James Dickerson

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A columnist for The New York Times, author Joe Queenan had a bestseller in 1998 with Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon, a critique of pop culture that skewered everything from fast food restaurants to John Tesh concerts. His latest, Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation, is equal parts humor and venom, a book written by a Boomer and filled with all the angst that has characterized that age group since the introduction of the Hula Hoop. Applying his razor wit to his own generation, Queenan charts its course from the sacrifices of the '60s to the excesses of the '80s from activism to materialism. A good-natured grump, he has fun taking his generation to task, and this kind of self-loathing, mixed with his social commentary, always makes for belly laughs. "A friend of mine once remarked that when Baby Boomers are old and decrepit, no one is going to go out and make a Saving Private Ryan commemorating their finest hour," he writes. "They didn't have a finest hour." Queenan often writes tongue-in-cheek, but at times his commentary has all the subtlety of an in-your-face raspberry. For Boomers, the best kind of comic is an angry one and, with his own choleric brand of humor, Queenan carries on that tradition splendidly. Survivors of the '60s will laugh all the way through this satire and then they will hate Queenan for writing it, which is what he wants, for only in being hated by others of his generation can he feel good about himself. It's a Boomer thing.

A columnist for The New York Times, author Joe Queenan had a bestseller in 1998 with Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon, a critique of pop culture that skewered everything from fast food restaurants to John Tesh concerts. His latest, Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation, is […]
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Tom Brokaw tapped an enormous reservoir of dormant sentiment in 1998 with the publication of The Greatest Generation, available this month for the first time in paperback. After more than 40 printings, there are almost 4 million hardcover copies in print, making it one of the best-selling nonfiction titles of the past decade.

Brokaw's thesis is simple: The generation of Americans that came of age during World War II was "the greatest generation any society has ever produced." He made his point by telling the stories of nearly 50 survivors of that era, most of whom are now in their late 70s to mid-80s. But this great generation is losing the battle against time, and the busy NBC anchorman wanted to capture their stories before they disappeared.

The book became a phenomenon, not just because of the surviving generation, but because of the succeeding generation, the baby boomers who grew up in families and communities affected by the sacrifices and heroism of their fathers' and mothers' generation.

Now comes a follow-up, An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation which is essentially a collection of letters Brokaw received in reaction to the first book. Brokaw writes in the foreword: "It was a common trait of the Greatest Generation not to discuss the difficult times and how they shaped their lives, but now, in their twilight years, more and more members of that remarkable group of men and women are determined to share their experiences." Whether the stories are about a 17-year-old enlistee who participated in the Bataan Death March, or about eyewitness accounts of the D-Day Invasion or the Battle of the Bulge, they are riveting in their detail and inspirational in their selfless passion.

As a baby boomer, I could not help but be affected by these books. My Uncle Calvin lost an arm at the age of 18 aboard a ship in the South Pacific. After more than 55 years of living without that arm, he is still with us, thankfully, a role model for me and others of my generation.

Whatever the final assessment of American culture, certainly one of the highest points will be the generation that marched off to war to save the world and did! James L. Dickerson is the author of numerous books, including Colonel Tom Parker, reviewed in this issue.

Tom Brokaw tapped an enormous reservoir of dormant sentiment in 1998 with the publication of The Greatest Generation, available this month for the first time in paperback. After more than 40 printings, there are almost 4 million hardcover copies in print, making it one of the best-selling nonfiction titles of the past decade. Brokaw's thesis […]
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Larry Silver had everything that a man could reasonably want: a loving and beautiful wife, a precocious son and a high-profile job as the producer of a popular television talk show. His life was perfect in every way, right up until the instant he made one stupid mistake and slept with a woman from his office.

From that point on, Harry's life unravels at the speed of sound, or more accurately in the time it takes to leave an incriminating message on a cell-phone voicemail. Faced with his betrayal, Harry's wife flees to Japan to find her own happiness, leaving their young son behind with Harry until she can send for him.

Now that he is responsible for the daily care of his son, Harry does the next illogical thing and gets fired from his job. Can his life possibly get any worse? You bet.

What makes this story different is the way Harry deals with the aftermath of his mistake. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Harry is never more endearing than when he concludes, what has truly messed up the lousy world are all the people who always want one more chance. He is ashamed to find himself in that group, but what he wants more than anything else in life is one more chance.

Instead of that, he is granted a lesson in the reality of fatherhood. "How many women actually say, Wait until your father gets home now? he muses. Not many. Because these days some fathers never come home. And some fathers are home all the time." It is a 21st century verity that Harry goes through hell to learn.

Originally published in author Tony Parsons' native England, where it sold 600,000 copies (statistical evidence of its appeal), Man and Boy is being published in the U.S. by Sourcebooks, a company noted for its best-selling multimedia products. This novel is its first venture into fiction.

Parsons doesn't dazzle with his writing style (it's practically invisible), but rather with the skill by which he makes a page-turner out of a simple father-son story. Before you know what has happened, you'll be rearranging your schedule so that you can spend another few minutes with Man and Boy.

James L. Dickerson is the author of numerous books, including the soon-to-be-published Colonel Tom Parker: The Curious Life of Elvis Presley's Eccentric Manager.

 

Larry Silver had everything that a man could reasonably want: a loving and beautiful wife, a precocious son and a high-profile job as the producer of a popular television talk show. His life was perfect in every way, right up until the instant he made one stupid mistake and slept with a woman from his […]
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A little over two years ago, Jill Conner Browne was a one-on-one weight lifting instructor at the Jackson, Mississippi YMCA. Then she got an idea for a book titled The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. The book was an instant bestseller, establishing Browne as the voice of . . . well, that's hard to say with any degree of precision, but the practical effect was to elevate Browne to the exalted position of Boss of all Sweet Potato Queens.

"Getting that first book published has ruint my life," she laughs. "I don't like to be busy, as anyone who knows me will tell you, and I have been inordinately busy for the last two years. I have met thousands and thousands of people. But I'm paying bills, and that's good. I'm starting my plastic surgery fund." Now she has written a sequel titled God Save the Sweet Potato Queens. It is every bit as bawdy and irreverent as the first book, with more stories about the "Promise," the magic words guaranteed to get any man to do what a woman wants. I would explain more about the Promise, but to do so would be illegal in 35 states.

If you didn't read the first book, you should know that the Sweet Potato Queens are a small group of Mississippi women (all dear friends) who dress up each year in outlandish costumes with severely augmented busts to participate in the annual Mal's St. Paddy's Day parade in Jackson. "Last year there were people from 22 states at the parade," Browne said in a recent interview. "They were from New York, Connecticut, California, North Dakota all based on the strength of the first book. It was pretty bizarre." The Queens are not necessarily the types of women the average male would want to marry and take home to mother, but they are exactly the types of women any male in his right mind would like to get drunk, hopefully to dance atop the nearest table. This new book is every bit as funny as the first and contains loads of beauty shop talk about sex and the foibles of male behavior but it has surprises as well, such as poignant passages about the deaths of two close friends. Browne is already working on ideas for a third Queens book. Its contents are a closely held secret, but she did suggest that an idea for the book's cover came from two male visitors from Amsterdam she entertained in Jackson.

"When they got back home, they sent me an e-mail saying they had loved seeing the South, but one of the things that struck them was how fat everyone was, so they started taking pictures of people with big butts everywhere they went," Browne says. So, on the cover of the third Sweet Potato Queens installment, presumably out sometime next year, be prepared to see a whole n'other side of the Queens.

Meanwhile, make yourself a drink or a nice sweet tater pie with whipped cream and enjoy God Save the Sweet Potato Queens, for it will take you into the twisted mind of a woman who knows how to mess with you real good.

Mississippi-born author James L. Dickerson knows all about parades. He once learned to play the trombone solely for the purpose of marching, mile after mile, directly behind the cutest majorette in the band.

A little over two years ago, Jill Conner Browne was a one-on-one weight lifting instructor at the Jackson, Mississippi YMCA. Then she got an idea for a book titled The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. The book was an instant bestseller, establishing Browne as the voice of . . . well, that's hard to […]
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As the holidays approach, bookstore shelves are already beginning to fill with gift books that are big, bold, beautiful and beguiling. If you're the type who likes to get an early start, we have a few selections to jumpstart your holiday shopping.

When prize-winning documentary maker Ken Burns "discovered" jazz, it was an eye-opening experience. Like so many others, the New Yorker thought he knew exactly what jazz was all about, only to learn, once he began his research, just how far off the mark he had been. Jazz: A History of America's Music is a companion volume to Burns' 10-part PBS series on jazz scheduled to air in January 2001. Co-written by Geoffrey C. Ward, this book offers a compact history of the jazz era, along with a splendid collection of photographs. Not meant to be a comprehensive guide, the book focuses primarily on the music and lives of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, though scores of other musicians are drawn into the narrative. It is through the lives of those four men that Burns and Ward are able to present the larger picture of how a peculiarly Southern art form transformed an entire nation.

If someone on your list has an interest in history, particularly the time period from 1492 to 1600, then you're in luck. Historical Atlas of Exploration, by museum curator Angus Konstam, is a fascinating guide to the golden age of world exploration. Konstam details the dates and events associated with explorers such as Ferdinand Magellan, St. Francis Xavier, Vasco Nunez de Balboa and Sir Francis Drake, to name a few. The maps, illustrations and color photographs are first rate, and the stories are often spellbinding: These explorers were, after all, among the world's first superstars.

In your search for a captivating gift, consider the butterfly. Over the centuries, these sprightly beauties have captured the imaginations of naturalists, poets and children. A World for Butterflies: Their Lives, Behavior and Futureexamines the life cycle and patterns of the insect world's most charismatic species. Written by Phillip Schappert, a charter member of the North American Butterfly Association, the book details the life cycles of butterflies, from egg to caterpillar to winged insect. More than 300 color photographs, all beautifully done, show the various stages of a butterfly's life, making the book an ultimate guide to the world of butterflies. Also noteworthy is The Family Butterfly Bookby Rick Mikula, which offers projects and activities in addition to field-guide information. At a time when we are inundated with celebrity images every day on television and in newspapers and magazines, it is important to remember that the first modern-day celebrity photographers were artists in their own right. One in particular comes to mind: Lord Snowdon, born Tony Armstrong-Jones, has been taking photographs of celebrities for nearly half a century.

Photographs By Snowdon is a retrospective collection of the British photographer's work. Included are photographs drawn from his entire career, with special emphasis placed on his images of the royal family (his photos of Princess Diana offer a haunting window into her soul) and movie stars such as Vanessa Redgrave, Uma Thurman and Emma Thompson. Snowdon's photo of Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole having tea in an ornate hotel says more about celebrity than words could ever tell. Agatha Christie, sitting at a writing hutch, dressed to the nines but wearing color-coordinated house slippers, creates an atmosphere of mystery that is both daunting and fragile at the same instant. When it comes to portraits, Snowdon is about as good as it gets.

As the holidays approach, bookstore shelves are already beginning to fill with gift books that are big, bold, beautiful and beguiling. If you're the type who likes to get an early start, we have a few selections to jumpstart your holiday shopping. When prize-winning documentary maker Ken Burns "discovered" jazz, it was an eye-opening experience. […]
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Backstage and on the page with the King of television talk. For political junkies and devotees of behind-the-scenes drama, a new book by CNN's Larry King is a dream come true. Viewers of Larry King Live know that all kinds of drama and melodrama take place backstage and out of sight during commercial breaks. If only we could get a peek! With Anything Goes! What I've Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents, King pulls back the curtains on those hidden anything goes moments.

There is often a wide gap between what the public sees and what takes place beyond earshot, especially when it comes to politics. That's part of the game, King said in an interview, pointing to a recent incident in which George W. Bush used an obscenity in referring to a New York Times reporter. It's a classic example of what goes on behind the scenes. They look out and they are smiling and waving, and at the same time they are calling someone a [derogatory name]. With that, King laughs: Of course that is not exclusive to the Republicans or to Bush. King's book details behind-the-scenes encounters with a wide range of politicians and celebrities, including Marlon Brando, Ross Perot, Bob Dole and others, but some of the most riveting moments involve President Clinton. On one occasion, they were 20 minutes into a live interview, when King asked if the president could stay an additional 30 minutes. Clinton said that would be fine, but during the next commercial break, his aides approached him and told him not to do the extra 30 minutes.

I'm not doing well? Clinton asked, looking annoyed. Do you think I'm handling myself poorly? With the program again going live, the aides stepped out of camera range without answering the president.

He was very annoyed and stayed annoyed, says King. When we ended that show, he looked at me and said goodnight, then he said,

Backstage and on the page with the King of television talk. For political junkies and devotees of behind-the-scenes drama, a new book by CNN's Larry King is a dream come true. Viewers of Larry King Live know that all kinds of drama and melodrama take place backstage and out of sight during commercial breaks. If […]
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Born at the turn of the century, Emmett Miller was a Georgia-raised blackface entertainer who recorded a string of records, mostly in the 1920s, that helped to fill the creative void between ragtime and jazz. Stylistically, he was neither blues nor country, black nor white. Think yodeling blues singer. Talent-wise, he was neither good nor bad mostly just something in-between, different enough to strike a chord with those who attended his minstrel performances and purchased his records.

Nick Tosches, contributing editor for Vanity Fair and best-selling author of Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, became obsessed with Miller more than 25 years ago—a fascination to which he admits without embarrassment while researching a book about country music. The fact that Merle Haggard dedicated his album I Love Dixie Blues to Miller was enough to tweak Tosches' curiosity. Not until he discovered one of Miller's recordings in the bargain bin of a New York record store did he understand why Haggard and others felt obligated to tip their hats to the entertainer. He writes, "When I heard Miller's actual voice, forthshining from the coruscations of those slow-spinning emerald grooves, I was astounded, and my search for information on him began in earnest."

To say that Tosches was obsessed with this white man who liked to perform made-up as a black man is an understatement. He pursued Miller with the righteous zeal of a cuckolded husband on the trail of his marital adversary. But, in truth, this gracefully written book contains very little information about Emmett Miller. Rather, it is more about the author's search for some semblance of creative unity and purpose in American music. It's a noble quest, a journey of discovery that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

James L. Dickerson is the author of Colonel Tom Parker: The Curious Life of Elvis Presley's Eccentric Manager.

 

Born at the turn of the century, Emmett Miller was a Georgia-raised blackface entertainer who recorded a string of records, mostly in the 1920s, that helped to fill the creative void between ragtime and jazz. Stylistically, he was neither blues nor country, black nor white. Think yodeling blues singer. Talent-wise, he was neither good nor […]
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When I caught up with Larry Brown, he was in the shower. Right away, I knew I wasn’t dealing with an ordinary writer. Most writers, myself included, tend to shower AFTER interviews (to wash away that lingering suspicion that some sort of transaction with the devil has taken place).

But Brown was taking a different approach, one probably dictated by the fact that he had shipped to his publisher, that very morning, the manuscript of a new collection of essays. I called back 20 minutes later, affording him time to complete the early afternoon ritual, making Larry Brown surely the cleanest writer I’ve ever interrogated.

Of course, if you read the press on Brown, you might think he never showered. Vanity Fair magazine once called the Mississippi writer America’s "bad boy novelist." The Washington Post said he had "slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit." Jumping on the bandwagon, Brown’s publisher says he is famous for his "hard bitten, hard drinking, hard living male characters."

The author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Dirty Work and Joe, and a fine memoir, On Fire, about his 17 years as an Oxford, Mississippi, firefighter, Brown has entered new territory with his latest novel, Fay. The main character is a 17-year-old woman-child who sets out to discover the meaning of life by hitchhiking from Oxford to the Mississippi coast.

"This is a real departure for me, to write a book from a woman’s point of view," said Brown. "There were things I didn’t know, things I had to ask people about women to find out. Their sensitivities are different and their concerns are different."

The book took three years to write, he said, and resulted in a manuscript of 883 pages, every word of which was pounded out on a typewriter. He now does his word processing on a computer, one he purchased just two months ago. He’s not sure how the computer will affect his writing. Typically, he writes every day until he "gets tired," and that could take anywhere from five to ten hours.

Brown decided to become a writer in 1980 at the age of 29. At that point, he had been a small-town firefighter for seven years, long enough to know he didn’t want to do it for the rest of his life. He started writing during his down time at the fire station and wrote portions of On Fire while on the job, though he didn’t finish the book until three years after he left in 1990.

"I decided that a lot of people just learned [writing] on their own, and I went into a room and started writing," he said. "Anybody who wants to apply themselves to it, who wants to work at it, can eventually learn how. That’s what I tell my students. It took me eight years to publish my first book. In that time, I wrote five novels I had to throw away and about 80 or 90 short stories."

But why throw it away? Why not just keep working on it? "Because it wasn’t readable. It was silly. It was stupid. There were so many things wrong with it. You have to do so many of those until you get to the point where you cross the line and you can become a professional writer. It takes a lot of work. You have to keep on going and believe in yourself. And you have to be willing to write stuff and then throw it away."

We may never know how much of Fay he threw away during the three years it took to write it, but the finished product clearly shows his minute attention to detail and his desire to get inside the main character’s head. Probably not since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s incursions into the female sensibilities of the 1920s and 1930s has a writer been so successful in crossing that literary minefield. Considering Brown’s reputation as a macho, man’s writer, it is somewhat surprising that Fay is as complicated and beguiling as any real-life woman who ever walked the planet. His success in capturing a female character is clear evidence that you don’t have to jump off a cliff to imagine what it would be like.

Brown’s portrait of Fay is so complete that I felt I knew who would play her role if the novel were ever made into a movie. Has he ever thought about that?

"Not really," he answered. "I don’t know many actresses that age."

How about Angelina Jolie?

"Oh, yeah," he answered. "She could probably do it." He paused a moment, his mind’s eye superimposing the fictional character over the form of the actress. "Yeah, I can see her as Fay."

Brown is no stranger to filmmaking. In 1995, he played the part of a dope dealer in the movie, 100 Proof. More recently, he went to Thomasville, Georgia, to watch the filming of The Rough South of Larry Brown, a documentary about his own life. He ended up with a cameo role, playing the part of the fire chief, a clear promotion from his former job. You would think that brief incursion into the past would foster memories of the good ole days. "Naw," said Brown, nipping that notion in the bud. "I went to so many fires when it was five degrees or 95 degrees, and I don’t miss the boredom of sitting there, ’cause there’s a lot of that involved."

Brown’s novel, Joe, is under option to actor/filmmaker Billy Bob Thornton, but production has not yet begun on the project. "What they need is a script," said Brown. "I don’t think I will be doing it. I tried it three times, and I haven’t gotten it right yet. I think they should probably find another writer to do the script. Doing scripts is a totally different animal [from writing books]."

No interview with an Oxford, Mississippi, writer would be complete without a question about that other Oxford writer — no, not the Godfather of Southern literature, William Faulkner. I’m talking about John Grisham, recently profiled in Entertainment Weekly on the occasion of his novels’ achieving gross sales of over one billion dollars.

"I used to know him," said Brown. "I used to know him pretty well, before he ever published his first book."

Ah, fame!

James L. Dickerson is the author of Goin’ Back to Memphis, reissued this month in paperback by Cooper Square Press.

Author photo by Joe Osgoode.

When I caught up with Larry Brown, he was in the shower. Right away, I knew I wasn’t dealing with an ordinary writer. Most writers, myself included, tend to shower AFTER interviews (to wash away that lingering suspicion that some sort of transaction with the devil has taken place). But Brown was taking a different […]
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"I wrote it with some pain and so on, but it was not until after I finished that I thought my God, what have I done? I've just told everything." That's Lewis Nordan speaking, better known as Buddy to his friends and to readers of his just published memoir, Boy with Loaded Gun (the title is a reference to his mail-order acquisition of a gun as a teenager and his fleeting thoughts about shooting his stepfather from ambush). He is addressing the natural unease felt by all fiction writers who delve into autobiography.

Actually, when Nordan turned the manuscript of Boy with Loaded Gun in to his publisher, he called it "a novel about Lewis Nordan." The author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Wolf Whistle and The Sharpshooter Blues, he felt the need to rearrange the names of the people in his life and to make up some of the conversations that took place.

That's because Nordan didn't research his life, not in the sense that he went back and interviewed people from his past. Instead, he relied on memory and applied a novelist's interpretation of the events that shaped his life.

"I was not convinced until the last minute that it should be called a memoir," he says. "It's more of a publishing matter than a writer's matter. When I started, I told them [the publishers] I wanted to write what could be called a novel about Buddy Nordan and that it would be as true as I could make it. But, really, I'm as comfortable with 'autobiographical novel' as a memoir."

Whether you call it an autobiographical novel or a memoir, the result is a finely crafted, deeply moving account of Nordan's upbringing in Itta Bena, Mississippi, and his journey as a literary man, admitted heavy drinker, and self-confessed unfaithful husband, from that tine Delta community to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where he now lives and teaches creative writing at the University of Pittsburg. 

Although the idea of returning to Mississippi to live has occurred to him from time to time, he says it is not so much an option anumre because of extensive ties in Pittsburgh. "I look longingly at the place at times, but I've found I'm a better Southerner outside the South than in the South. I don't want to be melodramatic, but writing as an expatriate, with a sense of longing and love and mythological memories, took the place of some of the old anger I had about the racial violence. . . . When I left the South, I had felt trapped for so long. I joined the Navy as a means of getting out, and I ended up going back [to the South] to go to college. It is only by being away that I have understood the culture I was rejecting."

"I've found I'm a better Southerner outside the South than in the South."

Long after completeing work on Boy with Loaded Gun, Nordan returned to the Mississippi Delta in August 1999 on assignment for the New York Times to write a nonfiction article about the blues.

"They sent me down the old blues highway, Highway 61, from Memphis to New Orleans," he says. "I was hanging out in blues joints, literally. I put 3,000 miles on the car between Memphis and New Orleans. Lots of back roads and juke joints."

As luck would have it, he received word that a cousin from Minnesota would be visiting Itta Bena during that time. The cousin had not seen the little town since 1957. Together, they revisited their former haunts, looking for old landmarks and forgotten memories. Quickly, they learned that Thomas Wolfe was right about the futility of coming home with the expectation of finding old memories alive and well. "Itta Bena is not the town it once was," says Nordan. "All the stores I knew are falling down." 

Once of the "good" changes that has taken place in the Delta, he says, is its acceptance of the music that originated there. "Blues music was a dirty little secret that we listened to, and now it is an institution," he says. "It should have been at the time. I didn't have the breadth of imagination to understand what a special place [the Delta] was at the time."

As he looks back, it was the blues, as much as anything, that influenced his writing. But wait, there was one other influence that some would argue is as Southern as the blues or Karo pecan pie. "We always hear Southerners say that the rhythm in their language comes from the King James Bible and preaching, but I think mine comes from the blues—and from cheerleaders," he says, laughing. "Those sing-song cheerleader chants. In high school I was on the bench during the football games. I wasn't playing and I was far more interested in the music of their voices than I was in what was going on on the field."

Nordan's concern about how his old Mississippi friends and former lovers would respond to Boy with Loaded Gun is transparent in our conversation. To the best of his knowledge, only one of the people written about in the book received an advance proof, and Nordan is not sure how that happened. Nordan met Dorris and Helga (not their real names) at a laundromat in Pittsburg where he had moved from Arkansas after his divorce from his first wife, Elizabeth. Tragically, shortly after moving there, his son committed suicide.

Dorris and Helga so impressed him (and vice versa) that he gave up his lodgings in the YMCA and moved into their house with them, where he slept on the floor of their unfurnished spare room. Nordan was unemployed at the time and dealing with more demons than should be allowed under the law, so it was a godsend in many respects.

That, of course, is one of the great fears harboured by all writers, that someone who has been written about in a book will read it before it has been placed in more unbiased hands. Nordan need not have worried. To his surprise, Dorris called him up and told him he had read the book. "He aboslutely loved it," Nordan says, the relief still lingering in his voice. "He was very friendly."

 

James L. Dickerson was bron in Greenwood, Mississippi. He is the author of Goin' Back to Memphis and Dixie's Dirty Secret.

"I wrote it with some pain and so on, but it was not until after I finished that I thought my God, what have I done? I've just told everything." That's Lewis Nordan speaking, better known as Buddy to his friends and to readers of his just published memoir, Boy with Loaded Gun (the title […]

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