Dollbaby (copy)

Ibby Bell gaped at all the bright colored houses and wrought iron fences as they rolled slowly down Prytania Street in the Garden District of New Orleans. In her excitement to get a better look at the some of the mansions, she started to readjust her position on the green vinyl. Mistake. That embarrassing noise was coming from below her bare legs as she tried to move her sweat-cemented self from the front seat.

“Li-bar-tee Bell! Mind your manners,” said her mother, Vidrine, as she pulled in front of the dilapidated home. “You want to make a good impression. Right?”

Ibby grimaced as she looked at the once glorious home. It was a two story Victorian with an imposing cupola on top. Above the cupola sat a weather vane that was no longer vain. The racing horse would not turn into the wind. The horse’s hoof sat forever trapped in rust and one side of the propeller laid pointing to the sky in the gutter.

Her eyes fell down to the second story where she could see a window covered over with plywood in the turret. An old Oak Tree was leaning so close to the space that one could imagine the Spanish Moss tickling the house. Ibby figured it must have caused the broken window.

Ibby could barely make out the rocking chairs and swing on the front porch from the overgrown azaleas that pushed through the wrought iron enclosing it. She turned back to her mother, “Yes, Ma’am.”

Vidrine looked her in the eyes and asked her to repeat what they practiced. Ibby looked down and said, “I am to hand her Daddy and tell her it is a present from you. Aren’t you coming in?”

“No, darling. We have already talked about this for hundreds of miles.”

Ibby took the green handled urn from its place of honor between the two of them and opened the car door. As soon as she placed her red sneakers on the curb, Vidrine gave her a little push. She stood, urn in hand, and shut the door.

Once the car door was shut, Vidrine wasted no time leaving. She yelled out, “Now don’t forget to tell her what I said!” as the car squealed into the curve. Ibby turned toward the house wondering why she had to meet her grandmother alone.

Dollbaby is a unique story set in 1964 New Orleans by first time author, Laura Lane McNeal. 

Dollbaby (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/10/dollbaby-copy.html

Flying Shoes (copy)

As she threw it down on the tile floor, she knew it was not right. It was a reflex she could not control. To be honest, she had no memory of holding anything until it left her hand in a violent trajectory. What had the man said? Did I just agree to meet him over 600 miles away on Monday?

Mary Byrd Thornton looked at the mess on the floor. Instantly, she was remorseful. A relief rushed over her as she realized she might have held something else. What if it was one of her precious Spode pieces? It would have made a more satisfying crash. Did he mention more information? It was 30 years ago. How could there be more information?

She sank to her knees and started the process of gathering the pieces. Evagreen, her help, would disapprove seeing the mess. For some reason, Evagreen always looked at her with a certain disdain. Her husband and two children could do no wrong where Mary Byrd could do no right. How did the detective even get her phone number?

“I knew this crap would break,” she said aloud. Just like Teflon that can be scratched and stainless steel that stains, this miracle of modern life is after all, man-made. In the corner, she noticed that a sliver had violated one of her expensive off-season cantaloupes. Ignatius, her cat, must have knocked it off the counter and rolled it into the corner for a private consultation.

Seeing the stabbed cantaloupe triggered her memory and her tears. Oh, how her brother must have suffered. Over her shoulder, she felt the presence of Evagreen. She slowly stood drawing her feelings inward as she showed some of the bigger shards to Evagreen without looking her in the eyes, “Look, Corelle does break.”

Flying Shoes is the first book by Oxford author Lisa Howorth. Set in a Mississippi college town like Oxford, she fills the pages with characters and places that are oddly familiar. One obvious example is her character L. B. who sits in his gold Dodge truck with a lit cigarette precariously stuck to his bottom lip. Readers will picture Larry Brown as the scene unfolds.

This work of fiction seems so real, I found it hard not to believe main character Mary Byrd and the author Howorth are not one and the same. It does not help that the book jacket informs readers about the unsolved murder of the author’s stepbrother before turning a single page. But, this story is more than true crime, it is a true Southern yarn.

Flying Shoes (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/09/flying-shoes-copy.html

My Cat Spit McGee (copy)

My husband has a favorite quote he loves to spout after seeing a cat’s eyes glow unworldly. “Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces?” The quote is from True Grit by Charles Portis and describes how his main character, Mattie Ross, distrusts cats when compared to the innocence of ponies.

Please, do not get me wrong. My husband loves cats. It wasn’t an overnight change, though. It took time before he learned the benefits. Our first cat, Lucy, was also his first attempt at getting to know the smarter pet. The discerning pet that picks its owners very carefully, our Lucy was slow to love but loyal to the core.

Hubby thought it incredible that I could get Lucy to play fetch with a bread twister or hide-n-seek in the monkey grass. She came when she was called and greeted us when we came home. She even flicked her tail when excited, reminding us of a dog’s wag. Yet, when her eyes shifted, Bam! He would utter it without even knowing, “Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces?” 

Willie Morris was the same way. He grew up with all manners of dogs and loved them with delight, but he was about to marry a cat lover! He didn’t just dislike cats, he loathed them. How in the world would he be able to function with a cat in the house?

The dreaded day happened on what was supposed to be a joyous and calm Christmas. The cat came from under the tree with a little red bow around its neck. A gift from his grown son David to Willie’s new bride, the kitten was found cold and starving on the side of Highway 51 in the Delta. I picture Willie lifting his feet off the floor in disgust.

She was named Rivers Applewhite after one of Morris’ childhood friends who is also featured in his book, My Dog Skip. He was allowed to name her since he was obviously left out of the gift giving loop and his bride was smitten.

Rivers grew to be a smart cat, but she was no dog. She did not play fetch. She did not come when called. Instead, she took to hiding. Once she was found nestled between The Brothers Karamazov and Down and Out in London and Paris.

Willie was also unable to get her affections. “When I picked her up, she would not stay with me. Why could she not at least show even the most modest indications that she was happy to see me and to greet me when I was gone for several days? This puzzled and angered me. ‘Cats ain’t dogs,’ I would shout accusingly at the Cat Woman.”

Rivers soon gave birth to a cat that forever changed Willie’s mind about pets. My Cat Spit McGee is a mature look at a man’s struggle to accept the cold, hard fact that he was becoming a dreaded cat lover.

My Cat Spit McGee (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-cat-spit-mcgee-copy.html

North Toward Home (copy)

The more I read Willie Morris, the more I like him. I am alternating between North Toward Home and My Dog Skip. What tickles me is that he is an early recycler. He took stories from his 1967 memoir, North Toward Home, and repackaged them into the commercially successful 1995, My Dog Skip.

Morris received Skip while in the third grade. The dog was a distraction since Morris seemed confused over the loss of his aunt Sue. He writes that he stood in front of her casket trying his hardest to memorize her face. There was a mole under her eye that he had never noticed in conversation. He stood long after the family moved to the cars and she was wheeled out.

Some of Morris’ happiest memories dealt with his grand aunts, Mag and Sue. Both were “old maid” sisters living with his grandmother, Marion, in Jackson, Miss. For Morris, Mag and Sue were endless entertainment.

When Morris was eight he sent off for an “ultra-mike” for two dollars. It looked like a regular radio mike and when hooked into an electrical outlet would allow the user to broadcast their voice from the family radio.

“I would hook up this instrument in the back room while Mag and Sue sat listening to the radio in the parlor. Then I would say, ‘We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement. The Yankees are coming! They are ten minutes away from Raymond! I repeat: the Yankee soldiers are on their way!’ Then Mag and Sue, holding their dresses above their knees for better running, would leap out of their chairs and dash to my grandmother: ‘Marion, Marion, did you hear? They’re comin’! They’re on their way!’”

Marion calmed their spirits and told them it was just the boy playing around. Morris said they would go back to their chairs in the parlor and listen again to their show. After a wait of 2-3 hours, he could do the same thing again and the aunts produced the same reaction.

It was Percy, Marion’s trusted house servant that recognized Morris’ sadness. After the casket was shut and the burial in the old family plot through, Percy consoled him with, “Now don’t you be sad.” He took little Morris’ hand and led him through the doors of Woolworth to reward him with a toy.

“That day I remember I promised myself that if Percy ever died, I would shoot myself, with the pistol my father kept under his mattress at home. But I knew that Percy would never die.”

Skip joined the family two weeks later.

North Toward Home (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/07/north-toward-home-copy.html

Literary Tour - Willie Morris - Fall 2014 (copy)

I am so excited! Northwest is offering the first ever author study and hometown tour featuring Willie Morris this Fall as a continuing education class for local educators. Participants will receive 1.5 continuing education units (CEUs) for two short classes and a day long trip to Yazoo City celebrating his writings.

The two classes will focus on five books: Good Old Boy, My Dog Skip, Good Old Boy and the Witch of Yazoo City, North Toward Home, and Conversations with Willie Morris.

The tour of Yazoo City will start with a visit to the Sam Olden Yazoo Historical Society Museum, a walk in Glenwood Cemetery where the witch of Yazoo and Morris are buried, lunch at Ubon’s Barbeque (a Memphis in May award-winning treat), and walking amongst the historic homes and churches that Morris mentions in his books.

In the last two weeks, I have met some truly nice people who thought the world of Morris. Jesse Kelley, an instructional librarian at Delta State, volunteered to help with the first class because he has read everything Morris wrote and wants to learn more. Our scholar for the second class is Dr. Katherine (Kate) Cochran. She knew him and his wife, and teaches his works in her Southern Literature class at the University of Southern Mississippi.

I had lunch with Larry Wells, owner of Yoknapatawpha Press, who was excited that Morris was being taught at NWCC. Over chicken salad, he shared many stories about Mississippi authors such as William Faulkner, Barry Hannah, his wife Dean, and himself. Wells has written three novels: Rommel and the Rebel, Rommel’s Peace, and Let the Band Play Dixie. He edited and published the photo-biography, William Faulkner: The Cofield Collection, and scripted a TV film documentary Return to the River (Mississippi ETV) which won a 1994 Emmy for Best Regional Broadcast.

Larry and his late wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, taught English at Northwest from 1975-79. In 1978 Morris asked them to contact Chancellor Porter Fortune and see if Ole Miss would be interested in hiring him.

Willie Morris was the first writer-in-residence at Ole Miss, but before he accepted the position he needed reassurance about the move. He struggled with the idea of moving from the constant on of New York City to the possible off of Oxford. It took an Ole Miss tailgate party and football weekend to convince him that Oxford could be just as exciting.

Throughout our meal, Larry portrayed Morris as a brilliant but sometimes eccentric writer, and a highly creative practical joker, but also a gentle soul who thought the world of Mississippi and its people. He and Morris were driving to Oxford from Yazoo City when a Miss. highway patrolman stopped them. After the officer read Morris’ license, he asked if he was speaking with the author Willie Morris. Larry said this was the happiest he had ever seen Willie, not because the officer did not ticket him but because he recognized him.

Literary Tour - Willie Morris - Fall 2014 (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/07/literary-tour-willie-morris-fall-2014.html

Eat Drink Delta (copy)

My mouth is watering! Every time I pick up Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler’s Journey through the Soul of the South by Susan Puckett with photographs by Langdon Clay, my stomach growls. Having fixated on the scrumptious crawdaddies on the cover, I am surprised drool does not stream from my mouth.

Not only does this book rouse my hunger for the various and unusual foods (tamales and kibbee) of the region, but it rouses my desire to hop in the plane and day-visit each and every destination. A little known fact: when you fly into a small airport the fixed-based operator usually has a courtesy car to offer you. Most are beat up ex-police cruisers, but these cars are good enough to get one to town and back. Put a couple of dollars in the tank and Bob’s your uncle.

Anyhoo, the book’s format is as if the reader is starting in the north and traveling south. The first night’s stay is Memphis “fancy” at the Peabody with a list of walkable good eats. Go right across the street to the Rendezvous or climb the fire escape to Itta Bena on Beale. Hail a taxi to Cooper and Young for the communal tables of the Beauty Shop or sit at Acre Restaurant, the hottest gastronomic ticket in town. It’s all good!

The author includes recipes for barbecue accompaniments such as Leonard’s Memphis Style Slaw and Alcenia’s (on North Main) Sweet Potato Pie. Want to freshen your palate before the meal? She provides mixers such as the Peabody Hotel’s Blue Suede Shoes Martini and The Presbyterian. Sorry, pit masters, no barbecue secrets are divulged in these pages.

Next stop, Tunica and environs such as Uncle Henry’s Place Inn and Restaurant at Moon Lake or The Hollywood, a honky-tonk that opened 1969 in bustling Hollywood, Miss. Puckett points out that both Hollywood and Moon Lake have literary ties with Grisham mentioning the former eatery and Tennessee Williams speaking of the latter.  

The one Hill town mentioned is Como. I chuckle at the words “hill town” having run every road in that small berg and the one hill is when I cross the railroad tracks, but I digress. I enjoyed reading the Longreen Fox Hunt and Blessing of the Hounds Breakfast section with the Longreen Fox Hunt Hot Curried Fruit recipe as an old-fashioned accoutrement. Speaking of old-fashioned, the Tomato Aspic recipe is on page 162.

Other towns on the stop include Cleveland, Greenville, Leland, Greenwood, Yazoo City and Vicksburg. I am dying to try Lusco’s in Greenwood, which sounds like the secret garden of culinary delight. Susan Puckett is a native of Jackson, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book go to fund the Puckett Family Journalism Scholarship at the University of Mississippi.

Eat Drink Delta (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/06/eat-drink-delta-copy.html

Mississippian wins 2014 Pulitzer for Fiction (copy)

Did you stand a little taller, April 14, this past Monday? You should as a Mississippian. Our very own Greenwood native, Donna Tartt, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her third book The Goldfinch. The Pulitzer website states the award is given, “for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.”

From the publisher Little Brown (since I have yet to read it), “Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.”

High praise comes from the Pulitzer jury who states, “It is a beautifully written coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving boy’s entanglement with a small famous painting that has eluded destruction, a book that stimulates the mind and touches the heart.”

Upon hearing the news, Tartt said, “"I am incredibly happy and incredibly honored and the only thing I am sorry about is that Willie Morris and Barry Hannah aren't here. They would have loved this."

May I say, we are “happy and incredibly honored” to have raised such a talented Mississippian in Donna Tartt!

Mississippian wins 2014 Pulitzer for Fiction (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/04/mississippian-wins-2014-pulitzer-for.html

The Storied South (copy)

The Storied South

William Ferris has a new book out titled, The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists. It is his early interviews with noted movers and shakers in the late 60s through to early 90s, and not all were Southern. The book includes his original recordings of the interviews on CD and his Super 8 videos on DVD.

Readers will hear familiar voices like Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Bobby Rush, Walker Evans, William Eggleston, Carroll Cloar, and William Dunlap. They will also find some surprises with Charles and Pete Seeger, Sterling Brown, and Dr. John Dollard.

Take some time to revisit the Agrarian Movement with the voices of one leader Robert Penn Warren, one follower Cleanth Brooks, and one detractor John Blassingame. In Robert Penn Warren’s interview I read that Faulkner was loved by the Agrarians and Warren cited Fletcher, Ransom and Owsley. In college, I learned they hated Faulkner thus my distaste for them.

 As a resident of Como, MS, I also like Warren’s comment, “During my time as a student and teaching in the South, parties were almost always either playing charades or poker or tale-telling. Andrew Lytle was a great actor and a great improviser of tales. He was one of the best raconteurs and conversationalists I have ever known. There are only a few people who can even touch him. Stark Young could and Lyle Saxon in New Orleans could.”

Pete Seeger’s interview was eye opening probably because I am more familiar with his children’s book, “Abiyoyo,” than his activism. His father who is also interviewed taught him the importance of folk music and Alan Lomax hired him—for $15 a week—to listen to “old commercial records of the twenties.”

Seeger wanted to improve his banjo playing and what better place than the South. He “learned to hitchhike” in 1940 and hit the road with a little trick from friend, Woody Guthrie. Sit at a bar nursing one beer with your banjo slung over your shoulder. After a while, someone is bound to ask if you can play. Woody said hang back and be reluctant. “Well maybe a little,” and keep on drinking your beer. “Finally, somebody is going to say, ‘Kid, I got a quarter. Play me a tune.’ Now you start playing.”

Seeger crossed the great Suwannee River in the sky this past January, but this interview feels like he is talking directly to us today. William Ferris’s rapport with all his subjects emits a back porch, talk amongst friends, feeling and we have access to rare and fun Southern stories.

The Storied South (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-storied-south-copy.html

Rivers (copy)

I woke up to rain again. How many days since the last time I saw the sun, I cannot tell you. The musk, mold and dampness that surrounds me is heavy like being pulled down by the weight of thick kudzu. I have to get out of this house for various reasons. My sanity being number one.  

I now carry on conversations with Dog and Habana. They both came to me, Dog after the first storm when the line was drawn and Habana in the middle of a level five looking for shelter. The horse has a name only because it is tooled in the leather of her saddle. Dog came to me without a calling card.

This morning is no different as I open the door and urge Dog out to take care of business. With coffee in hand, I tell him to report back if there are changes in the weather. He smirks. Even he realizes the rain will never end.

Another big one is coming, too. Last night I found myself cowering and scratching at my ratty beard with every blow to the roof. I need to get supplies before it really hits.

Joe, my contact to the other side of the line and supplier, always quizzes me on reasons for staying in this mess?  Go north, he tells me, but it is not that easy. No one waits for me up north. My family is here. The visits are all I have.

I walk back through the hall and place one hand on the plaster that blocks the entrance to our bedroom. It was my last chore after burying her near the Magnolia. Those trees are so strong. I watch the wind throw the branches to the ground repeatedly, but they bounce back like a fresh fighter weaving in the ring.

The plaster feels damp with moisture, but a warmth spreads through my fingers and into my hand inching its way past my wrist and into my arm. Is this a real or imagined sense? I can no longer tell. I must get out of this house.

She tells me to go, too. We will be fine. Habana whinnies in the background and the spell is broken. I walk back to the kitchen placing the mug on the counter then grab a cap. I hunch in the rain to save my front from getting wet and run to the barn. She is ready for open pasture.

Mississippi native, Michael Farris Smith, shares an apocalyptic adventure filled with foreboding in his first book set near the lawless Mississippi coast titled, Rivers. I sense the ghost of Capote rearing his Southern Gothic head amongst the sad Larry Brown trash. My feelings toward this book are all warm and fuzzy, though. It is destined to win awards.

Rivers (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2014/03/rivers-copy.html

Si-cology 101 (copy)

Read Si-cology 101: Tales & Wisdom from Duck Dynasty’s Favorite Uncle by Si Robertson this weekend and had a hoot. Before I even picked it up, I had rave reviews from instructors and librarians alike.

Just who is Si Robertson? He is a family member of the Duck Commander Company and appears on Duck Dynasty, an A&E reality show, that follows his brother’s family who make millions on a reed duck call retailing at $60.

I have yet to see the show myself, but I cannot get through one aisle at Wal-Mart without bumping into a camo-wearing, bearded caller ad. Two weeks ago I was in Roanoke, VA, visiting a high school that happened to be celebrating homecoming and that particular Friday was Duck Dynasty Day. All the students were wearing camouflage in some form or fashion along with their school colors. One can easily guess the favorite Halloween outfit this year.

Uncle Si did not join the company until his retirement from the military. He really did not sign up for the reality show, either. His cameos were secretly taped and some of his sayings and stories were so memorable they had to include him in more of the show.

Si-cology 101 begins with Si explaining that he has only told a handful of lies in his life. He can count them on one hand and he still feels bad about a couple told as a child.

He states, “I believe lying is a learned skill. Some people are good at it, while others aren’t. I’ve always been a lousy liar. The key to being a good liar is to know when you can get away with it and when you can’t. You have to keep a straight face if you’re going to lie, and I could never stop smiling when I tried. My palms would get sweaty, and I’d lose my composure and start to stutter. Hey, I even grew a long beard so people couldn’t call me a bald –faced liar.”

So, Si claims that 95% of his stories are truthful, at least what he can remember of the original events, and this is how he became popular on the show. His stories about growing up in southern Louisiana and his Vietnam days have been perfected in the many hours sitting in cold duck blinds with Willie and Jase.

This book will start you at his beginnings, naked as a jaybird, and end with letters from his family addressed to him. Along the way, one will learn why he is forever carrying his Tupperware cup of iced-tea and why his face is so hairy. All stories you do not want to miss, and that’s the fact, Jack.

Si-cology 101 (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2013/10/si-cology-101-copy.html

What I Saw and How I Lied (copy)

There are just some books that deserve a soundtrack playing in the background. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell is a prime example. I could hear theme music to some of my favorite television shows as I read.

Our heroine, Evie Spooner, lives an idyllic life in Queens. A small group of friends surround her and her mother and recently returned from the second war father are happy together. Unfortunately, she is a sweet sixteen who has never been kissed. Her mother keeps her dressed in pastel shirt dresses and saddle shoes. Leave it to Beaver is the theme song that plays while we follow her easy-go-lucky existence.

Conflict arises when her step-father, Joe Spooner, is hounded by mysterious phone calls from an old army buddy. In the short time Joe has been back from the war, his appliance business has become successful. He now has three stores and is about to add two more. Tactlessly, these calls really start to bring out his bad side. I hear Dragnet.

In an attempt to dodge this phone pursuer, Joe takes the family on a road trip to Florida. At the beginning of the trip, everyone is happy and playing the license plate game. Cue the Andy Griffith whistle. But, as they get deeper in the south, the sweaters come off and the uncomfortable sweat begins to flow down their stuck-to-the-car-seat backs and legs. Bluesy, In the Heat of the Night, sends you the rest of the way down to the Florida state line.

Can you guess the theme music for finding their hotel in Palm Beach? Miami Vice drums and soars as their spirits start to lift. Unfortunately, they are there in the off season and most the homes and businesses are boarded up for hurricane season. Evie is alone to bathe at the pool and walk on the beach without friends.

That is, until she meets “movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge.” Don’t laugh, but Rockford Files is playing in the background. As the two seem to hit it off, Evie’s mom, Beverly, decides to act as the chaperon on drives around town and shopping in West Palm Beach. Beverly is a knockout with dark hair, blue eyes, light tan, and slender figure.

Beverly is such a looker that Joe starts to become wary of Peter and the attention she is giving him. Jealousy is a bad trait in any mate, but has Joe gone too far? Perry Mason kicks off the next scene as Evie sits in court discerning the facts that point to both Joe and Beverly.

What I Saw and How I Lied won the National Book Award in 2008 for Young People’s Literature. I found it to be a slow starter, but well worth my eyes and ears.

What I Saw and How I Lied (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-i-saw-and-how-i-lied-copy.html

After Freedom Summer (copy)

This summer I was asked to review a book for our state’s library publication, Mississippi Libraries. The book titled, After Freedom Summer: How Race Realigned Mississippi Politics, 1965-1986 by Chris Danielson, is the history of voting in our state after The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were enforced.

Danielson’s comprehensive book explains the political climate in Mississippi after these acts removed legalized segregation from the South.  He explains the cerebral turns African Americans in Mississippi made such as testing the black independent candidates against the black democrat candidates for local elections throughout the different counties. He also demonstrates white and black Mississippians jockeying for the vote in race after race and the new strategies that changed a born white Democrat into a card-carrying white Republican during the “Great White Switch.”

The narrative is not an easy read. At times it can be confusing with all of the acronyms. The first three chapters become an alphabet soup while breaking down the alliances at the poles represented by these factions. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a grassroots party organized from Freedom Summer’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), fought for the same votes as the top-down organization represented by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Both MFDP and NAACP found success in two strong democratic leaders in 1965: Robert Clark and Charles Evers respectively.

The constant race results also give a stop and start feel to the narrative. I read about black candidates that win or lose in a 70% white county or white candidates who cater to the black vote because the county is 80% black. There are plenty of black firsts like Evers being elected as the first mayor in Fayette and Robert Gray the first black alderman in the town of Shelby, but they are mentioned as side notes to the races. The ballot count and any legal action that takes place after elections are the important facts in this book.

Danielson’s narrative excels when writing about the major politicians at the time. For instance, Medgar Evers’ brother, Charles, was vastly different from the soft spoken leader. Charles once said, “Medgar chased civil rights…I chased girls, civil rights, and the dollar.” Charles worked alongside his brother on voter’s registration until white hostility ran him out of the state. While in Chicago, he did legal and illegal work. His prostitution and numbers running charges haunted him throughout his career. His personality is well defined by Danielson as we follow boycotts he led and his rivalry with Marie Farr Walker.

This is an excellent addition to those who collect Mississippi history books, but be comfortable. Nodding off happens.  

After Freedom Summer (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2013/09/after-freedom-summer-copy.html

Mean Moon Blues (copy)

Last night I ran under a full blue moon. It was brilliant, beautiful and white. As I write, today is the 21st, and you may be puzzled. How in the world can there be two full moons in one month with one in the middle of the month?

Our definition of a blue moon is modern and wrong! I was brought up thinking a blue moon was the second full moon in a month. Actually, it means the third full moon in a season with four full moons. An even rarer occurrence than two full moons in a month, the next blue moon will not occur until July 2015.

Back in the 1937 “Maine Farmers’ Almanac,” a blue moon indicated that it fell after the summer and midsummer moons, but before late summer moon. Huh? Someone had named the moons, but what about the extra one. Well, they could not call the fourth moon a late because that meant the last one in the season; thus, the third was called blue.

I am with you, it is easier just to say the second moon in a month is blue. Because it was difficult to predict blue moons in a Lunar Cycle, as per an answer to a question posed to Lawrence J. Lafleur in the 1943 July issue of “Sky and Telescope” magazine, spawned the expression, “Once in a Blue Moon.”

All this to say, I just ran across a book with unforgettable characters that comes around once in a blue moon. Just like the four phases in 1937, this phase has yet to be named.

The book is not Erskine Caldwell’s, “Tobacco Road,” but you get the poor white Lesters afraid of work in the Dinmore family. Nor is the book akin to Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” where Joy Hopewell loses her artificial leg to a traveling salesman, but our character Stella Jo just wants to replace her peg with a real artificial limb. The book’s characters are poor white trash, not the marginal mean characters that permeate Harry Crew’s Dirty South genre.

For me the example of a blue moon is “Mean Moon Blues” by retired Northwest Mississippi Community College English instructor, John Osier. It lies between my midsummer (O’Connor) and late (Crews) moons.

Osier tells the story of a moonshine family, Dinmore’s, living off greens now that they have no money for meat and Sleepy’s trotline is as empty as his belly. With the help of his no good neighbors, Poot and Dent Wingo, a plot is hatched to make some money. Enough cash to eat a fine meal with new choppers and a little extra for Stella Jo to get a real artificial leg.

See, Charles Henry, president of the small town of Dreg’s bank, has died and Sleepy thinks his widow will pay a pretty sum to get the body back if they kidnap it. Yes, whiskey is involved. 

Mean Moon Blues (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2013/08/mean-moon-blues-copy.html

Wench (copy)

Okay, it is finally happening to me! I lay down at night to read but everything is blurry. I was telling my husband, it must be the angle of attack. I see fine sitting upright in a rocking chair.

Myopia is a natural part of aging. I own black glasses that supposedly ward off the need for bifocals. Looking like a Star Trek character, they obscure all vision as I focus through a pattern of pin holes dotting the frames. Fun, but boy do they take loads of concentration to use.

Sometimes, I wish my eyes could blur over violence in books. I am currently reading Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez.  The slave beatings and rapes are horrendous. Look the other way, but this is the nice thing about books. It is fiction. It is not real life, or is it.

Perkins-Valdez writes about a fictional resort in the free slave state of Ohio that caters to wealthy landowners. Tawawa House is a sprawling three-story inn with a huge winding staircase and six columns extending the full length of the veranda. On this fancy wooden porch sits five pairs of rocking chairs strategically located between each column.

The 64-acre resort includes a large pond with a slow moving paddle wheel in the middle. Surrounding the pond are cottages for families that provide privacy from the inn. The sulfur springs are located in the woods. The blonde waters are believed to have healing powers.

Set in the 1850s, the intended Northern clientele are less likely to use Tawawa now that slaveholders are bringing their slave mistresses to the remote destination. Yes, you read that correctly. I first thought this premise absurd, but it is based on fact.

Perkins-Valdez was reading a biography of W.E.B. De Bois when a small snippet about Wilberforce University shocked her. It may have read like this passage in David Levering Lewis’ Pulitzer winning book on De Bois.

“Wilberforce had come into being as the sylvan solution to the sins of slaveholding fathers. The place was originally called Tawawa Springs by the Indians, after the heath-giving waters that drew rich planters to summer there in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The rambling 350-room Tawawa Springs, with its arbored fountains and manicured grounds, was perhaps the most unusual resort hotel in America, because its clientele consisted of slave masters, their concubines, and their children.”

I am fascinated by the authors writing skills in Wench, but it is not for the faint of heart or the clearest of eyes.

Wench (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2013/06/wench-copy.html

Como Civic Club Part I (copy)

I had a lovely time speaking at the Como Civic Club last week. The program was to be “Mississippi Authors - Then and Now,” but I shifted focus after reading Into the Free by Julie Cantrell. She is one of the bright now writers supporting my theory that our shared Mississippi experience produces outstanding talent.

Last week’s Book Talk was Into the Free, but while researching Cantrell for the presentation I was shocked to read the book’s reviews all promoting it as Christian fiction instead of Southern literature. Even her publisher David C. Cook specializes in the genre, but Southern(ness) oozes throughout.

While I focused on the dichotomy of good and evil in the book, others saw the presence of God. Author, River Jordan, said, “Julie Cantrell writes with the beautiful hand of someone who understands the soft nuance of God’s brushstrokes on the human heart.”

Sure, I would have accepted it as Christian fiction if not for the violence. For instance, father beats wife. Starving dog buries puppies. Mother commits suicide. Yet main character, Millie, sees her dead friend Sloth during times of stress. The introduction of a ghost even hints to the subgenre of gothic within Southern fiction.

One of the members of the club asked if the book would be suitable for teens. An excellent question since Millie enters the story as a 10-year-old and progresses to her teenage self. It is the perfect coming of age story one finds in Young Adult novels.

Cantrell cautioned during an interview with Adele Annesi, “Because there are some rough scenes, I recommend that parents read the novel first for any child under 16, but many parents have asked their daughters as young as 13 to read this book because it opens communication about many important topics such as sexual abuse, racism, classism, substance abuse, faith, love, conformity, and personal choices.”

Yet, one more genre can be added to this book. The story takes place during the Depression when gypsies spend a week celebrating their fallen matriarch. The historical fiction is based on true events surrounding a Romany group who lost their “Gypsy Queen,” Kelly Mitchell, and laid her to rest in Rose Hill cemetery. It is said that approximately 20,000 attended the 1915 funeral in Meridian.

Into the Free is a Mississippi Must-Read genre!

Como Civic Club Part I (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2012/11/como-civic-club-part-i-copy.html

The Healing (copy)

She stands there in the middle of the door frame without speaking. Her eyes bulge at the sight of her mother’s lifeless body on the cot. I was told her name is Violet.

Her mother came to me just two weeks earlier and the girl was quiet but curious. I could see her looking all around the kitchen taking in the unfamiliar tools of my trade. Her mouth slack as she studied the jars of herbs and spices stacked on shelves near my sink. I am pretty sure I caught her taking in a large breath trying to save the smells for later scrutiny.

Now, she stands as if part of the screen door. I could move her open and closed with the push of my hand on one side of her small shoulders. Her mother’s blood has left dark stains on the baby blue dress she wears and her expensive leather shoes will be salvageable after a good scuffing.

Violet comes from money, but now she is apparently mine and soon to be without. The man did promise me to mail all her clothes before he high-tailed it out of my front yard leaving a dust trail a mile long.

What can I do? I will have to take her; otherwise, I might be in big trouble. Jail can be a cruel place to an old black woman.

Why did her mother ignore the instructions I gave her? I repeated it over and over, “Make tea with my mixture every morning for twelve days and the baby will leave your body naturally.”

She knew what she was doing by drinking all of that mixture in one sitting. She had to have known it would kill her. Why was her life so worthless?

All that Gran-Gran knows of healing and sight she learned from a slave named Polly Shine. She might be able to help Violet with medicines, but her sight is of no use. She touches the little girl’s shoulder and only sees blackness. Her gifts are now lost somewhere in the thick wrinkles of her troubled life.

Born in Laurel, Mississippi, Jonathan Odell writes as if telling a favorite bedtime story. You will be tucked under covers all snug and fighting off sleep to hear every word.

His latest book, The Healing, opens in a cold, 1930’s cook house filled with the notions and potions of pre-Civil War plantation life. Readers experience both Depression Era and Plantation Era life as Odell flows between the two worlds effortlessly.

The Healing (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-healing-copy.html

Sense of Place (copy)

I have written about “Sense of Place” before. I try to point out when an author uses the technique to create a character out of places like farms, towns or churches in a story. Sense of place can be grander like our famous Mississippi authors who use words like the Delta or South to conjure a feeling.

Sense of place is not necessarily a positive character either. Small towns have a reputation for being constrictive in “Coming of Age” stories. For instance, it was a cumulative of small town ideas that made Shelly run to the city. She could get lost in a city. In the city no one would know her name or her family, etc.

Last night I sat amongst likeminded Mississippians discussing the plays of Tennessee Williams in the Cutrer Mansion in Clarksdale. Our leader, Professor Colby Kullman, instructs at Ole Miss. The plays we focused on were Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Streetcar Named Desire.

Since we were in Clarksdale, Colby spent time on the characters and their hometown connection. He had a lovely picture of the real Baby Doll who was a classy lady and not the floozy portrayed in the screenplay by the same name. We learned that Brick from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was the name of a bully that harassed little Williams in the neighborhood.

Colby startled me when he started talking about geopathology. I had never heard the term. It is defined in Chaudhuri’s book titled Staging Place as “the problem of place.” It, “informs realistic drama deeply, appearing as a series of ruptures and displacements in various orders of location, from the micro- to the macrospatial, from house to nature, with intermediary space concepts such as neighborhood, hometown, community, and country ranged in between.”

Instead of “Sense of Place” in Tennessee Williams’ drama there is the “Painful Politics of Place.” He used the Delta and its colorful inhabitants to create tension in his early plays. You might not see the loam of the fields or the lazy river through the stage windows, but they are there creating this negative force as palpable as an evil person.

On a positive note, although the plays depict a strangling of the natural self, they do provide Clarksdale with a steady stream of visitors. The world is fascinated by the Delta and people are willing to travel far to experience its sensations. Thank you, Tennessee Williams.

Sense of Place (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2012/10/sense-of-place-copy.html

Into the Free (copy)

We live in cabin two and my best friend, Sloth, lives in cabin one. Do not be fooled by the nickname though. Six years ago Mr. Michaels shot clear through his right foot cleaning his rifle and all that is left are two toes like a sloth. Two-toed Sloth stuck although Momma still refers to him by his real name.

Sloth is about the bestest friend anyone could be lucky to have. We go on all kinds of adventures whether working in the garden or hunting squirrels. I hardly ever see him mad. Just the other day I pulled out a carrot thinking it was a weed and he did not yell or hit me. He merely replanted it then showed me the difference. Momma says he has the patience of Job.

We all live on the Sutton place but Sloth, Momma and I are not sharecroppers. Jack pays rent to Mr. Sutton for Momma and me when he is home from working on the crew of the Cauy Tucker Rodeo. Sloth shares his vegetables and game caught on the place.

Speaking of Jack, he is part Choctaw. This is the reason we do not live with Momma’s folks. They put Momma out as soon as they heard about me. It is okay, but it sure does make Momma sad. Well, that and the fact that Jack is mean.

I was sitting up in Sweetie, our Sweet Gum Tree, having told Sloth I wanted to think instead of go fishing with him when I noticed Jack’s truck spitting up gravel and smoke getting to cabin two. Within seconds he is out of the truck and up in Momma’s face, choking her with the pot roast she was making especially for him. I turn away from the kitchen window.

He is making little sense and I climb a little higher in Sweetie. I bet he has been drinking. I hear Momma rush through the screen door and I am staring again at the violence as Jack trips her from behind and begins to kick her. Within another minute, Momma is unconscious and Jack is in the truck heading back towards town.

Next morning I tell Sloth all about Momma who is now laid up in her bed. I end my story by telling him I should have gone fishing. He looks me dead in the eyes and says, “Millie, when faced with fishing or doing something else, choose fishing.”

Into the Free is written by Mississippi resident, Julie Cantrell. She fills it with historical references such as the gypsies who traveled the south but buried their own in Meridian’s Rose Hill Cemetery.  This Depression Era story is not to be missed.

Into the Free (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2012/10/into-free-copy.html

Grit Lit (copy)

“Honey Boo Boo” is all the rage. Whether you like reality television or not, “Honey Boo Boo” is a fresh take on the genre. A spin off from the popular “Toddlers & Tiaras,” the show runs back to back episodes on the weekends and features a sassy seven-year-old named Alana Thompson.

Alana and her three sisters live in McIntyre, GA, with mother, June Shannon, and boyfriend to June plus live in father to Alana, Mike Thompson. Mike, aka Sugar Bear, has asked June several times for her hand in marriage but she refuses. The show has taken criticism for June’s unwed status and the fact that all of her children have a different father.

The Learning Channel (TLC) hosts the show which has made it a target for jokes. What are we learning exactly from watching “Honey Boo Boo?” One could say you are learning about the rural-poor white families of the south. A segment of Southern culture we refer to as rednecks, but we all know not necessarily poor. For instance, Art and Entertainment (A&E) channel features a family of extremely rich rednecks in “Duck Dynasty.”

“Honey Boo Boo” is the lighter side of redneck. June is an avid coupon-clipper and spends most of her income on Alana’s participation in beauty pageants. It is like visualizing an oxymoron. Think the word low-fat dessert as chunky Alana struts and prances for the crown. The poor thing cannot execute a cartwheel but her mother fills her with hopes of one day being Miss America.

Alana is a beautiful child both inside and out. Sugar Bear’s patients abounds. June smiles and is jovial although she is usually the butt of most jokes. The daughters play and tease but are never mean. These are all good people.

I got my hands on new book Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader this week and have enjoyed a little heaven in my favorite genre. It is the opposite of “Honey Boo Boo” redneck. It is the bad, the violent, the mean genre of the working class south called, Dirty South, and it is the place to be for local reality reads.

Most of the authors are Mississippians and North Carolinians. One of the editors is our own Edgar-Award winning Tom Franklin who currently teaches creative writing at Ole Miss. The book includes well-known authors to this genre and some surprises including Dorothy Allison, Larry Brown, William Gay, Harry Crews, Lewis Nordan, Ron Rash, Lee Smith, and Daniel Woodrell.

Paraphrasing Tom Earley who once said southern literature can be broken down into two categories: One, the sweet mint-julep side of the tracks and the other side where beer bottles are slung from trucks. Having watched “Honey Boo Boo” and noticed her trailer right beside the tracks, one is left to wonder if Alana might be Miss America.

Grit Lit (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2012/10/grit-lit-copy.html

My Magnolia Memories and Musings (copy)

Finally! The wait is over! Local poet Patricia Neely-Dorsey has a new collection of poems ready for your entertainment!

Magnolia Memories and Musings is filled with poems that come from the heart of a very up-beat, proud of her street, gal. Okay, I am no poet and will leave the rhyming to her, but she does our state proud. As we all know, Mississippi is the butt of many a joke and as most around the country will say not the smallest butt either.

Pat says pooh to all that negative vibe. She is here to shout about Mississippi’s greatness whether it is in our seasons, sights or sentiments.

Listen to her love poem that uses our state vegetation that went horribly awry and now is a symbol of strength, “Kudzu Love.”

My love for you
Is like the kudzu,
That surrounds us
In this place:
Changing
the landscape
Of my life,
It is
Unyielding,
Unrelenting,
And cannot
Be contained.

I am proud to call Pat a friend and I happily sing her praises. Through the wonders of facebook, she dazzles me with witty quotes and positive affirmations daily, plus a fashion show on the weekends. One of Pat’s many hobbies is going to consignment shops and yard sales looking for fashion deals. Her blog is called Diva-on-a-Dime.

Listen to her voice in the poem “4th of July.”

Flags Waving
Fireworks Popping
Family reunion picnics
And a new outfit
Barbecue, Baked beans
Fried chicken, Cole Slaw
Watermelon,
Homemade Ice cream
And did I say…
A new outfit?

In May, Pat shared some old photos of herself as a contestant in the Miss Northside Pageant on facebook. I thought she was reliving memories of her fashionable youth, until I read her poem, “Miss Northside.” Next time, lead with your best talent - Mississippi poems - and take the crown.

My Magnolia Memories and Musings (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2012/07/f-inally-wait-is-over-local-poet.html