Southern Fiction – Page 12

Category: Southern Fiction (Page 12 of 24)

While Eudora Welty composed “A Still Moment,” one of eight stories in The Wide Net, the noise of World War II surrounded her. In 1941, the Royal Netherlands Military Flying School was located at Hawkins Field in Jackson. As a further reminder of the time, the 1943 first edition of The Wide Net and Other Stories bears an advertisement for war bonds:

“This book, like all books, is a symbol of liberty and the freedom for which we fight. You, as a reader of books, can do your share in the desperate battle to protect those liberties. Buy War Bonds.”

Three real-life characters converge on the Natchez Trace in “A Still Moment.” Itinerant preacher Lorenzo Dow in search of souls, James Murrell, a storied outlaw of the Trace, whose mission through murder and crime was to “destroy the present,” and John James Audubon, the great recorder of American birds in their natural habitats, meet beside “a great forked tree” and are transfixed by a snow-white heron.

As Dow, Murrell, and Audubon were in awe of the bird, so Eudora Welty must have been captivated by Audubon’s descriptions of travel and painting up and down the Trace and the Mississippi River during the early 1800s. While recording the birds of the deep South, Audubon visited Natchez where he painted $5 charcoal portraits to support his travels. Further south in Louisiana, he rested in the long-gone Bayou Sara—one of the largest shipping ports between New Orleans and Natchez before 1860–where his wife set up a profitable teaching practice for a short time. Audubon even stopped in Jackson on May 1, 1823 when the capital was only one-year-old. He described the village in the wilderness as “a mean place, a rendezvous for gamblers and vagabonds” in Life of Audubon.

First editions of The Wide Net and Other Stories are scarce in good condition and dust jackets are usually marred, in a somewhat charming way, by faded pink print on the spine.

Written by Lisa Newman, A version of this column was published in The Clarion-Ledger’s Sunday Mississippi Books page.

Nicola’s Top 3 Southern Gothic Books

By Former Lemurians

On October 31, 2014

In Fiction, Newsworthy, Southern Fiction

Corrupt churches burning witches, a town where everyone knows everyone and everyone keeps secrets, heavy boots walking through your house at night, these are the things of Southern Gothic. With Halloween approaching, what could be more scary than reading some terrifying stories about places close to your own home? Lock your screen door and close the rickety shudders, I’m going to count down my favorite books in one of the best genres.

The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn

Jacket (16)

In the nineteenth century, it was illegal to dissect human corpses for medical education. So former slave Nemo was hired to “acquire” some specimens for South Carolina Medical College. Nemo, quiet, mysterious, and way too skilled with a carving knife, obeyed his white masters. But what are those talismans he carried? And what happened before he came to America on a slave ship?

Meanwhile, in the present, piles of human bones are discovered buried at the college. Dr. Jacob Thacker begins digging through the school’s past and finds a much darker history than he bargained for.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find (and other stories) by Flannery O’Connor

Jacket (18)

Imagine you are driving down a dusty dirt road in the middle of nowhere, trying to find an old house with a secret passage, when the car strikes something. You are flung from the vehicle, and standing above you is the infamous escaped convict The Misfit. This story and more like it are what make up the bone-chilling collection that is A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Flannery O’Connor is a classic Southern writer, and her short stories were a prominent layer in the foundation of Southern Gothic today.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Jacket (17)

Southern Gothic is not complete without New Orleans, and this list would not be complete without my favorite vampire book. Anne Rice is one of the most respected Gothic writers today. Her tale of the poor vampire Louis weaves wonderfully through New Orleans. Her story is of French finery, cathedrals, and cold blood. While it is a Gothic story, it has hints of Romanticism, but no romance. Anne Rice makes you think, her characters are flawed and struggle with the morality around their existence, but are still extremely likeable.

P.S., Anne Rice just wrote a new a new Vampire Chronicles book!!!! It’s called Prince Lestat, and we have signed first editions. Um, can we say HOORAY?

Written by Nicola

Let’s Talk Jackson Guest Post: Heat, Redfish, and Regret

By Lemuria

On October 8, 2014

In Gift Books, Southern Fiction

Written by Matthew Guinn, a Jackson native and author of the Edgar Allen nominated book The Ressurrectionist. The following selection is a part of an upcoming essay collection titled 601.

I came to Mississippi hoping to be a writer. I was just out of the University of Georgia, where I had read Larry Brown and been floored by his lyrical naturalism, and of course I was aware of the others—that grand pantheon running back to Faulkner and kept alive in that present day of 1992 by the likes of Larry, Barry, Steve Yarbrough, Richard Ford. Eudora Welty and Shelby Foote were still alive, and there were others to come: Tom Franklin, Cynthia Shearer, Donna Tartt. The concentration of literary talent was incredible.

Athens, Georgia, had that kind of artistic brilliance, but in music. The B-52s and R.E.M. had put the town on the map, and Widespread Panic was building its momentum; we used to go see them monthly at the Georgia Theater. I remember when ticket prices went up, from $3.50 to $4, some suspected that Panic had sold out.

It wasn’t too uncommon to cross paths with these musicians. Kate Pierson and Michael Stipe still lived in Athens then, and you might pass them on a streetcorner downtown, or shopping in Wuxtry Records, where the guitarist for Guadalcanal Diary worked. But Athens had a code regarding its celebrities: it was absolutely verboten to approach them. It was understood that you could perhaps nod in passing, but to speak would be a breach of decorum, and to engage one of these luminous talents in conversation would be downright gauche.

So perhaps you can imagine how I felt when, in the fall of ’92, in Jackson for the first time, with my soon-to-be fiancée and in-laws, eating at the Mayflower, I realized that the man at the table behind ours was Willie Morris. There, with a female companion and a brown-bagged bottle on the table, sat the former editor of Harper’s, the man who wrote North Toward Home and The Courting of Marcus Dupree. Eating broiled redfish like the rest of us.

“Don’t look,” I said, “but Willie Morris is at the next table.”

My future father-in-law looked over his shoulder—brazenly—at the table. Willie caught his eye and the two nodded to one another. “You should go talk to him,” my future in-law said. “Since you want to be a writer.”

I didn’t. Could not bring myself to interrupt his meal, to barge in, to impose on his time. I wouldn’t have in Athens and didn’t think I could in this new locale.

Mayflower_1_CMYK_DSC8376

What I didn’t realize at the time was just what it meant that Willie was a Mississippian, and a Jacksonian to boot. I hadn’t yet come to understand that in this new, strange terrain—with its flat vistas and searing temperatures—good manners took precedence over all else, that Mississippi holds itself to a higher standard of social graciousness than anywhere else. That Willie would have obliged me with a few minutes of his time—would likely even have asked me a few questions about myself.

I’ve come to suspect over the years—this has been my fourteenth Mississippi summer—that the heat has something to do with it. That manners do indeed, as Flannery O’Connor said, save us from ourselves. As though without them to hold us in check, we’d all snap from the heat index come July and August. And by September, we’d be down to the last Jacksonian standing.

God knows how much I could have learned from Willie Morris, how much a single conversation might have helped me with craft, tone, rhythm. In time, in Oxford, I would come to know Larry Brown. And find that he was a kind and generous man who made time to advise and help younger, struggling writers. That some unspoken standard obliged him to do it. I know now that Willie held himself to the same standard.

But I would never get to know Willie. Years later I was on a flight to Jackson from Atlanta with my squalling infant son on my lap, crying the entire trip. I’d shaken William Styron’s hand in the aisle when we boarded. I was thinking the entire flight, I hope Styron doesn’t put me together with this crying—I have aspirations to a writing career. Then, when we landed, I met Richard Ford at the baggage claim. From the same flight. Incredible. Staggering. Jackson.

They were flying in for Willie’s funeral. Too late to introduce myself, as I should have, that night in ’92, in the Mayflower. I could have. But I did not realize it at the time. Did not know, then, that Mississippi is that kind of place, that Jackson is that kind of a town.

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.

First Editions Feature: Spandau Phoenix

By admin

On May 2, 2014

In Southern Fiction

Spandau Phoenix by Greg Iles. Dutton: New York, 1993.

With Mississippi’s literary tradition long established with William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Richard Wright, John Grisham was Mississippi’s first commercially successful writer. Following on the heels of Grisham’s The Firm in 1991, Greg Iles made his debut with Spandau Phoenix. The first of two novels set in Nazi Germany, Spandau Phoenix quickly landed on the best seller list. Black Cross was released in 1995 and is so far the last of his WWII novels. Iles moved on to other themes in subsequent novels, broadening his skill as a thriller writer. As Iles’ fan base grew, Spandau Phoenix and Black Cross became more collectible and distinguished from his other work.

This piece was featured in the Clarion Ledger on March 2, 2014. Watch for The Mississippi Book Page every Sunday in the Clarion Ledger.

Greg Iles’ new book Natchez Burning is available for purchase now! We have signed first editions for you to add to that amazing collection.

Amy Greene and Long Man

By Former Lemurians

On February 26, 2014

In Newsworthy, Southern Fiction

Four years ago (and before my bookselling days) I realized I had a problem: every time I stopped by Lemuria I left with a book (or several).

I was steep in book debt. book debt = unread books > read books

And so, when I heard about the First Editions Club, it sounded like a marvelous idea. One book each month, chosen for me by book-reading experts. The chances of me stumbling upon a dud of a book were dramatically decreased when someone else chose the book for me.

Amy Greene And thus began several years of good reading: Lauren Groff, Jim Shepherd, Kevin Wilson, Karen Russell. The list goes on.

My one regret was that I signed up too late to have Amy Greene’s Bloodroot arrive in a brown box on my doorstep. I don’t know why I wanted to read Bloodroot; maybe it was the possibility of magic and mystery and family secrets all hanging out together. Maybe it was just the cover. The book was a debut novel with a smallish first printing, and by the time of the book signing, Lemuria wasn’t reserving any first editions for anyone who wasn’t in the First Editions Club. Needless to say, I missed it — the book, the signing, everything. And that’s why I signed up.

Ironically, now I am part of the team that ships out the First Editions Club (FEC) book each month. After the author visits the store and signs your first edition, we protect the jacket in a mylar cover, wrap the book in brown paper and then newspaper, box and ship it.

This March, Amy Greene will be back to read and sign her new book, Long Man, which just came out this week. While we’re not picking her new one for First Editions Club, those of you who are in the club should definitely pick one up. I’m not going to miss her this time. Come and join us Wednesday, March 5^th at 5 PM.

Wiley Cash is coming back to Lemuria!

By Former Lemurians

On February 19, 2014

In Newsworthy, Southern Fiction

by Kelly Pickerill

We’re so excited to welcome Wiley Cash back to Lemuria tomorrow, Thursday the 20th, at 11:00 a.m. His first book, A Land More Kind Than Home, was hailed by readers and booksellers alike, with its blend of dark, religious fanaticism balanced by the innocence of a young boy who would do anything to protect his older, disadvantaged brother.

His new novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, is just as riveting. The story is told through the eyes, once again, of a child. Easter and her sister Ruby have been in the foster care system since their mother died of a drug overdose. Now their father has come back looking for them, and Easter suspects his fatherly concern is masking darker motivations. Easter has had to grow up too fast; with all she has witnessed and because of her desire to protect her sister, she has learned that sometimes hard decisions must be made by her alone — that adults can’t always help her.

Brady is Easter and Ruby’s guardian, and when the girls go missing, he is determined to find them himself. What he doesn’t know as he sets out is just how much trouble their father, a former minor league baseball player, is in. He is being tracked by someone ruthless, someone who is driven by revenge for something that happened long ago and has been fueling his single-minded rage ever since. What the reader discovers as the novel progresses is that everyone has secrets, dark spots in their history that might drive them to behave desperately.

Set during the baseball season when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire competed to break Roger Maris’s home run record, This Dark Road to Mercy is a fantastic sophomore effort by one of our favorite Southern authors.

This is an excerpt from Wiley’s blog entry about his visit to Lemuria in 2012:

I drove across town to the famous Lemuria Books, where I met some incredibly kind and knowledgeable booksellers. I’d met the manager Kelly a few months ago at a convention in New Orleans, and she showed me the galley that I signed then; it said, “I hope I get to visit your store one day.” I resigned it and wrote, “I’m at your store right now.” I also met two fellow writers: Ellis, a short story writer who will soon be pursuing a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing, and Adie, a poet who will enter the low-residency MFA program at Seattle Pacific this fall. They’re proud of their store, and they should be; it has an entire room dedicated to fiction, one whole corner of which is dedicated to Southern fiction! Photographs of well-known authors who have visited the store adorn the walls. I gave a reading and signed books under the watchful eyes of Eudora Welty, John Grisham, Larry Brown, and Richard Ford. See a connection here? Mississippians love their home-grown writers almost as much as they love their barbeque.

We hope his second visit to Lemuria is as memorable as the first. Come out to the bookstore tomorrow morning at 11:00 to meet him!

Collecting Elizabeth Spencer’s books

By admin

On January 31, 2014

In Newsworthy, Southern Fiction

eudora welty and elizabeth spencer circa 1985 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. Eudora Welty and Robert Penn Warren were champions for this novel on the emerging change in racial values in the South. Warren commented, “You aren’t going to stop reading [The Voice] very willingly.” After the publication of The Voice, respect and acclaim for Spencer’s writing only grew as she expanded her life experience from her hometown in Carollton, Mississippi, to Italy, Canada and North Carolina.

This year one of my special projects at Lemuria is to help revitalize our first editions rooms. I’m also honored to have been included in The Clarion Ledger’s new Mississippi Book Page in the Sunday edition. Not only can you read about the featured first edition (last week’s feature was The Voice), but you can also keep up with literary events and get the scoop on what Mississippians are reading.

Elizabeth Spencer will be signing her new book Starting Over on Tuesday, February 4th at 5:00, with a reading at 5:30.

Joe shares his thoughts Elizabeth Spencer’s new collection of stories here.

Mary Miller presents The Last Days of California

By Pat

On January 29, 2014

In Newsworthy, Southern Fiction

Mary Miller’s debut novel spills over with good, solid writing. The Last Days of California is about a family road trip starting in Montgomery, Alabama, with its destination California, and possibly even beyond. The Christian rapture is what draws them to California, hoping to save some people along the way, though by page two we suspect the father is not so holy in spite of his grand scheme. Jess, the 15-year-old narrator, says of her father, “He didn’t really want all 7 billion people on the planet to be saved. We wouldn’t be special then. We wouldn’t be the chosen ones.”

Early on, the reader suspects the family may be up to more than holy pursuits. Though the father is in the driver’s seat, there’s much more going on in the back seat between the two sisters, two years between them, armed with smart phones and convenience store candy. Their mother is the one who collects and receives the trash from all the wrappers and leftovers, staying at least minimally connected to her offspring and her husband, whose appeal seems to have deteriorated over many years of marriage. In the meantime, the two girls share lots of secrets, one being a probable pregnancy proven by several ominous pink strips.

Our narrator, consumed by teenage self-loathing, feelings of inadequacy, and the fact that her sister is beautiful and she is not, fantasizes about how to experience what she has only heard about from her wilder sister. The story moves through spare and perfectly pitched dialogue as the car moves through shoddy towns indecipherable from one another, each with the same big box stores — the equivalent of purgatory, American-style. Days Inns, Waffle Houses, and sundry convenience stores are the landscape that mark the journey. Jess reveals her adolescent longings, fears, hopes, dreams, and envies through a constant inner and outer dialogue that make this book so readable and hard to put down.

As the family continues the journey, they often stop to gorge or pick at meals only the most nutritionally challenged would order. French fries, sundaes, and diet cokes are a great part of the feast. The reader wonders how a man and woman who aren’t working can afford such expenses, especially when they stop at a casino. The questions mount as the journey progresses. Or does not paying the credit card bill make any difference to a family who will be whisked away as the rapture plucks the worthy from all the rest?

This is much more than a story about teenage angst. I see this short novel as a family love story, a sort of “Modern Family” of four. Though the cast is a scripture-deluded father, a rather worn out mother and two daughters who may have lost their tickets to Paradise, Jess will often hold her mother’s hand or ache with a daughter’s sad love for her father and remain forever loyal to her sister. Bravo to you, Mary Miller, our own homegrown Jacksonian.

Join us Thursday, January 30th as Mary Miller presents
The Last Days of California, signing at 5:00, reading at 5:30.

The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson

By Former Lemurians

On January 21, 2014

In Southern Fiction

“‘Lieutenant Joe Howard Wilson of Revere was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for leading Negro troops to a decisive victory last April at the Battle of Castel Aghinolfi in Italy’ . . . ‘Lieutenant Wilson demonstrated exceptional bravery in helping to clear Italy from the Fascists and the Nazis when he did not and does not have the right to vote here in Mississippi, his native state. Lieutenant Wilson is the son of Mr. Willie Willie Wilson of Revere.'” — Joe’s father told his son what a Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper said about him when Joe called to say he was almost home from the war. The bus had taken a small detour over to Aliceville, Alabama, but he was only about an hour away from home. As he hung up the phone, Willie Willie told his son to be careful because he was on “an unknown way. You know how those folks in Alabama are.”

Two weeks later Lieutenant Joe Howard Wilson’s battered body was found.

Regina Robichard has the job of her dreams — working for Thurgood Marshall at the New York City NAACP. While working on another project Regina comes across a letter asking Thurgood Marshall to come to Mississippi and investigate the murder of a soldier returning from World War II. She is intrigued by a photograph of Joe Howard and Willie Willie, when she realizes the letter is signed by M. P. Calhoun, the author of The Secret of Magic, Regina’s favorite childhood book. Why is this reclusive, white author — the most famous in the country — asking for Thurgood Marshall’s help?

Regina soon finds herself in Mississippi; nothing is really how it seems.

Deborah Johnson is from Columbus, MS. She received the Mississippi Library Association Award for Fiction for her first novel, The Air Between Us. She will be at Lemuria on Thursday, January 23rd, presenting her new novel, The Secret of Magic. Signing at 5:00 pm, reading to follow at 5:30 pm.

Elizabeth Spencer: back in action

By admin

On January 14, 2014

In Newsworthy, Southern Fiction

It was during a summer season Patricia and Boyd were spending together in the North Carolina mountains that Edward reappeared.

A perfect first sentence. There is so much between the lines. You can tell Patricia and Boyd are together, but who is 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.

Not only Southern, but specifically “Mississippi Fiction.” Elizabeth Spencer’s new collection Starting Over makes her our hometown girl. Her resume: born in Carrollton, graduated from Belhaven, taught at Ole Miss, and the perfect cover of Starting Over — a painting by Jackson artist William Hollingsworth.

The beloved author of Light in the Piazza and many novels and story collections is back after more than a decade, and oh boy, this will surely be one of the best of the year.

Elizabeth Spencer will be signing her new book Starting Over on Tuesday, February 4th at 5:00, with a reading at 5:30.

New York Times: A Southern landscape

Los Angeles Times: In ‘Starting Over,’ Elizabeth Spencer’s insight endures

Category: Southern Fiction (Page 12 of 24)

“Welty penned Natchez short story collection during WWII”

Nicola’s Top 3 Southern Gothic Books

Let’s Talk Jackson Guest Post: Heat, Redfish, and Regret

First Editions Feature: Spandau Phoenix

Amy Greene and Long Man

Wiley Cash is coming back to Lemuria!

Collecting Elizabeth Spencer’s books

Mary Miller presents The Last Days of California

The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson

Elizabeth Spencer: back in action

Authors

Categories

Tags