Oh My!
Ready for the 2nd of 5 contests to win an autographed copy of Mudbound by Hillary Jordan? Note: One entry per Haiku.
Create a 17 syllable Haiku that reflects one of the southern books you are reading this summer. For simplicity, use the 5-7-5 format, as in 5 syllables for the first line, 7 syllables for the second, and 5 for the ending. Place your Southern Haiku in a post then leave a post specific URL on Mister Linky. You may choose not to tell the book title and let bloggers guess.
Last week, I wrote about “Jim the Boy” by Tony Earley. I enjoyed it so much I read his second book, “The Blue Star,” this week. Normally, I do not read the same author back-to-back. Being a librarian, it is important to experience all types of authors and genres. One might say, better to have a taste of an author’s writing than to spend valuable time analyzing his complete works.
It was Earley’s style that intrigued me. Does “The Blue Star” have the same clear, unassuming story? Will I sit eagerly turning the pages for everyday, ordinary events as occur in “Jim the Boy”? Most important, will hero Jim Glass be compromised by his initial success in the first book?
I am pleased to announce “The Blue Star” is not as quiet, episodic and verging on nostalgic as “Jim the Boy” but evermore pleasing. Jim is 17 now, and 17-year-olds are loud. He still encounters small events which become large, but in a flowing manner than end of chapter cliffhangers. As for nostalgia, we see Jim look back only to remind himself why he does not like the fair-hair Norma Harris anymore. She won’t let him kiss her.
Jim stands proudly with other senior boys on the top steps of the Aliceville High School in the beginning of the book. From years of watching his predecessors, he knows he need only move when a teacher passes. Next to him stands Dennis Deane, his very uncouth and obnoxious friend. All summer Dennis has worked on perfecting a line that will make all the girls fall in love with him. He uses this first day of school to try it out on pretty passersby who get stuck working their way through the crowd.
First through the gauntlet is Ellie Something. (No, I have not forgotten her name.) Ellie is totally stricken by the line and runs blushing to the door as soon as Jim steps aside clearing the way. Not quite the reactions Dennis is looking for, but wait. Here comes half-Cherokee maiden Chrissie Steppe.
Beautiful, long black-hair Chrissie who dates Bucky Bucklaw, a U.S. sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor, is a challenge. Jim asks Dennis to lay-off, but he can’t resist. As she nears, he closes his eyes, puckers up, and says, “Hey. Chrissie Steppe. Kiss me.” The fists ball and the fur detach to fly as Jim steps between the two opponents.
By school’s end, most the boys standing on the top steps will be off to war. “The Blue Star” is number two in the Jim Glass trilogy. The last installment Earley promises to return Jim safe from the war - possibly a quiet man, definitely a man.
I decided to go out to the cemetery to give my respects.
Plenty served but I am looking for a Confederate soldier.
Boy, it's hot in this Mississippi Sun! 
Let me ask my pal Stark Young.
Known Stark since Ole Miss, I roomed with him while in NYC.
He introduced me to all his literary friends; alas, no one signed me.
We have a Winner!Pecans will be going all the way to New Zealand! Enjoy Maree!
Picking Pecans by artist Chris Clark!
The critics have spoken!
Time to communicate with other Southern Readers!
Please leave your name only and a post specific URL address for the FIRST southern book read. This way people can read the review without searching the reviewer's blog.
If you are looking like I just spoke a foreign language, read on. To get the post specific address for your blog click the title or if no title click the time stamp at the bottom of the post. The internet screen will display the single post and in the address line will be the post specific URL. Timbo's your uncle!
My name is Karin (not Karen) Gillespie and it's pronounced "car in" as in "Is that your 'car in' the street with its bumper hanging off? My mother, who gave me this troublesome moniker, pronounces it "car rean" in a lovely lilting Austrian accent. My southern friends sometimes call me "corn" (as in Children of the...). My last name is pronounced the same as Dizzy's. (no relation)
Lynne at Lynne's Little Corner of the World is giving away an extra copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
If you are interested or need it for the challenge maybe you can win it. Go see her and put your name in the hat!
While there stop and read her short review of Dollar Daze by Karen Gillespie for the Southern Reading Challenge.
Oh, tell Lynne, Maggie sent ya!
Now, some writers absolutely hate the idea of a used bookstore. Not me. I know from experience that somebody who picks up a used copy of one of my books for a buck or two will usually decide they really need to buy my new hardback as soon as it comes out. Or, maybe they're a working mom or retiree who can only afford to feed their habit by buying used books. I'm good with that. 
New blogger Angie of What is Angie Thinking? got an e-mail from Mary Kay Andrews this week! Pretty exciting and well humbling for me. I had no idea there was such a nice southern lady. Thank you for raising the rock I was under Angie!
This is an exert from author Andrews' blog:
Savannah Blues (2003)
Little Bitty Lies (2004)
Hissy Fit (2005)
Blue Christmas (2006)
Savannah Breeze (2007)
Deep Dish (2008)
*****
Enter the first of five contests to win an autographed copy of Mudbound by Hillary Jordan!
To play, look around your surroundings and create a name that best represents the ole homeplace. Hubby and I bat this pretentious tradition around quite a lot; lately, we have declared a stalemate over Weed Haven or Mole Rest.
When you decide, write a post about the new name and leave a link on Mister Linky. The drawing will be May 30! Here's your chance to put on airs and have fun!
Quiet, episodic, and verging on nostalgic is how I explain Jim the Boy by Tony Earley. My gut tells me the story is similar to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series, but then again, not really. Earley’s book moves forward in the telling, but Wilder’s Laura is looking back in narration.
Since Jim the Boy is marketed to young adult readers, I thought it similar to Sounder by William H. Armstrong. Sounder is the simple story of a sharecropper’s son who longs for an education instead of the fields. The book is filled with symbols and situations only an adult with experience can appreciate. Not so much the symbols, but many young adults will misinterpret the slow, clean prose of Earley’s work as boring. In my opinion both books are targeting the wrong audience.
Ten-year-old Jim is growing up in Depression Era, small town Aliceville, NC. He lives on a farm with his widowed mother and three of her brothers. The Uncles, Zeno, Coran, and Al, combine efforts to provide Jim with a suitable father figure. His mother, battling depression, still manages to put on a brave face when Jim is around. All-in-all, readers will find they are a happy lot.
As in most ten-year-old boys, prior to the distractions of televisions and Game Boys, hometown is the epicenter of all things. One explores the fields, barns, buildings, and local faces with fascinating curiosity. When one attends the big brick school on the hill for the first time, it is progress. When electricity comes into town, it is life-changing. When the Express hits a cow while Ty Cobb may or may not be lounging on the train, it is earth shattering. The littlest of events become episodes catapulting one closer and closer to adulthood.
Jim the Boy begins with a small quote from E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, “I love it here in the barn,” said Wilbur. “I love everything about this place.” Jim could easily say this about Aliceville. It is his barn which he loves deeply, and as he progresses through his ten years, each month spreads the love even farther by visiting the ocean and his grandfather on the mountain.
Jim is coming-of-age within his heaven on earth, and we the readers are allowed to bounce around on his fluffy clouds. Earley creates this fictional sense of place where things are quiet, episodic, and verging on nostalgic.
Thank you, Tony Earley, for this small, simply satisfying read.
And One First Edition Dirty Work by Larry Brown (unsigned)!
I'm also talking with Finn author Jon Clinch...
So if you want to be eliable you need to sign-up.
Tomorrow we draw for Pecans!
Continuing from last week’s article, here are more southern authors to boost 
our down-home pride.
Series would be appearing on HBO last fall; unfortunately, three full episodes remained in cans due to the writer’s strike. With that over, the series, True Blood, will be released this September. 
Bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank is in top form with her new book, Bulls Island. This perfect beach book, set in South Carolina’s Low Country, contains scandal, intrigue, and the ominous old boyfriend. Frank’s publicist says, “She and her long-suffering husband, Peter, divide their time between the New York area and Charleston, South Carolina, where their two children are in college and spending every last dime they earn.” 
Virginia circuit court judge, Martin Clark, is launching his third novel, The Legal Limit, this July. Said to be the thinking and drinking man’s Grisham, Clark tells of family woe as one brother becomes a lawyer and the other a jailbird. Publishers Weekly said, “Clark…takes his storytelling prowess to the next level in what is his most substantial and thought-
provoking work to date.” Note: Amy just reminded me, Clark's wife Deana has a picturesque and fun filed blog. Go say, Howdy!
Here's a fun meme I stole from Lynne's Little Corner of the World.
The Rules!
1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies. (I picked 10 of my favorite Southern movies.) 2. Go to IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and find a quote from each movie. 3. Post them here for everyone to guess (if you know them all, please don't guess every one).
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie. 5. No Googling or IMDb-ing. (That would be cheating, and no fun!)
Remember, all these movies are set in the South!1. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Maree, you know your southern movies! A+++ Gone with the Wind2. They call me MISTER Tibbs!
Too easy huh, Jmnlman!?! Good Job! In The Heat of the Night3. Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.
This one is fun to try to mimic during mud-bug time, Debi! Ya done good! Forrest Gump4. Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives.
I think you know Boo, Tammy! Gold Star! To Kill a Mockingbird5. Careful Maggie, your claws are showing.
I'm sure the set sizzled, Eva! Head of the Class! Cat on a Hot Tin Roof6. He's got a real pretty mouth on him, don't he?
It creeps me out when my dentist tells me this, Diane! Well done! Deliverance7. Looks like two pigs fightin' under a blanket.
And, I thought this one would be hard, Jill! Five Smilies! Steel Magnolias8. Secret's in the sauce.
I get a kick out of this line, Sprite. W2G! Fried Green Tomatoes
9. Coffee makes me nervous when I drink it. Mmm.
Yes, Tammy! This was a hard one! Slingblade
10. Oh yeah, yeah I know my ABC's pretty good, just can't read.
TwisterB came a little late to the party, but it still is open! Driving Miss Daisy
Note: The photo above is King Vidor (1894-1982) who was a successful movie director of silent and talkies. In 1935 he directed a black and white southern movie titled So Red the Rose. The movie was based on a book (1934) with the same name by Como MS, native, Stark Young. They both achieved great success until another book (1936) and movie (1939) titled Gone with the Wind achieved even more.
As a librarian, I take some criticism every year for promoting summer reading. Now, I know what you are thinking. That is crazy, right?!?
Well, some people seem to think I should be promoting reading all year. Um, I do! But, I admit, I do a little extra in the summer. People seem to have a little more time to sit down with a book and a glass of tea. There is less to watch on the television, unless one loves reruns. Vacations require books if traveling by air or train. The last two times I flew, I experienced two separate six-hour layovers.
This year, I wish to plug some southern authors to boost our down-home pride.
Richard Price, a native of Jackson, MS, and current writer for the HBO crime-drama, The Wire, 
has his eighth book out, Lush Life. Set in New York City, the main character Eric and friend Ike are walking down a city sidewalk when a kid pulls a gun. Ike’s last words are, “Not tonight, my man.” A critic for the New York Times Book Review believes Price channels Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow in this grim noir.
Joshilyn Jackson’s website states, “born in the Deep South and raised by a tribe of wild fundamentalists” she writes an excellent southern story. Author of gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia, her newest book, the girl who stopped swimming, is no exception. Laurel Gray Hawthorne is haunted by a ghost, a small girl, the girl who stopped swimming.
Born and raised in North Carolina and current associate professor at Vanderbilt University, Tony Earley has written a sequel to Jim the Boy. In soon to be classic The Blue Star, main character Jim Glass is now a teenager and in love; unfortunately, his interest is unavailable Chrissie who dates Bucky Bucklaw. Ah, but Bucky is about to be shipped to the Pacific theater.
Looking for funny? Look no farther than Carl Hiaasen’s new nonfiction. The publishing blurb starts, “Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake-infested lake? Or which club in your bag is best suited for combat against a horde of rats? If these and other sporting questions are gnawing at you, The Downhill Lie, Carl Hiaasen’s hilarious confessional about returning to the fairways after a thirty-two-year absence, is definitely the book for you.”
Pour the sweet tea and set a spell—summer reading is on the way.
UPDATE: Hillary Jordan, author of Mudbound, is donating 5 autographed books for give away during the Southern Reading Challenge. I think a Name your Home, Land, or Plantation Contest will be great fun. More to come...
To understand the world, you have to understand a place like Mississippi.
~William Faulkner
We moved to Mississippi in 1995 and I still don't quite get it. But, through reading southern literature in my rocking chair on the front porch, I'm getting closer to this sense of (strange new) place.
Come join me on the porch this summer and I promise you will meet some of the strangest characters you have ever read while scratching behind my big dog's ears.
It's time for our hot, sweaty summer of reading Southern Books! Are You Ready?!?
The rules are easy: 3 Southern Setting Books by Southern Authors in 3 Months beginning May 15 through August 15!
How can you pass this amazing challenge up? Incentive you say? A tin full of yummy tasting pecans will be sent to a lucky participant every Friday. I'll also be linking y'all's experiences as they come in, just like last year. Sense of Place Contest? Oh, Yeah! Dead Mule Society List? You Bet! Click here for southern book suggestions.
So, sign on Mister Linky with an address back to your 3 books and join me for sweet tea on the porch!
The author of Mudbound, Hillary 
Jordan, responded to my comment in LibraryThing! How nice is that?!? This is her comment, and the Faulkner reference is a nice local touch.
Many thanks for the kind words and for spreading the gospel of Mudbound! I had a wonderful time traveling around Mississippi on my book tour. My grandfather was from Oxford and knew Faulkner (in fact, the latter was in love with my great aunt at one time - he proposed and she turned him down) and it was fun to imagine them walking the same streets as I was.
Best, Hillary
