click here to read: visitation by brad watson

my dad read this and thought i might enjoy it…he was right, now i’d like to share it with everyone.

by Zita

Last night Nevada Barr was singing her new book, Borderline. Everyone had a great time and enjoyed the reading. This was Nevada’s 15th book signing in a row at Lemuria. Her next book will be out in September. We love you Nevada!

“I think it’s because of this word-of-mouth phenomenon because people begin engaging one another in discussions about how they grew up, what their feelings were about race differences in the ’60s and whether or not they relate to this kind of story,” she says. “I’ve gotten so many e-mails from readers who are sharing their stories.”

When we think about Eudora Welty we would like to think that she belongs to us, the citizens of Jackson, MS, but we have to share her with the rest of the world.  There are two articles I thought that y’all might want to read in the Smithsonian Magazine about Miss Welty as a photographer and another in the San Francisco Chronicle about the Welty Centennial.

by Kelly Pickerill

Jayne Anne Phillips will be signing copies of her latest book, Lark and Termite, at Lemuria Wednesday, March 11th, at five o’clock.  Phillips’ first book in nine years, Lark and Termite is a stunning novel that revolves around the title characters, Lark, a young woman who is beginning to find her place in the world, and Termite, her autistic brother.  They live with their aunt in a rundown West Virginia town where regular flooding seems to be the biggest source of excitement, but where ghosts and secrets from the past are seething just under the surface of things.

The novel’s events span four days in July in the 1950s, and each day is shared by the voices of the characters.  Phillips even invites the reader into Termite’s mind, and this is where her writing really shines–through Termite’s eyes the world is simultaneously sharpened and submerged underwater.  From the first chapter you will be drawn into all of the characters’ inner worlds, where you will find that though disappointment is pervasive, somehow an abundance of hope has been allotted to them as well.

Kathryn Stockett, author of the upcoming novel, The Help

Having finished reading my advanced reader’s copy of native Jacksonian Kathryn Stockett’s  new novel The Help last week, I have not been able to get it off my mind. Those of us who grew up in the ’60s in Mississippi will have a slightly different viewpoint from those who were born in later decades. Since I was in actuality slightly less than a decade younger than the protagonist “Skeeter”, I was able to identify with her feelings, her rising independence, and even her dresses from Jackson’s premiere fashion store “Kennington’s”, or New Orleans’ pride, “Maison Blanche” where I often traveled to shop with my mother.  The very close friendship I was fortunate to have with my family’s help(ers), I recalled while reading this novel, often with smiles close to tears at times. Poignant scenes, all very accurately detailed and true in regard to racial relations of the times, caused me to remember with great sadness those hard times. This is a novel that had been waiting to be written, and Stockett has handled often delicate matters with kindness and fairness. Jacksonians will understand this novel and recognize its many characters, locations, and customs better than anyone else in the country, and therefore, will reap the greatest rewards for having read it. Heartstrings will be pulled with this one. Stockett’s upcoming reading on February 17 should not be missed. I predict an overflowing crowd and a sellout!

-Nan

I hate to preempt to publication of novels because I worry people will come in asking for the book and get disappointed but I want to be the first to tell everyone that I absolutely fell in LOVE with the characters from Kathryn Stockett’s first novel, The Help. It doesn’t come out until February 10th but I got to read an early printing and it was by far my favorite work of fiction that I read last year.

The Help is set in Jackson, MS which made it especially fun for me to read; not to mention the fact that lots of the characters live in Belhaven so it’s fun to imagine the story as it goes along in a familiar setting with a familiar cast of background characters like WLBT’s long time weather man Woody Assaf. 

In spite of the fact that The Help is set in Civil Rights Era Jackson, it is happy, sad, serious and fun all in one. There were several instances when I found myself almost in tears from laughing so hard… All I have to say is just WAIT for the toilet scene!!

-Caroline

Ron Rash cut to the chase last week by describing his writing process before anyone had a chance to ask him about it. Rash said,

“I start with an image.”

In this case he began recording the image of a woman on a horse. The image would soon become that of Serena, the larger than life heroine of his most recent novel as well as the book’s namesake. Serena’s persona soon took on a life of its own (one of mythical proportions.) Rash said it soon became clear that between Serena and her lumber baron husband, Serena was the dominant figure in the novel.

“Even if you don’t believe in free will for people you have to believe in free will for literary characters… you don’t want to limit your characters.”

Rash certainly puts no limitations on Serena… this heroine knows no limits. Serena’s capabilities inspire fear and awe among lumberjacks and locals alike… especially when she imports a Berkut Eagle (the fiercest of raptors) from Mongolia and trains it to hunt rattlesnakes at her bidding. It must be said that if Rash’s character impresses those surviving the harsh, clear cutting lifestyle of depression era Appalachia, she takes hardcore to a new level. One character comments,

“I’d no more strut up and tangle with that eagle than I’d tangle with the one what can tame such a critter.”

This quote is exemplary of Rash’s fantastic writing style. When he talked about his love of language and words and he said he delights in using them well.

“You talk about what poetry is, it’s memorable speech… You get a sense that not only every word is crucial but every syllable.”

He went on to call modern poetry “bloodless” because it is so abstract. Instead, he said, he likes the sort of poetry heard in every day talk. Rash can hear poetry in the voices of  Appalachia… For example, when remarking upon a scantily clad young girl, an Appalachian is known to wax poetic,

“That girl doesn’t have enough clothes on to wad a shot gun.”

Rash concluded his book talk by explaining how one goes about wadding a shotgun… At Lemuria you just never know what’s gonna come up next.

“Serena” Review by Dave the Novelist

Review by the Christian Science Monitor