Author Event – Page 5 – Lemuria Books

Tag: Author Event (Page 5 of 15)

Author Q & A with Helen Ellis

On April 21, 2019

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

Alabama native and author Helen Ellis has lived in New York City for more than a quarter century, but says she still wears her accent “on her sleeve,” which explains why her newest book is titled Southern Lady Code.

The premise of the 23 true essays which capture as many hilarious and often poignant episodes she’s gotten herself into, is one simple rule: “If you don’t have something nice to say, you say something not so nice in a nice way.”

Ellis also authored Eating the Cheshire Cat and American Housewife. In addition to–and often instead of–calling herself a writer, she also proudly claims the title of “housewife.”

A serious poker plays who learned the game from her father as a child, Ellis competes on the national tournament circuit. She and her husband happily reside in Manhattan.

You grew up in Tuscaloosa and, at age 22, you left for New York City in hopes of becoming a writer. Tell me about the career twists that landed you in the role of housewife–which eventually, with the help of Twitter, led to your success as a writer.

Helen Ellis

It was 1992, and I–dressed in my Talbot’s turtleneck, ankle-length wool plaid skirt, and penny loafers–walked from publishing house to publishing house, dropping my resume at reception desks like calling cards. I had the hopes of being an editorial assistant, but no publishing house called me. I walked into Talbots and got a job on the spot.

Two years later, I got a job at a financial magazine with the hopes of being an editorial assistant. They hired me to drum up subscriptions. I met a young reporter, who drummed up my heart.

A year later, I got into the NYU creative writing program, temped as a secretary, and through that temp agency, landed a long-term job in the chairman’s office of Chanel. I worked four days a week and wrote three.

Scribner published my first book, Eating the Cheshire Cat, in 2000.

I married that young reporter, who became an editor, in 2001.

And then I wrote another book, and nobody published it. And then I wrote another book, and nobody published it. And then I quit my secretarial job to write full time, supported by my husband, wrote another book, and nobody published it. And then I quit writing, and nobody cared.

I settled into a happy life as a housewife. And when people asked me what I did, I didn’t say writer, I said, “Housewife.” The next question was always: “What do you do all day?” I started an anonymous twitter account called @WhatIDoAllDay.

I tweeted about housework and hosting parties and book clubs and the beauty of banality. And then I wrote a story about how a housewife cleans up murders. And then I wrote a story about a book club recruiting a new member with a sinister motive. And then I wrote about what a woman left to her own devices could ultimately do all day. I wrote what I knew. And, 16 years after my first novel, Doubleday published my short story collection, American Housewife. And three years after that, they’ve published Southern Lady Code. This time, the stories are all true.

Explain the phrase “Southern Lady Code,” and how it became the title of your newest book.

Southern Lady Code is: if you don’t have something nice to say, say something not so nice, in a nice way. Twenty-five years in Manhattan, I kept finding myself translating what I’d say to people. “She’s a character” means drunk. Or “He’s an archivist” means hoarder. Or “Bless her heart” means “What an idiot.”

I’ve been tweeting these translations for more than five years. I turned some of those tweets into a short story in “American Housewife.” My … true stories … are now this book. Each essay has a line of code. So, for example, in “Making a Marriage Magically Tidy” I write about how my husband fell in love with a “creative” woman. “Creative” is Southern Lady Code for slob.

The essays which make up Southern Lady Code are not only hilarious, but packed with meaning that makes us pause. Tell me how humor has been important in your life, and how it has become your signature writing style.

I come from a funny family. Some of the best times I’ve had have been at funerals, where relatives and friends try and outdo each other with the most outrageous memories of the deceased. With humor, you can ease pain. And with humor, you can be honest. It’s easier to get your point across when you make the person you’re pointing at laugh. Especially when you’re pointing at yourself.

Poker has been a passion of yours since childhood. Tell us about its role in your life.

There have been times when I wasn’t writing, but I’ve always played poker. Poker is a chance for me to really be myself. I can be nice, but I don’t have to play nice. I can be at the table, but I don’t have to entertain. I can confront bullies and make them back down. I can be brave. And when I lose, and I most certainly do lose, I know there’s always another game. And as with after my losses in writing, when I am lucky enough to win and get published, the success is all the sweeter.

I’ve interviewed many writers who, like you, have moved away from the South, yet no matter how much time passes, they still consider themselves to be Southerners. How would you explain that sentiment?

My roots run deep. And I wear my accent on my sleeve.

Helen Ellis will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, April 24, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Southern Lady Code.

Author Q & A with Ali Benjamin

By Former Lemurians

On April 18, 2019

In Oz: Middle Grade

Interview with Ali Benjamin by Oz Books manager Trianne Harabedian.

Ali Benjamin is the author of two middle-grade books, the newly released The Next Great Paulie Fink and 2015’s The Thing About Jellyfish, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Benjamin will be at Lemuria on Thursday, April 25, at 5:00 to sign and read from The Next Great Paulie Fink.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

Ali Benjamin

I grew up about an hour from New York City, in a community along the Hudson River. At the time, my hometown was where NYC suburbs gave way to something more ex-urban. As a result, my schools had kids from varied socioeconomic backgrounds. There were the “commuting” families, who tended to be wealthier and white collar, as well as many less affluent blue-collar workers.

Most houses in my neighborhood were newer ranch houses (often with freshly mowed lawns). My family’s home was…different. It was about 200 years old, with peeling paint and the occasional rotting floorboard. Most of the neighborhood kids thought it was haunted (though I never saw evidence of that). My parents were hippies, which other families in the neighborhood definitely were not! It’s funny; my sister became an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and I became a writer. Sometimes I wonder if growing up a little different from your peers is a natural springboard into storytelling!

We had lots of freedom back then; kids wandered the neighborhood, organizing games of kick-the-can or flashlight tag. I tried to capture some of that sense of freedom and expansiveness in The Next Great Paulie Fink. In fact, there’s a story within the book about a game of team-tag that comes directly from a specific moment in the neighborhood!

Today I live in Western Massachusetts—I’m only a few miles from both the Vermont and New York state borders. There are still many small farms in this area, so I’ve had a little experience with goats, an animal that appears repeatedly in The Next Great Paulie Fink!

Can you tell us, in your own words, what The Next Great Paulie Fink is about?

The Next Great Paulie Fink is about an oddball group of seventh grade students who organize a reality TV-style competition to “replace” their legendary class clown, Paulie Fink, who mysteriously doesn’t return at the start of the school year. The story goes back and forth between a straightforward narrative—told through the eyes of “new girl” Caitlyn, who is reluctantly put in charge of the competition—and interviews with Caitlyn’s classmates as they share memories of Paulie’s most ingenious pranks.

But the book is also about the stories we tell each other and to ourselves: how can we know if the stories we tell are “true?” Where, exactly, is the line between reality and myth? What if the stories we tell ourselves no longer serve us? Who might we get to become if we choose a new story? The book is also about celebrity culture; whom we elevate into legendary status, and why, and whether we ever know these idols —or anyone—as well as we think we do. These bigger questions, though, are woven into a very lighthearted narrative, so kids can access the book at different levels.

Even though the kids in the book talk a lot about Paulie Fink, the story is really about Caitlyn Breen. What made you want to tell her story?

A couple of years ago, I got ahold of my middle school diary. I was so excited to read it and become reacquainted with my 12-year-old self. I thought I remembered, more or less, who I’d been back then. In my memory, I’d been a nice kid—kind of nerdy, very distracted, pretty immature, and definitely in over my head in the chaotic world of middle school. But I was kind…or so I thought.

Except that’s not what the pages showed me. My diary was filled with page after page of nasty comments about my classmates, my friends, my family, my teachers. I was also obsessed with where I stood in the middle school hierarchy, almost as if I were a reality star trying to claw my way toward the top. But as I read through the pages with my adult eyes, I could also see how incredibly insecure I was, how lost. And of course, that’s precisely why I was so mean! Genuinely confident people don’t need to put others down.

Caitlyn’s in a similar place as I’d been. At the story’s start, she’s not particularly nice, and she’s clinging to “rules” that she thinks will help her gain social currency. But as the competition to find the Next Great Paulie Fink unfolds, she begins to realize that those old ways aren’t actually serving her. So, she begins to do what my middle school self wasn’t able to: to set down her obsession with popularity, to really see and value the people around her, and to have a little fun for a change. I think I gave to Caitlyn what I myself needed when I was in middle school!

Can you tell us about myths and legends and why they’re so important in this book?

Stories drive the world forward. They always have. They don’t merely reflect who we are, and what we value, they actually shape us in ways that are active and direct. This is something I tried to show throughout the book. For example, at a critical moment, Caitlyn thinks of a kindergarten student who idolizes her. By asking herself, “what if I were the person this child sees? What would that version of me do now?” she’s able to become a little better than she might have been otherwise.

Every character in The Next Great Paulie Fink gets the opportunity to try on a new story. In doing so, they open themselves to new possibilities. Their worlds get a little richer.

And it’s worth noting that no story—not even a true story, in which every element is 100 percent factually accurate—ever reflects the full reality of this world. Every story involves a series of choices: who is the protagonist? Who’s the villain or the scapegoat? Which details are brought to the forefront? Which are left out altogether? These choices are what makes it a story, instead of merely a collection of facts.

Too often, our stories are so baked into our experiences that we don’t notice them. We’re like fish who don’t notice the water we’re swimming in! The Next Great Paulie Fink is a very lighthearted way to explore some of these issues.

What is the most important lesson that you want us to take away from this story?

First, I hope it gives kids permission to let themselves have some fun. The kids in The Next Great Paulie Fink are goofy. They’re totally un-self-conscious. They love to laugh and to be silly. They do ridiculous dances. They wrestle like zombies. They imitate robots and aliens, chase runaway goats, and they love every minute of it! I’d like to see more kids give themselves permission to be so free.

Second, I hope the book encourages them to think critically about their world. Human beings tell each other, and themselves, a lot of stories. Not all of them are true. Some of them have elements of truth, but are inherently incomplete. I wanted to give kids a way to begin to really examine the stories that drive them, to open themselves up to the possibility that their stories are part of a much bigger tapestry. The more they can see that, the bigger, and more meaningful, their lives can become.

Author Q & A with Shelby Harriel

By Guest Author

On April 14, 2019

In Civil War, Southern History, War, Women's Studies

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 14)

Shelby Harriel fell in love with history at a young age when she was shocked to find out that her own state had left its country in order to start a new one.

That curiosity eventually led to published research in newspapers, magazine, website, and blogs about the role of women in the Civil War.

Her new book, Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi) encompasses much of that information, with an emphasis on women’s motivation to secretly join the military and fight, the hard work they put in alongside the men in their units, and the roads they paved for a future for women in the military.

By day, Harriel may be found at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville–teaching . . . math!

Please tell me about your long interest in history–and specifically, the Civil War and women who fought in the Civil War. Do you have an approximate number or percentage on the fighting force that were women?

Shelby Harriel

I became interested in the Civil War in elementary school when we were first introduced to the subject in our Mississippi History class. I was absolutely fascinated to learn that my state had left the United States and formed a whole new country. I had to find out more. Eventually, my studies led me to participate in reenacting, but I just couldn’t find my niche. As an athlete my entire life … sitting on the sidelines in a hoop skirt never appealed to me. I was more interested in learning about the experiences of the common soldier.

One day, (someone) remarked that there were women who served as soldiers. Suddenly, I found a whole new exciting realm to direct my interest and research. That was in the late 1990s when researchers began to take a fresh new look at women soldiers, and books were published. So, I had all this new exciting material to consume. The more I read, the more questions I had. This naturally led to me examining primary sources myself. Soon, I had accumulated a great deal of new research that I felt needed a broader audience.

We will never know how many women served as soldiers during the Civil War because they were hidden behind male disguises. Estimates range from the hundreds to the thousands. When you consider that millions of men fought, this number is insignificant. There weren’t that many of them.

What motivated women–some as young as 16–to risk the dangers and hardships of war by secretly enlisting in the military and fighting in the Civil War, disguised as men–and how did they get through the physical exams that allowed them to pass as men?

In some cases, it was the same motivational factors that led men to enlist that also prompted women to join the ranks: patriotism, adventure, and economic opportunities. There weren’t many well-paying, respectable jobs available for women then. But when they disguised themselves as men, they could double or triple their income in a variety of jobs previously closed to them. This afforded them a more independent lifestyle they would not have been able to enjoy in traditional feminine roles. Women also enlisted to avoid separation from male loved ones who went off to war. Other women joined to escape these male family members. Vengeance for a fallen loved one led some women to enlist–or attempt to.

Military regulations called for a soldier to strip for a medical exam upon entering the service. However, pressure to fill depleting ranks or incompetency resulted in cursory examinations where, in some cases, all surgeons did was to ensure that a recruit had a working trigger finger and two good teeth to tear the paper cartridge that held the ammunition. There are quite a few accounts of soldiers testifying that all they had to do was to show their hands and teeth. Some women even had men take the exam for them. So it was actually not terribly difficult for a woman to get past the examination. There are accounts, however, of thorough examining surgeons discovering women trying to sneak into the ranks.

You point out several times in your book Behind the Rifle that pursuing research into the stories and even the names of women who fought in the Civil War is difficult. Could you explain why this was, and do you plan to continue your efforts to identify these women and tell their stories?

At the time, women could not serve in the military, so if a woman wanted to join the army, she had to disguise herself as a man. She cut her hair, put on male clothing, and assumed a male alias. It was actually not that difficult because they did not have forms of identification, but it was a risky venture. Back then, it was not only illegal but also socially unacceptable for a woman to even wear pants. If caught, she served jail time and/or paid a fine. Clothing defined the genders, and anybody caught crossing those lines brought shame upon themselves and their families.

If these women were caught, they often told newspaper reporters wrong information about themselves–including their own feminine name–so this information would not get back home to their families. Sometimes, writers would afford women privacy by not reporting their name, or by assigning them another alias. There is also evidence that the military may have expunged the records of women soldiers. There are instances where male soldiers were court martialed when women soldiers were discovered in their units. Therefore, it is not surprising that many people didn’t want these stories told–making it excruciatingly difficult for those who do want to tell them.

Yes, I plan to continue researching women soldiers because I think there is more to learn. All it takes is the discovery of one soldier’s letter or diary entry, or one newspaper article to provide a missing piece of the puzzle-such as a correct name–that will either bring that woman’s story to fruition or debunk it.

I plan to include new research in a second book on women soldiers. It will have a broader focus that will encompass all women soldiers of the Civil War, not just those with Mississippi connections.

All in all, what would you say these women, who fought on both sides, contributed to the war effort–and why do we need to know about them?

As mentioned earlier, they were statistically irrelevant. Their presence on the battlefield didn’t change the course of an engagement or the war. They weren’t there promoting social change. They weren’t feminists fighting for women’s rights. These women were simply uncommon soldiers experiencing the common trials of war alongside men. They performed the same duties as men, endured the same hardships. They suffered debilitating wounds. They sacrificed their lives for causes that men shared. And we should honor them all the same. These women soldiers helped pave the way for women to serve in our current military.

Shelby Harriel will be at Lemuria on Saturday, May 4, at 2:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi.

Author Q & A with Nell Freudenberger

By Guest Author

On April 7, 2019

In Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 7)

In her latest novel, Lost and Wanted, Nell Freudenberger’s admitted “language brain” delves deeply into the world of science, as complicated theories meet complicated characters–both of whom merit the time and curiosity of an intense examination.

Named one of The New Yorker‘s “20 Under 40” nearly a decade ago, Freudenberger is one author whose career continues to shine, collecting an impressive array of awards along the way.

As the author of novels The Newlyweds and The Dissident and the story collection Lucky Girls (which was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction afrom the American Academy of Arts and Letters), Freudenberger has also captured a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whitling Award, and a Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library.

She and her family make their home in Brooklyn.

In a book as much about relationships as science, Lost and Wanted tugs at heartstrings even as it posits scientific theories of Nobel Prize level. To set the stage, please tell us briefly about main characters Helen, Charlie, Terrance, and Neel.

Helen is a theoretical physicist at MIT, who had a baby on her own in her late 30s. Her primary relationships are with her son, Jack, and with her work, which she loves–maybe too much to get close to anyone else.

Her college friend, Charlie, is similarly driven in her own field, but they’ve faced different challenges as a white scientist in academia and a black screenwriter in Hollywood. Charlie is one of those people who is magnetic and wonderful in person, but elusive as soon as you leave her side. When she dies suddenly, from complications of lupus, Helen doesn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

She seeks out Charlie’s daughter and husband, Terrence, in an attempt to understand more about her friend’s death. Terrence is reserved and hard to read; with his brother, he runs a Los Angeles-based surf shop, and he and Helen seem to have little in common–except that they’re suddenly both single parents, grieving for the same person. Just as they’re starting to trust each other, Helen’s charming and emotionally clueless ex, Neel, drops two bombshells–one personal and one scientific–and Helen’s carefully organized existence starts to fall apart in ways that challenge her most closely held beliefs.

The depth of your use of science knowledge and theory is impressive! What inspired you to write this story of advanced theories about “five-dimensional spacetime” and cutting-edge discoveries about the mind, the brain, gravitational force–and the possibility of ghosts?

Nell Freudenberger

I knew that I wanted to write a book about women and work, and at first, I tried to play it safe; I made Helen a novelist. That didn’t work at all, maybe because I couldn’t get out of my own head enough to find her voice. I thought I might make one of the minor characters an astrophysicist, and so I started reading an introductory college level textbook that a friend recommended. I don’t have a science background, and I was intimidated, in part because I’d always been told that I was a “language person” or that I didn’t have a “math brain.”

One book led to another, though, and I found that I was fascinated by particular topics, especially the gravitational wave detection project known as LIGO. I thought it was incredible that Einstein had theorized these “ripples in the fabric of spacetime,” but never believed human beings would be able to detect them, and that almost exactly 100 years later, scientists were doing just that.

My interest led me to cold e-mail some physicists, who were extremely kind. They spent hours explaining their work to me and showing me the lab that appears in the book. Their passion to communicate what they knew–for no reason other than the pleasure they took in it–was the real spark for Helen’s character, and convinced me that I could learn enough to make Helen believable as a physicist.

As for ghosts, I don’t believe in them–most of the time. None of the physicists I met told me that they did either, but they did often subscribe to counter-intuitive theories about space, physical forces, or the origins of the universe. Like Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, their explanations of physical phenomena had to be taken on faith or derived mathematically; they didn’t make sense inside a human being’s three-dimensional experience of the world. Talking to physicists about these wild ideas stretched my own capacity for belief.

Please tell me about the poem read at Charlie’s funeral–and explain how that became the title of the book.

The untitled poem by Auden that begins “This lunar beauty…” made a deep impression on me when I was an undergradate. Some people in our seminar thought the poem was about death; our professor insisted it was about pregnancy–his wife was about to have a baby; others argued that it was just a poem about the moon. To me, that indeterminacy was what made the poem so beautiful, and spoke to our different conceptions of an afterlife.

Those metrically regular and perfectly rhymed lines–“Where ghost has haunted/Lost and wanted”–gave me a natural title for the book. They seemed to suggest an interim pace that was more mathematical than purgatorial, maybe even a digital space somewhere between life and death.

Tell me about the meaning of “unseen communication”–a phrase that is referenced several times in Lost and Wanted. Does it hold more than one meaning among the characters and their discoveries about life, love, grief, acceptance, and unknown mysteries of the universe?

Science is never finished, and I love the physicist John Wheeler’s idea that each generation suggests a paradox for the next to solve. That’s one kind of “unfinished communication” that appears in the book; another is the mistaken belief that we’ll always have time to say the things we want to say to the people we love.

When a relationship ends–in death or another kind of rupture–we sometimes panic or become depressed about what we wish we’d said while there was still time. Technology now complicates this equation, because we all leave digital records behind, rarely as neatly as we’d like. Sometimes the presence of this stray information make it even more difficult to believe that the loved one is really gone.

For the children in the book, whose experience of time is more abstract than that of their counterparts, there’s a very real sense that it may still be possible to communicate with the people they’ve lost, if only they can find the right medium.

What are we to make of Charlie’s apparent attempts to communicate with her loved ones even after her death, as is demonstrated in the final pages of the book?

I’ll let you make what you will of that!

Nell Freudenberger will be at Lemuria on Friday, April 12, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Lost and Wanted.

Janet Brown’s ‘Deadly Visits’ creates cold, creepy read

By Guest Author

On April 3, 2019

In Mystery, Southern Fiction

By J.C. Patterson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Monday print edition (April 1)

For a seemingly demure and grandmotherly-type lady, Janet Brown knows how to scare the crud out of you. Her fourth thriller, Deadly Visits, conjures ghostly visions, creepy critters and elemental disruptions amid a high-tech whodunit.

Brown spent several years in the shivering climes of South Dakota, where the temps make this part of the country laughable. Bundle up and head north, where Emily Dunham, hunkered down in rural Aberdeen, South Dakota, spots a ghost treading down her hallway. It’s a young girl in an old fashioned, long yellow dress, who vanishes as quickly as she’s spotted. Emily’s job-driven husband Alex shrugs the vision off; he’s more interested in dinner.

The call comes at 4 a.m. that night. Emily’s brother Carl relays the bad news: their father is near death. Emily flies south to her childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi, just a hair too late to say goodbye to dad.

After visitation, Emily meets former boyfriend Richard at Old Trace Park. He comforts her and asks that Emily drop by and his tell his wife hello. Emily finds the request strange, especially when she learns the truth about Richard. And his daughter resembles the ghost girl.

Back in South Dakota, Marlis Peterson speaks with the ghost of her childhood friend while waiting in line to pick up her kids from school. Soon more people are seeing dead students walking the halls of the school.

While Emily’s husband Alex argues with fellow worker George Kwivinan, George spots strange lightning closing in on the car they’re travelling in. Yet only George can see it. George also comes across a terrifying mist around his kids’ ankles in the play yard. And what’s with the odd triangles?

If you feel like you’re in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, that’s certainly the vibe Deadly Visits puts forth.

Still in Mississippi, Emily tells a local priest of her odd visions. The priest refers Emily to a local detective who’s dealt with stranger things in his career. M.A. Klugh listens to Emily’s story. He finds it so fascinating, Klugh flies back to South Dakota with his new client.

Emily passes Klugh off as her long lost uncle to her three kids and leery husband. One of Alex’s co-workers has recently died in a plane crash. Or was it murder? Alex is jailed as the most likely suspect while Klugh comes to his defense.

The strangeness continues as Emily and M.A.’s relationship grows. Everything centers around Audio Tech, the mysterious company Alex works for. A nun who speaks to spirits and an aging scientist hold the keys to why the dead have risen. Brown introduces the reader to Augmented Virtual Reality and the very real possibilities it holds.

“A lot of the book is made of short stories,” Brown said. Her late husband told the author she should put them together. The idea came from science fact.“What if you could take your brain and see things that weren’t there, like television.” Or perhaps ghosts.“I like to scare people,” Brown chuckles.

Tune in to the mind-numbing freakiness that arrives with Deadly Visits. Janet Brown’s sci-fi thriller is short and deadly and will definitely keep you up at night.

J.C. Patterson is the author of the Big Easy Dreamin’ series, a collection of New Orleans stories

Janet Brown will be at Lemuria on Thursday, April 4, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Deadly Visits.

Elvis intrigue infuses Philip Shirley’s ‘Graceland Conspiracy’ with energy

By Guest Author

On March 31, 2019

In Mystery

By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 31)

What if Elvis Presley’s death didn’t occur as thought at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977?

What if he was murdered by a rogue government agency? Or his death was faked and he’s still alive?

In a fast-paced page-turner, Philip Shirley weaves a tale of intrigue and nation-jumping that renews the debate over Elvis in the mystery novel The Graceland Conspiracy.

Shirley addresses questions and conspiracy theories that arose after the “death,” including: Why did the medical examiner’s report say Elvis was 170 pounds when there was ample film footage at the time showing him at well over 200 pounds?

“There was no shortage of theories about how Elvis might have died, or why, or who might have wanted him dead,” Shirley writes. One said flat-out that Elvis was part of a three-year undercover operation and the mob was out to get him before he could testify. “The only thing that was clear was that Elvis’ death created more conspiracy ideas than President Kennedy’s assassination.”

In Graceland, Shirley chooses the time for his novel as the lip of the millennium, in the final days of the Clinton administration, and before 9/11 in Birmingham. His protagonist, Matthew Boykin, 27, is drawn home there from a wasted life as a biker and pool hall denizen in Texas after his father dies in an unexplained car crash.

As his father is dying in the hospital, Boykin finds that he was perhaps not an “accountant” with a seemingly marginal Department of Justice branch called the National Security Enforcement Office (NSEO) years before an early retirement after Elvis’ “death.”

Boykin had left home seven years before as his father succumbed to alcoholism, raging at the world, and spending his days before a TV set with a bottle of whiskey by his chair. He only came home because a shadowy figure tracked him down in a bar and told him that his mother needed him.

Turns out, shortly before the car cash, his father had sobered up after years of trying to drown his remorse and shame over an event he witnessed that he would not name and was trying to make amends for it.

In a thriller that never slows its pace, Boykin vows to find the reason for his father’s death, the act that caused his spiraling into alcoholism, and to seek revenge in a saga that extends to Europe amid a trail of bodies. Along the way, he mends the wounds in his own life, finds love, and creates lasting friendships—ultimately, solving the mystery of Elvis’ “death.”

This is the sixth book for Shirley, who splits his time between Dauphin Island, Ala., and the Madison area, including two novels and a collection of short stories.

It’s a great read that’s sure to resurrect the Elvis debate anew.

Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at the Clarion Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.

Philip Shirley will be at Lemuria on Monday, April 1, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from The Graceland Conspiracy.

Author Q & A with Tom Clavin

By Guest Author

On March 24, 2019

In History, Western

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 24)

Among those worthy of celebrity status in mid-19th century America were rugged gunslingers whose reputations were often built on myths and legends borne of truth and tragedy–and one who reached the heights of notoriety was Wild Bill Hickock.

New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin adds to his collection of historical nonfiction with Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter, examining in detail the life and rowdy times of this iconic American figure.

Notoriety gained from the press made Hickock a nationally known figure, and thus, placed a target on his back for hotshots who wanted to make a name for themselves as the man who would take him down.

A quick-draw artist who was known for his accuracy and courage when it came to gunfights, Hickock became a lawman at 20, and wen ton to hold the titles of Army scout, federal marshal, and Union spy. It would be a bullet that would end his life at age 39.

Clavin has served as a newspaper and web editor, magazine writer, TV/radio commentator and reporter for the New York Times. Among his career credits are awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, an dthe National Newspaper Association. His book include Dodge City, The Heart of Everything That Is, and Valley Forge. Clavin lives in Sag Harbor, New York.

“Wild Bill” Hickock, hom you describe as the “first post-Civil War celebrity of the West,” was well-known as America’s first gunfighter during the 1800s–but his real name wasn’t even Bill. Tell us how James Butler Hickock became popularly known as “Bill”–and how he earned the legendary title of “Wild.”

Tom Clavin

Two separate events resulted in “Wild Bill.” The first and less dramatic is he had a brother who called himself Bill–his real name was Lorenzo–and probably as a joke when traveling together on a steamship on the Missouri River they called each other Bill. Lorenzo disembarked, “Jim” Hickock pushed on, and passengers called him Bill, and he got comfortable about this.

The “Wild” part happened after he entered a saloon fight on the side of a bartender outnumbered 6-to-1, and onlookers thought that was a wildly gutsy thing to do. From 1861 on, he was Wild Bill Hickock.

Why do say in your Author’s Note that it was a “gullible and impressionable public” that made Wild Bill bigger than all of the legendary frontier figures (like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson) who came before him?

There had always been a hunger back East for tall tales about frontier figures, bu the public became especially ravenous after the Civil War when the American frontier exploded with seemingly limitless potential. Hickock cut a romantic, larger-than-life figure and had a distinctive look and there was a bigger than ever number of readers. All this combined to almost overnight elevating him to superstar status.

It was a Harper’s New Monthly Magazine article in February 1867 that first spread Hickock’s name and legend across the nation, making him nationally famous at age 29. What effect did that article have on Hickock’s life?

The article made him very famous. He could not have been prepared for that, but he sort of took his fame in stride. Hickock did not seek attention, but he didn’t hide from it, either. He was mostly a modest man, but a part of him enjoyed being almost a mythical figure. The downside was much of his fame was as a best-in-the-West gunfighter, making him a target for those younger and possibly faster who wanted to take that title. For the rest of his life, he had to wonder which bullet had his name on it.

Briefly, for what exploits was Wild Bill best known?

Though we don’t have a lot of details, his years as a spy behind Confederate lines were full of exciting exploits. Obviously, being a gunfighter who could shoot faster and more accurately than any man he encountered. And especially when marshal of Abilene in Kansas, Hickock became the prototype of the two-fisted and two-gun frontier lawman. And he was the most well-known of Western plainsmen.

“Wild Bill,” was described as “the handsome, chivalrous, yet cold-eyed killer who roamed the prairie, a kind friend to children and a quick-drawing punisher of evildoers.” He died at age 39, and you liken his life to a Shakespearean tragedy. Explain how that comparison fits.

Hickock fits into that tragic mold dating from Euripides in Ancient Greece and elevated by Shakespeare of the hero who attained heights, but flaws felled him. The West changed fast around Wild Bill Hickock, and he was unable to adapt–and he was a gunfighter going blind.

Like many tragic heroes in literature, he sensed his days were short and life had been unfair but he courageously accepted what was to come. Hickock was an honorable man ultimately dealt a bad hand.

Tom Clavin will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, March 27, at 5:00 to sign copies of and discuss Wild Bill. Lemuria has chosen Wild Bill as its April 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction.

Tom Clavin’s ‘Wild Bill’ sets record straight on wild west gunfighter

By Guest Author

On March 21, 2019

In History, Western

By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion Ledger Sunday print edition (March 17)

For those not especially knowledgeable about tales of the old frontier (other than movies and TV shows), Tom Clavin’s Wild Bill is full of surprises.

The first surprise in the book subtitled “The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter” is that that Wild Bill Hickok’s name wasn’t Bill.

It’s believed that the man born as James Butler Hickok often joked with his brother Lorenzo by calling each other Bill. Since he answered to it, the name stuck. It may be also that James was known as the Wild Bill and his brother was the Tame Bill.

He signed all documents J.B. Hickok throughout his life.

Whether true or apocryphal, there’s no dispute that Wild Bill was an incredible marksman. Ambidextrous, he early on carried Colt Navy .36-cal. pistols facing butt out on each hip, which he later exchanged for double-action Colt .44s filed down for quicker action. He shot with both hands simultaneously and equally accurately.

“Witnesses report seeing Hickok driving a cork through the neck of a whiskey bottle at 20 paces, splitting a bullet on the edge of dime at the same distance, and putting as many as a dozen bullet holes in a tomato can that had been tossed in the air,” Clavin reports.

This skill made him a formidable foe in a gun battle and it also tended to dissuade lawbreakers when he served as marshal for the town of Abilene, Kansas, frequently putting on shows to demonstrate his prowess.

He also didn’t quite fit his “wild” moniker in his bearing and manner, in that he was by all accounts a cool customer. Raised in an abolitionist family in Illinois, during the Civil War, he served as a Union scout and spy, often going behind Confederate lines, and was able to coolly talk his way out of some tight binds. It was this ability to talk his way out of trouble, backed by his reputation as a crack shot, that later served him well as a lawman.

Much of what is known of Hickok through movies and Wild West shows is also probably fabricated, Clavin reveals. For example, it’s doubtful, he says, that Hickok and Calamity Jane were lovers. While they were friends, contemporary accounts seem to indicate that the somewhat dandy-ish Hickok who wore expensive clothes and bathed every day (an unheard-of practice at the time), considered her rather uncouth. She was prone to drunkenness and a prostitute who also wrangled horses, mules and cattle, usually wore men’s clothes, and was not known for her hygiene.

He also was devoted to his wife, Agnes, whom he married rather late in life (about the time he knew Jane), and she was flamboyant in a different way, as the owner of a circus and a world-renowned performer.

Calamity Jane claimed she and Hickok were lovers and had herself buried next to him at Deadwood, S.D., where he was shot dead from behind while playing what came to be called the dead man’s hand in poker: two pair, aces and eights.

What is known, according to Clavin, was that Hickok was the first fast-draw gunslinger in the Old West. His killing of a man in Springfield, Missouri, (Clavin says Independence, Missouri) July 21, 1865, by quick draw methods—rather than pacing off a duel—was widely reported and was quickly emulated across the West.

Unfortunately, because it also happened while he was quite young, it caused “shootists” who came along after to seek him out to show who was the fastest draw. He died at 39, Aug. 2, 1876, victim of a self-styled gunslinger who crept up on him.

But if a bushwhacker didn’t get him, the times would have. Hickok set the mold for gunman/lawmen who faced off in high noon style, but when he was killed, towns were shifting to “peace officers,” who arrested lawbreakers to take them before a judge, Clavin notes.

Hickok remained true to himself “while the West changed around him.”

Wild Bill is filled with the famous names of the West, such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Kit Carson, and the rest. It is a fascinating account of an incredible Western icon, diligently researched, and breath-taking in its scope.

Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at the Clarion Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.

James Meredith’s ‘Three Years in Mississippi’ receives a much needed reprint

By Guest Author

On March 20, 2019

In Civil Rights, Southern History

By Gregg Mayer. Special to the Clarion Ledger Sunday print edition (March 17)

Few individuals in Mississippi’s modern history are as emboldened, important and inscrutable as James Meredith.

Famous for integrating the University of Mississippi in 1962, Meredith has been a challenging and criticizing voice in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi ever since. In some ways, Meredith started it all in his home state, and he documented that struggle in his first book Three Years in Mississippi (UPM, $30), a 336-page memoir that this year received a much-needed reprint by the University Press of Mississippi.

Originally published in 1966, Three Years in Mississippi takes readers back into Meredith’s own raw words shortly after he had returned to his home state in 1960 having spent ten years away.

“To understand the events that occurred during my three years in Mississippi, one must always remember that I returned to my home state to fight a war,” he writes. Throughout his first-person account, Meredith refers to himself as if a soldier in battle.

Meredith chronicles the events in diary-like fashion, using bold headings–such as Provoking the Attention of the Police, The All-Night Session, The Question of My Security–about what he saw, who was with him, and the attitudes and culture he was trying to change.

The centerpiece is Meredith’s denial of admission and eventual lawsuit against Ole Miss, a suit that was nearly ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which had ended public school segregation.
In leading up to the legal challenge, Meredith includes the complete texts of letters he wrote to Civil Rights leaders of the time, including to Thurgood Marshall, who would later sit on the U.S. Supreme Court:

“I have always been a ‘conscientious objector’ to my ‘oppressed status’ as long as I can remember,” Meredith wrote Marshall. “I am familiar with the probable difficulties involved in such a move as I am undertaking and I am fully prepared to pursue it all the way to a degree from the University of Mississippi.”

With the support of the NAACP, Meredith filed suit in federal court after his admission was denied. Long excerpts of court testimony are included in the book. The trial judge incredulously found that “[t]he evidence overwhelmingly showed that the Plaintiff was not denied admissions because of his race,” adding that race was not even considered by the University. Such hollow pronouncements were eventually reversed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Meredith was admitted to school.

On September 29, 1962, Meredith traveled to Oxford, but he writes he turned around amid reports of rioting. It wasn’t until two days later, with the smell of tear gas still in the air, that Meredith was on campus and learned the full extent of the rioting, including that two men were killed and several injured.

“Some newspapermen later asked me if I thought attending the university was worth all this death and destruction,” Meredith writes. “The question really annoyed me. Of course, I was sorry! I hadn’t wanted this to happen. I believe it could have been prevented by responsible political leadership in Mississippi.”

Enduring harassment as a daily routine, Meredith earned his political science degree from Ole Miss on August 18, 1963. Since that transformative time, Meredith has made his way down many unexpected paths, and over the years, “squandered his reputation through odd political choices, business failings, and quirky behavior,” writes University of Memphis Professor Aram Goudsouzian in a brilliantly illuminating introduction to the book that puts this touchstone event in Civil Rights history into contextual focus.

But despite whatever Meredith chose to do after his time in Oxford, the import of Three Years in Mississippi is how it powerfully records the fervent narrative of a young man who lived within a system that considered him inferior, and he pushed back against it.

Gregg Mayer is a lawyer and writer who serves as Chief Operating Officer at Mississippi Public Broadcasting. He graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Mississippi Law Journal.

James Meredith will be at Lemuria on Saturday, April 13, in conversation with Cara Meredith and Jamar Tisby, at 2:00 p.m.

A life spared amid a reign of terror in Lovejoy Boteler’s ‘Crooked Snake’

By Guest Author

On March 13, 2019

In Biography/Memoir, Southern History

By Charlie Spillers. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 10)

“I don’t know how many people were kidnapped in Mississippi in 1968, but I was one of them,” writes author Lovejoy Boteler in the first sentence of the Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard. Kidnapped at 18 by murderous escaped convicts, Boteler pens a fascinating account of the life and crimes of one of his kidnappers, Albert Lepard. In this remarkable book the author puts readers in the minds of convicts, lawmen, and dozens of victims. He takes us along on desperate escapes, intense manhunts, and lives scarred by crimes Lepard committed.

Sentenced to life in Parchman for the murder of an elderly woman, Albert Lepard escaped from prison six times in 14 years. During one of those escapes, Lepard kidnapped Lovejoy Boteler, stuck a gun in his ribs, and forced him to drive Lepard and another escaped convict from Grenada to Memphis. During the trip, young Botelor’s quick thinking averted an armed robbery and possibly another murder.

In Crooked Snake, Boteler pieces together the story of this cold-blooded murderer’s life using historical records and personal interviews with ex-convicts who ran with Lepard, family members who sheltered the fugitive during his escapes, the lawmen who hunted him, and the people he victimized.

When he conducted interviews for the book Boteler established rapport with fellow victims and elicited their chilling stories. They are bound by common horror and experiences with the same cold-blooded killer. John Nellum was ten years old when Lepard and two other escaped convicts broke into his home, tied up John, his 12-year old brother and their father, and held them for several hours. Lying face down with his hands bound, John was sure he was going to die. His heart felt like it would leap out of his chest as Lepard pressed the barrel of a rifle against the father’s head.

“I got ninety-nine years and one dark Sunday and it won’t make a damn bit of difference to me if I blow your head off right now,” Lepard declared as he placed his finger on the trigger.

Decades later, John still struggles with the memory of being tied up when he was ten. “What a crapshoot,” the author thought after interviewing John. “His psyche had been indelibly seared at the tender age of ten. At least I had been eighteen when I met Lepard.” Like 10-year old John Nellum, the then 18-year old Boteler faced pure evil and thought he was going to die during his intense encounter with Lepard.

Seventy-four year old Mary Young was not so fortunate. Lepard and Joe Edwards went to her home where they tied and blindfolded her. They pistol-whipped her and demanded she tell them where money was hidden in the house. When she refused to talk, Lepard went into a blind fury. He grabbed a claw hammer, swung it wildly and hit her in the head. They threw her on a bed, still tied and blindfolded. She was gagged but they could hear her moans. After finding money, they poured kerosene on Mary and the bed, and lit it. Lepard and Edwards walked out and coldly counted their loot while the house was consumed by flames and Mary Young burned to death.

The author was seared by his own experiences while crammed together with Lepard and another convict in the cab of a pickup truck during that long trip to Memphis. He was sure he was going to die. Lepard not only spared his life, but performed a small act of kindness when they let him go. Boteler always wondered why Lepard let him live. Through his research, the author finally uncovered the likely reason and reveals it on the last page of the book.

Joe Edwards was convicted with Lepard of the murder of Mary Young. Writing of Edwards, who became a preacher, Boteler says, “In old age, he is a man who struggles with a past he cannot change–one that holds him fast and won’t let go.” The same is true for the author who has spent a lifetime living with a terrifying experience and wondering why a murderer spared him. Readers can be thankful it inspired him to write this compelling book.

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, an international thriller. Flashpoint, the sequel to Whirlwind will be released later this year.

Tag: Author Event (Page 5 of 15)

Author Q & A with Helen Ellis

Author Q & A with Ali Benjamin

Author Q & A with Shelby Harriel

Author Q & A with Nell Freudenberger

Janet Brown’s ‘Deadly Visits’ creates cold, creepy read

Elvis intrigue infuses Philip Shirley’s ‘Graceland Conspiracy’ with energy

Author Q & A with Tom Clavin

Tom Clavin’s ‘Wild Bill’ sets record straight on wild west gunfighter

James Meredith’s ‘Three Years in Mississippi’ receives a much needed reprint

A life spared amid a reign of terror in Lovejoy Boteler’s ‘Crooked Snake’

Authors

Categories

Tags