m crazy about E.O. Wilson’s memoir, Naturalist, particularly about his Alabama childhood collecting bugs. By the way, Wilson’s mentor was Marion R. Smith, a myrmecologist (a scientist who studies ants) who worked in Mississippi and D.C. and has a cameo in Summerlings.

John laments late in the story that children are constantly being told, “You’ll understand when you’re older,” yet they are faced with problems they must process at the moment. In what ways does this entire story, which took place 60 years ago, remind us that some things never change–and what can we learn from that?

Well, I think I make it clear that the issues of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s resonate strongly today, most obviously the ongoing concern with Russia. When I began writing this book, I didn’t really set out to make this a strong theme, but the more I researched, the more I found: 60 years ago, Khrushchev vowed publicly to interfere in our elections, they were poisoning people, refugees were being turned back from the U.S., and we all feared Communism and nuclear war.

But there’s also, I think, a way to see things positively: things appear to be terrible, but we do come through. At least so far! And on a lighter note, it was fun to write about how exciting and pervasive the music and films of the ‘50s were, too–we still cherish all that, remembering the iconic lyrics and scenes. The good things also last.

Lisa Howorth will be at the Eudora Welty House on Wednesday, August 7, at 5:00 to sign and read from Summerlings. Lemuria has selected Summerlings as its July 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

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Howorth will also appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Southern Fiction” panel at 2:45 p.m. at the Galloway Fellowship Center.

Roger Stolle’s ‘Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential’ goes straight to the source of blues music

By Guest Author

On August 2, 2019

In Blues, Southern Culture

By DeMatt Harkins. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 28)

Over the past century, blues music has evolved while nonetheless retaining its core elements and purpose. In Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential, Roger Stolle, accompanied by photographer Lou Bopp, demonstrates this is equally the case with its archetypal venue.

Early in the millennium, Stolle moved from St. Louis to Clarksdale to open Cat Head music shop. Since then, he has gone on to start the annual Juke Joint Festival, produce several artists’ records and tours, become a contributing editor for Delta Magazine, deejay locally and on satellite radio, helm a trio of blues documentaries (We Juke Up In Here, M is for Mississippi, and Hard Times) and host the web series Moonshine and Mojo Hands.

In his follow-up to Hidden History of Mississippi Blues, Stolle begins by clarifying that self-declaration does not a juke joint maketh. Spots such as the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, Roosters in Sardis, Junior Kimbrough’s in Marshall county, The Subway Lounge in Jackson, The Do Drop Inn and Sarah’s Kitchen in Clarksdale, and Po Monkey’s out from Marigold all earned the distinction. These clubs are less refined, more raw. Many may not be up to code, let alone legal businesses.

Juke joints initially popped up as the lone secular, social outlet during Mississippi’s sharecropping era. They hosted such legends as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, and Son House. Today’s equally sensational Mississippi juke joint musicians live practically off the cultural grid. But that doesn’t mean they don’t pack ‘em in.

While patrons most certainly feel the music in a Mississippi juke joint, they may not necessarily be able to see the band. As Stolle points out, contemporary juke joints tend to be paeans to resourcefulness. With that comes architectural and design anomalies. The band may be around a corner from half the crowd, or even placed in front of a bathroom. Not to mention, the look of the place may be spare or a collage of bygone marketing campaigns, amateur signage, and Christmas lights. Despite unconventional layouts and incongruous styles, juke joints function as the means to a musically euphoric end.

At the heart of Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential is a pair of chapters sourced from many of Stolle’s interviews with owners and musicians. The raconteurs include T-Model Ford, Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Sam Carr, RL Boyce, Lightning Malcolm, Mary Ann Action Jackson, Robert Belfour, Sarah Moore, James Super Chikan Johnson, LC Ulmer, and the legendary Honeyboy Edwards, among others. Collectively they paint a vivid picture of this underground musical scene—often with head-shaking hilarity.

Most people have seen guitars played on stage. Few have seen them used to defend a mid-performance knife attack. Also presented here is sage advice against chugging a pint of gin, right before playing the first song. Which juke joint is referred to as The Bucket of Blood? And perhaps everyone needs to visit the juke joint whose house chicken dances and drinks beer.

In addition to the high jinx, also evident are hard workers simply trying to provide a service to the community. Proprietors such as Red Paden and Sarah Moore echo they are not in it for the money. They recognize everybody needs a place to let it all hang out.

Several of Stolle’s subjects reminisce about juke joints’ days of yore. John Horton explains his preference for the old solo acoustic acts because it’s a greater feat to hold an audience’s attention, all night, by yourself. Along those lines, Jimmy Duck Holmes points out why blues was hollered—musicians were contending with a full room of revelers without the benefit of a sound system. And one can only imagine how raucous the Harlem Club in Inverness became when young David Lee Durham was relegated to peeking in the window to catch a set by Howlin Wolf or Muddy Waters.

Stolle additionally expounds on the cultural significance of moonshine, the profound history of Clarksdale’s Riverside Hotel and Bay St. Louis’ 100 Men DBA Hall, Bilbo Walker’s long journey from musician to juke joint operator, and the ins-and-outs of traveling internationally on blues tours.

Although juke joint music is known around the globe, Stolle and Bopp offer not only a peek into, but also an itinerary for what cannot be replicated outside of Mississippi.

DeMatt Harkins of Jackson enjoys flipping pancakes and records with his wife and daughter.

Roger Stolle will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Mississippi Blues” panel at 4:00 p.m. at the Galloway Foundery.

Debut novel ‘The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna’ proves perfect immersion for summer

By Guest Author

On August 1, 2019

In Fiction

By Valerie Walley. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 28)

When I began reading about Stella Fortuna, I had no idea I would be swept up on an encompassing journey with such an incredible woman. This debut novel from Juliet Grames, whose full title is The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, quickly became unputdownable, and it’s one of my favorite books of 2019. Fittingly Ms. Grames will be appearing at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17th at 10:45 AM on the Best Novels of 2019 Panel along with Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of We Cast a Shadow.

Based loosely on the author’s own family story, the novel begins in early 19th century Italy. Stella is born in the mountains of Calabria. She’s the second Stella, her older sister bearing the same name, perished in infancy before Stella Fortuna was born. This death, and the spirit of the first Stella, haunt her throughout her life. Stella’s childhood is full of events that endanger her life but are somehow miraculously survivable. She is dedicated early on to her mother and siblings, but not to her father who abandons the family to a life of poverty when he immigrates to America.

As Stella grows up, she experiences many difficulties which make her stronger and wiser but lead her to clash—to say the least—with injustices and the patriarchal society that she is born into. Eventually, Stella and her family make the journey to join their father in America, a reunion that does not bode well for Stella, and has tragic implications for future generations of the family.

Stella is beautiful, intelligent, and she uses her traits and personality to develop the toughness that she needs to protect and provide for the ones she loves, especially her younger sister. She is an invincible soul so determined and sure of herself that over the course of this novel she overcomes events that could easily have killed her or maimed her indomitable spirit. This is a book that cuts to the core of what it means to struggle in a new place, to fight for a family you love, and to understand the wells of strength that when tested, we learn, lie within us all.

The writing is so good and the book flows along seamlessly revealing a mastery of storytelling, sense of place, a touch of magical realism, and unforgettable characters that you will love and hate.

In these hottest days of Mississippi summer, I urge you to pick up Stella and immerse yourself. This is a book worth getting lost in.

Besides writing this amazing first novel, Juliet Grames is also Associate Publisher of Soho Press, one of the premier literary independent presses in the country, also specializing in young adult and the mystery genres.

Valerie Walley is Field Sales Director for Penguin Random House and a Ridgeland resident.

Juliet Grames will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Best Debut Novels of 2019” panel at 10:45 a.m. in State Capitol Room 113 and the “All About Soho Press” panel at 2:45 p.m. in State Capitol Room 201 H.

Author Q & A with Martin Clark

By Guest Author

On July 28, 2019

In Southern Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 28)

Devoting decades to his life to the rough-and-tumble field of law has been pure inspiration for the fictional stories that have made Martin Clark one of the most awarded and acclaimed legal thriller writers today.

The latest evidence of that claim: The Substitution Order, Clark’s newest novel, crafting a tale that embraces, at times, despair, hope, and unanswered questions about a lawyer who’s hit rock bottom after an unrestrained summer of bad choices leaves him broke and broken-hearted.

Martin is a retired Virginia circuit court judge of 27 years whose previous novels (The Jezebel Remedy, The Legal Limit, Plain Heathen Mischief, and The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living) have garnered awards including a New York Times Notable Book, A Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year, a Bookmark Magazine Book of the Year, a Boston Globe Book of the Year, a winner of the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award in both 2009 and 2016, and many more.

He and his wife Deana, a photographer, live on a Virginia farm with dogs, cats, chickens, and three donkeys.

After graduating from law school 35 years ago and going on to serve as a Virginia circuit court judge for 27 of those years, the law–and writing novels with law-related stories–must have become somewhat second nature for you. Your first book, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living, was published in 2000, followed by three others and now The Substitution Order. All have garnered much attention. Has it surprised you that your books were immediately met with such success, which continues today?

Martin Clark

I probably shouldn’t admit this–your version sure makes for a better history–but my books were definitely not “immediately met with success.” Like so many other writers, I collected years and years of rejection letters, until 1999, when Knopf took a chance on The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. To this day, at every gig I do, I read from those rejection letters. Here’s a favorite riff from a 1983 butt-kicking, sent to me by a New York literary agent: “I read five pages and wondered if you’ve ever been scared by a performing flea; read 10 more and developed a severe case of vertigo.” That said, I’ve had an excellent run since then, and I’m very grateful for my good fortune, which is, all things given, pretty darn surprising.

Your works carry a dry sense of humor that is built into the twists of the plots and the personalities of the characters. Have you found that to be one of the most appealing aspects of writing–does it come naturally to you?

Pretty much. Plus, there’s so much sadness and heartbreak in the court system that occasional levity helps all of us get through the days. Eighty percent of my job as a judge was sentencing people for theft, drug charges, and probation violations–a smile or a wry comment or quiet joke often made some weeks just a tiny bit more tolerable.

In The Substitution Order, you place a likeable, down-and-out attorney in the position of combatting scam artists trying to undo his career for good, even as he struggles to win it back by playing by the rules. His journey plays out amidst health issues, relationship foibles, and legal loopholes. How do you go about developing characters and their circumstances, and do you tend to base the substance of your plots on what you’ve seen during years of law and court experience?

I absolutely draw on my time in the courtroom–write what you know, correct? But the characters and the plots are largely fictionalized, given that much of what happens in court is frequently mundane and routine. More to the point, if, as a reader, you invest in a book, you don’t want a legal primer, you want a good ride, some entertainment, some twists and turns, and maybe a very small instruction at the end. And, to be clear, in The Substitution Order, Kevin Moore certainly knows the rules and how to use them, but I wouldn’t say he follows them to the letter.

The end of The Substitution Order was a bittersweet surprise. Is that in sync with your experience of handling legal cases that may not have turned out as you expected?

Thank you for mentioning that. As writers, we hope to tell a realistic, entertaining story, create likeable characters that readers will root for, and then provide a payoff over the last few pages. “Bittersweet surprises” is a great way to put it and exactly what I hope The Substitution Order delivers. As for handling court cases and how I’ve seen them turn out, virtually any lawyer will tell you that you just never know. Plus, as I highlight in the book, sometimes it’s a victory for a litigant when things don’t go totally and completely sideways, and you sneak out with minor wounds and not a full-blown bloodletting.

What have you enjoyed most about creating these stories, and what would you say is your biggest challenge when writing?

My biggest writing challenge these days is finding the stamina and focus to slog through all the technical, picayune final edits. I love writing, but debating commas and preferred spellings and capitalization rules is tedious. Necessary, but tedious.

You can check behind me, and you’ll discover I’ve never said anything like this before–I generally don’t care to praise my own writing–but The Substitution Order is by far the best novel I’ve ever put on paper. On December 30, 2015, I almost died, and it took me about a year to fully recover. I was lucky enough to have a steadfast wife and a godsend, genius surgeon, and now I’m fixed, totally normal. So, truthfully, I enjoyed simply being able to sit down and write this novel, being able to do it. Brushing against ruin tends to make you slightly wiser and a little more thoughtful. As my editor told me about this book: “You’ve always had a great story to tell, but now you actually have something worthwhile to say.”

Martin Clark will be at Lemuria on Thursday, August 15, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss The Substitution Order.

Finally art, life of Mississippi’s Dusti Bongé celebrated in lushly illustrated biography

By Guest Author

On July 24, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Culture

By William Dunlap. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 21)

I can objectively say that this is one of the most sumptuous and satisfying books that has ever been my pleasure to hold and read. It is as profound as it is long overdue.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I know Rick Gruber, and I know him to be a scholar of the first order who has at his command more information about art of a southern nature than anyone alive. It is also worth noting that his prose is infinitely readable, unlike so many of those who write about art in a scholarly fashion.

I also know Paul Bongé, grandson of Dusti and son of Lyle, who like his father is a terrific photographer, sailor, builder, waterman and keeper of the family faith and tradition on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Lyle Bongé, Dusti’s son, was a fine friend who I came to know through the poet/publisher Jonathan Williams. The two were both alumni of Black Mountain College and lifelong collaborators. The Sleep of Reason, Lyle’s book published by Jonathan Williams’ Jargon Society Press, contains photographs of New Orleans Mardi Gras from the 1950s and says more than we really want to know about our people, time, and place.

I met Dusti Bongé toward the end of her life, and recall a memorable studio visit. She was working with pure pigment and fiberglass to create her Windows that were a part of her last exhibition at the Betty Parsons gallery. They contained rich colors that were, at the time, hard to love but it was easy to see her mastery of the medium and why the New York School, a.k.a. Betty Parsons et al., were devoted to her.

Dusti Bongé Art and Life is published by the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation. The book was designed by Philip Collier of New Orleans and distributed by the University Press of Mississippi. This lavishly illustrated tome of some 350 pages with 500 illustrations was four plus years in the making and accompanies the Ogden Museum of Southern Art exhibition, “Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé’” curated by Bradley Sumrall. This exhibition will come to the Mississippi Museum of Art in the fall of 2020.

Many of the very telling photographs included in this book are by Jack Robinson, the internationally known and enigmatic photographer from the Mississippi Delta who is worthy of further study and serious scrutiny.

All of this begs the rhetorical question: Why has it taken so long?

It is inexplicable that this most accomplished and recognized woman who was with us from 1903 until 1993, mainly in Mississippi but sometimes in New Orleans and New York, and yet has all but fallen through the proverbial cracks.
For a place like Mississippi that is so obsessed with its native sons (could this be a reason?) to overlook this remarkable artist for so long is a question that wants to be addressed.

While New York and New Orleans are discussed in depth, it’s Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast that come in for the most revealing and substantive writing and research. In addition to chronicling a life, art, and sense of place, this book is also a profound social history of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and exploration of the extraordinary pull of this place for artists like George Ohr and the Walter Anderson family.

That the Gulf Coast has more in common with New Orleans than it does with say Tupelo hardly comes as a surprise, but it helps explain the complexities of a place like Mississippi.

William Faulkner once said that in order “to understand the world you need to understand a place like Mississippi.”

Rick Gruber’s book, Dusti Bongé: Art and Life answers many of these questions and helps us understand much, much more.

William Dunlap is a painter, writer and native son of Webster County. His first collection of stories , Short Mean Fiction is soon to be followed by Lying and Making a Living. He will talk about that and his book from University Press Of Mississippi, Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster at the Mississippi Book Festival, August 17.

Richard Gruber will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant (along with William Dunlap) in the “Southern Art” panel at 1:30 p.m. in State Capitol Room 204.

Ace Atkins’ latest Quinn Colson novel, ‘The Shameless,’ uncovers mystery decades old

By Guest Author

On July 23, 2019

In Mystery, Southern Fiction

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 14)

It’s hard to believe that Ace Atkins’ acclaimed Ranger series has logged book number nine with The Shameless. Summer has officially arrived for a trip to north Mississippi and the heroics of Quinn Colson and his sometime accomplice Lillie Virgil. It’s like watching a John Ford movie with a twist of Faulkner.
Atkins’ fictional Tibbehah County, Mississippi is a magnet for greed, corruption, racism, and dirty deals radiating from the coast to the capitol to the North Mississippi hills.

Retired Army Ranger and reluctant sheriff Quinn Colson is up to his neck in drug and human trafficking, stolen goods and prostitution, run by a criminal Syndicate on the Gulf Coast. At the forefront is truck stop madam Fannie Hathcock, a notorious redhead with very little scruples. Politically speaking, Senator Jimmy Vardaman has his eyes on the governor’s mansion. The Syndicate has Vardaman and his creepy Watchmen bodyguards in their pocket. If Vardaman wins the governor’s race, the Syndicate will rule the state. Add in self-righteous county supervisor Old Man Skinner and his attempt to resurrect a sixty foot cross and you have a typical day in Tibbehah County.

Two young women have recently come to town looking for answers to a twenty year old mystery. In 1997, missing teen Brandon Taylor was found in the Big Woods after a long and arduous search. His death by shotgun was ruled a suicide, but Tashi Coleman and her friend Jessica think otherwise. Summoned to Mississippi by Brandon’s family, the New York duo run a podcast called Thin Air. Throughout the novel, Tashi conducts interviews with local townfolk defaming those involved and implicating those who may not have been, including Sheriff Quinn.

Tashi and Jessica uncover past history on Quinn that has only been hinted in previous novels; his rebellious youth and arrests that former sheriff and Quinn’s uncle Hamp swept under the carpet. Could these discoveries keep Quinn from getting re-elected?

On the Colson family front, Quinn’s sister Caddie is seeing a rich Jackson socialite who’s contributing to her ministry, The River. But are his intentions less than honorable? Quinn’s best friend Boom, seriously injured in last year’s The Sinners, has fallen back on the bottle while trying to heal. And now it’s uncovered that Quinn’s new wife Maggie has ties to the possibly murdered Brandon from twenty years back.

A daring jailhouse break-in silences a prisoner who has ties to the Syndicate. U.S. Marshall Lillie Virgil returns to her old stomping grounds to help Quinn track down the killers. And not a moment too soon. There’s a contract out on Quinn. Vardaman and the Syndicate want the true grit sheriff out of the picture for good.
Atkins takes the reader from political speeches at the Neshoba County Fair to seedy Memphis bars and even a hearty breakfast at The Fillin’ Station in the tiny town of Jericho. The Shameless is rife with corrupt politicians, God-fearing sinners, pole dancers, Native American hitmen, Elvis-lovin’ mamas, snoopy podcasters and a twenty year old mystery that just won’t die.

The last thirty pages of The Shameless will leave you breathless when Quinn answers a call from hell. Not since his service in Afghanistan has The Ranger been up against such bloody odds. Pull out your political fans and buckle up. It’s a fight to the finish between good and Old South evil. The longest of the Quinn Colson series, The Shameless is 446 pages of raunchy redneck misbehavin’. And one of Ace Atkins’ best works by far.

JC Patterson is the author of the “Big Easy Dreamin’” series.

Author Q & A with Juliet Grames

By Guest Author

On July 21, 2019

In Fiction

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

“Author” is a new title for Juliet Grames, associate publisher and curator of the Solo Crime imprint for HarperCollins. With the publishing of her debut novel The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, Grames joins the ranks of the hundreds of writers whose works she has helped become real books.

Growing up in a tight-knit Italian family living in Connecticut, Grames loosely borrows from some of her own experiences as she shares the tale of the indomitable Stella Fortuna, who gave birth to 11 children even as she lived through at least seven–maybe eight–near-death experiences.

Grames is looking forward to her appearance at the Mississippi Book Festival in downtown Jackson Aug. 17.

“I had the great good fortune of visiting Jackson in January 2018 and was profoundly moved by everything I saw and experienced, but especially by the literary culture of the city,” she said. “I am so honored and grateful to have been invited to the festival and to have the opportunity to be a tiny part of that rich literary culture.”

Since this is your debut book, please share a bit about your background.

Juliet Grames

I was born in Hartford, Conn., and grew up in the Farmington Valley. I knew I wanted to write books since I was a little girl–actually, my first attempt at a novel, when I was 6, was a story inspired by my grandmother, just like Stella Fortuna was. I’ve spent my entire career working with literature. My first job was at the public library, then I spent four years working at my hometown’s Borders Books, then a year at a literary agency before getting my start in book publishing editorial at places like John Wiley & Sons and The Overlook Press. But secretly I’m actually a devout amateur historian. I was a history major at Columbia, and spent a year studying history at Oxford.

As a book editor who has worked for Soho the past decade, you now hold the position of associate publisher and curator of the Soho Crime imprint. How does it feel to be on this “other side” of publishing? Was writing a book always part of your career dreams?

I originally got into publishing because I thought it would help me toward a writing career. For years, it seemed this plan had catastrophically failed, and I advised aspiring publishing professionals not to get into editorial if they wanted to write, because they would never be able to find bandwidth to nurture their own creative voice. But in the end, it wasn’t such a bad plan. Soho Press is a wonderful institution that has allowed me, and others, to pursue creative endeavors, and I believe my editorial training really helped me make my own novel into the best thing it could be.

This story is partly based on experiences in your own Italian-American family. Can you tell us a little about that?

The novel follows a girl born in Calabria, Italy, in the years after World War I through her childhood in a poor mountain village, emigration to the U.S. on the eve of World War II, courtship, family drama, and eight near-death experiences. It was inspired by my grandmother, a larger-than-life character and storyteller.

My grandparents emigrated from southern Italy in the 1930s and settled in Hartford, Conn. I grew up steeped in their culture–the food, the dialects, the storytelling, the music, the horticulture–and very proud of my immigrant roots. As I got older, I tried to find histories and literature about the Italian South so I could learn more, but was frustrated by how little there is. One reason I wanted to write this book was to try to capture the fascinating world of southern Italy, where so many Italian-Americans’ ancestors originated.

The story begins with Stella’s parents’ history and extends to Stella’s life at age 100. Along the way, readers we learn about Stella’s multiple brushes with death, raising her large family and her lifelong longing for her own independence. Please tell us briefly about these struggles that define her life.

Stella Fortuna’s eight near-deaths are the one piece of the plot I took wholly from reality. My grandmother had very similar misadventures over the course of her long life–experiences, I realized, which laid the groundwork for an allegory about how dangerous independence and self-actualization could be for women like my grandmother, like Stella, born into reduced circumstances in pre-war southern Italy, where women were not even citizens.

Life was especially dangerous when these women took risks to better their situations–to educate themselves or their children, to be ambitious about accruing money or property, to stand up to their controlling or abusive fathers or husbands. Stella struggles her entire life against the identity her world wants her to embrace–obedient wife and mother. Her stubborn independence and fierce sense of self never allow her to compromise, even when her resistance nearly cost her her life.

Even though Stella and her family moved to America when she was 19 years old, she never got over missing the Italian village of her childhood. How does that drive her outlook and expectations of a better life?

Stella is typical of many Italian emigrants of the first half of the 20th century in that she is deeply ambivalent about having to leave Italy. The tragedy of poverty and colonial exploitation meant that there were few work opportunities in places like Calabria, and people traveled thousands of miles to work abroad so they could feed their families. Many of the millions of Italians who arrived in the United States between 1900 and 1925 continued to think of Italy as home and intended to return there.

During my research, I found two very poignant forms of nostalgia at this great wave of migration: first, Italian-Americans like Stella and many other characters who never stopped loving and missing Italy; and second, in Italy, the descendants of the Italians who remained in towns that were emptied out by emigration, who feel kinship for the American cousins they never had a chance to meet.

In the end, the narrator tells readers that Stella was “not a woman of her time,” and that she was had “incredible will and strength, of charisma, of innate intelligence.” What can we learn from this tale today?

My main hope is that readers will walk away from the novel asking themselves about the lives and reputations of the “difficult” women who might have come before them–mothers or aunts or grandmothers of Stella’s generation who sometimes had to go to extreme or even ugly lengths to survive the hard years of the 20th century and to keep their families together. I believe our foremothers’ legacies are worth revisiting, and that when we question why these women were so “difficult,” we often find them to have been more heroic and multi-faceted than we could have guessed.

Karl Marlantes adds new song to American literature with ‘Deep River’

By Guest Author

On July 19, 2019

In Fiction

By Matthew Guinn. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 14)

The American canon just got a new addition.

Karl Marlantes’ sprawling Deep River deserves no lesser estimation. It echoes the sweep of his contemporaries Toni Morrison and Jim Harrison at their best, but also harkens back to the epic naturalist novels of Jack London and Frank Norris. And in singing the beauties and perils of the American landscape, it has few equals in any era of our literature. Deep River is a new American classic.

Fitting that Deep River is a tale of immigrants, folk from old lands seeking a new one, and that it spans not only two continents, but two centuries. In this case, it is a Finnish family, the Koskis, tenant farmers suffering under the brutal Russian occupation of Finland. The oldest Koski brother has already immigrated to Washington State. His letters home tell of logging trees so gargantuan they must be seen to be believed by European eyes, of freedom from serfdom, and of bountiful, good-paying work.

By a turn of events the reader cannot anticipate, his sister Aino is the next Koski to follow him to America. The novel coheres around Aino even as Marlantes adds in scores of vivid characters—Finns and Swedes—who form a tight-knit immigrant community logging and fishing Washington State. Reaction is mixed to the brand of socialism Aino brings with her from the Old World and trouble finds her again. And again.

Aino is surely the most exasperating heroine in American literature. Time after time, she helps turn a good situation bad by her dogged agitation for the dream of socialism and the “Wobblies” labor party. People are hurt by her, and she leaves a wake of damage behind at every stage of her life. In matters of love, one never knows which way her heart will lead her. And yet we follow—exasperated, intrigued—because she is enigmatic, unpredictable, totally alive. She is as fully human—that is to say, complex and fallible—as we are. She is the lightning rod to whom all her fellow characters respond.

Yet Marlantes is careful and adept not to let Aino dominate his story. If there is a single dominating force in the novel, it is work. One is hard pressed to name a novel that has celebrated labor so eloquently. Deep River is a paean to the joy, dignity, cunning, and stamina of skilled physical labor and the men and women who perform it. Our digital century tends to forget the artistry required to bring down a 300-foot tree precisely by hand, or the intuition needed to read the currents on a river to determine where fish are running. Marlantes reminds us.

He also reminds us how thoroughly women and Native Americans contributed to forming America, and on this point it is clear how much Deep River adds to our national literature. So many of the classic novels of American experience are boys tales told for grown men that dismiss the contributions of women or neglect them entirely. Marlantes gives careful attention to the dignity of what used to be called “women’s work” and the skill and grace it requires, to say nothing of the harrowing experience of childbirth in the early years of the twentieth century. The senior Koski brother could never have built his empire without the guidance of Vasutati, the native healer who reminds him that “constant change” is in fact “life everlasting” and is such a vital force she is able to flirt with him even in death. All of the Pacific Northwest is here, fully represented. All work is honored.

In Deep River, Marlantes is after the whole tapestry of American experience, and he comes closer to getting it than any writer before him. And running counter to the blasé petite-nihilism of our postmodern moment, he reminds us that though life is hard, it is also good. His characters never say aloud that there can be dignity in struggle, meaning in pain. They live it, on every page. Could any worldview be more American?

“What a country this is,” one of the Koskis exclaims at a moment of opportunity seized. What a country, indeed. And what a novel to sing its epic song.

Novelist Matthew Guinn earned his Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of South Carolina. He is associate professor of creative writing at Belhaven University.

Karl Marlantes will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, August 14, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Deep River. Lemuria has chosen Deep River as its August 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

* * *

Marlantes will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 in conversation with Kevin Powers and Tom Franklin at 12:00 p.m. in State Capitol Room 113.

Author: Guest Author (Page 6 of 28)

Author Q & A with Karl Marlantes

Hailman’s ‘Foreign Missions’ is a fast-paced world tour through eyes of a federal prosecutor

Author Q & A with Lisa Howorth

Roger Stolle’s ‘Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential’ goes straight to the source of blues music

Debut novel ‘The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna’ proves perfect immersion for summer

Author Q & A with Martin Clark

Finally art, life of Mississippi’s Dusti Bongé celebrated in lushly illustrated biography

Ace Atkins’ latest Quinn Colson novel, ‘The Shameless,’ uncovers mystery decades old

Author Q & A with Juliet Grames

Karl Marlantes adds new song to American literature with ‘Deep River’

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