Category: Book Features

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Psycho Street: Sarah Langan’s Good Neighbors

This week’s column faces me with a happy predicament — how to write critically about a book I unequivocally loved? Some novels are puzzle boxes, devices of impossible intricacy meant to delight the intellect. Some take a different form — a raw, beating heart, oozing pathos and humanity. Sarah Langan’s Good Neighbors (Simon & Schuster) is both things, and more. It wrecked me, left me in tears twice, and if the past three days are any indication, Good Neighbors will live rent-free in my mind for a long time to come.

When the novel opens, the Wilde family has already worn out its welcome on suburban Maple Street. It isn’t anything they did, exactly. Sure, they could stand to take better care of their lawn, but it’s really about who they are.

Arlo Wilde, charting-musician-turned-office-supply-salesperson, with monster-movie-themed tattoos covering his track marks, likes to sit on the front porch and burn through packs of Parliaments. Gertie freezes up in social situations, leaving a big, fake smile on her face, a remnant from her beauty pageant days. She wears cheap jewelry, and her shirts are cut too low. Larry, their youngest, is going through a phase — he’s bright, but socially, he’s developing slowly. And poor Julia, pimply and pubescent, had to move to a new town at life’s most awkward stage, and now finds herself trying to fit in with a group of kids who’ve known each other since before they could speak.

As a family, the Wildes are damaged but brave, ever attempting to rise above hidden scars far more grisly than Arlo’s track marks.

David Zaugh, Zaugh Photography

Sarah Langan

When the novel begins, with a Fourth of July block party, Maple Street’s de facto leader Rhea Schroeder is on the outs with Gertie, ostensibly her best friend. In fact, both the Wilde women are feuding with the Schroeders, it seems, as there’s friction between Julia and Rhea’s daughter, Shelly. That drama is upstaged, though, when a sinkhole opens up in the park that borders the neighborhood. Ominous, hinting at hidden dangers, it spews candy-apple-scented fumes, a clear indication that something deadly lurks, hidden, under Maple Street.

Somehow, about a month after the novel’s beginning, the resentment bubbling under the surface of Maple Street overflows and leads to a series of murders. Good Neighbors makes no bones about that — each page takes the reader inexorably closer to catastrophe.

Langan could teach a master class in suspense. She peppers the plot with interstitial chapters taken from “real-life” newspaper clippings, articles, and Hollywood Babylon-style books about the infamous Maple Street Murders. As a result, every plot point feels tragically inevitable.

“There’s this thing that happens to people who’ve grown up with violence. It changes their hardwiring,” Langan writes. “They don’t react to threats like regular civilians. They do extremes. They’re too docile over small things but they go apeshit over the big stuff. In other words, they’re prone to violence.”

Langan lays out her pieces with a watchmaker’s precision, setting up the circumstances that lead to the Maple Street Murders. What’s terrifying is how common those circumstances turn out to be. In Good Neighbors, they’re newish neighbors who don’t quite fit in, a sinkhole, an oppressive and record-breaking heatwave, a tanked economy (glimpsed in the margins), a worsening environmental crisis, and a family with secrets. It’s generational trauma and PTSD and a community, a microcosm of America, struggling under the weight of these intersectional crises.

In other words, it could happen here, too.
Novel at Home: Sarah Langan with Grady Hendrix, authors in conversation in live online launch party for Good Neighbors, Tuesday, February 2nd, at 6 p.m. Event is free with registration.

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The Talented Ms. Mia: Sam Tschida’s Siri, Who Am I?

Though it rarely works like it does in books and movies, amnesia can be a useful storytelling trope. Like quicksand (remember the old Tarzan show?), it seemed to pop up with alarming frequency, until, presumably, audiences tired of it and it faded from the zeitgeist. Of course, everything comes back in vogue eventually, and memory loss makes for the ideal vehicle to explore ideas about identity in the digital age. Such is the case in the debut novel from Sam Tschida (pronounced “cheetah,” her website explains), Siri, Who Am I? (Quirk Books).

In Tschida’s novel, Mia comes to in a California hospital with a recently stapled-together head wound, a cracked phone, and no memory of who she is. Mia’s amnesia provides the central mystery of the book, the question of the protagonist’s identity, but the memory loss trope performs another useful function. Tschida’s novel is a mystery — maybe equal parts romance, mystery, and comedy — and with amnesia casting Mia in the role of the detective, Tschida neatly sidesteps the problem of providing a believable private eye. Those Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe types are a bit anachronistic in the 21st century, but a befuddled Millennial Californian trying to find herself in the places where her online persona and her instincts meet is a wholly plausible set of circumstances.

Sam Tschida

Mia’s social media presence is her best bet at figuring out who she is — and who might be responsible for the near-fatal wound on the back of her head. Her phone itself is little help — Mia’s contacts offer few leads, and her messages and emails are scrupulously deleted. Though that could be a cause for concern, Mia thinks (hopes?) she’s just something of a neat freak.

After she tracks down what she thinks might be her house, Mia begins to see reason to hope she’s won the just-woke-up-from-a-coma lottery. The little bungalow seems to belong to the fabulously wealthy (and handsome) French chocolate magnate, JP Howard. Or so says the house sitter, a neuroscience grad student named Max. And every indication is that JP and Mia are dating. (After all, she has a key to the place.)

Each new piece of information Mia learns offers a glimmer of hope — or another crack in the facade of the life Mia thinks she built. “Most likely I’m going to find credit card debt and a mountain of student loans the minute I figure out my social security number,” Mia muses. “I mean, I woke up in America.”

As the primary puzzle pieces begin to materialize, answers beget more questions. But who is the real Mia? Is she the arm candy of a French chocolatier or a scam artist? Is she an Instagram influencer? Are all social media influencers essentially scam artists? Is she a successful entrepreneur, or does she actually run an escort service? And who is Kobra, the man with the massive python tattoo who won’t stop texting her? Of course, front and center in the lineup of questions to be answered is who tried to murder her?

The whodunnit of it all provides stakes, and Tschida keeps the one-liners coming, leaving the audience to wonder if Mia is using humor as a coping mechanism or if she is, in fact, just a little unhinged. “The question of murder will have to wait,” Mia quips at one point. And: “I look pretty good except for the bloodstains.”

Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento by way of Ingrid Goes West, Tschida’s Siri, Who Am I? examines issues of identity, albeit with an irreverent comedic bent. It’s a quick read, and if it’s a little light on weighty considerations or poignant prose, so are most murder (or almost-murder) mysteries.

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In Memoriam: Eric Jerome Dickey

The Memphis-born New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey died on Sunday, January 3rd, in Los Angeles after battling a long illness. Dickey was 59.

His longtime publisher, Dutton, said: “Eric Jerome Dickey loved being a writer and all that it encompassed. He loved challenging himself with each book; he adored his readers and beloved fans and was always grateful for his success. We are proud to have been his publisher over the span of his award-winning career. He will truly be missed.”

Though the author was a resident of Los Angeles, California, he originally hailed from Memphis and was a graduate of the University of Memphis (then Memphis State). I had the opportunity to speak with Dickey in early 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and I was blown away by his charm, humor, intelligence, and incredible generosity with his time. We spoke for almost two hours, not just about his most recent novel, The Business of Lovers, but about social distancing, Memphis and L.A., and how the coronavirus might change romance in fiction.

While the Flyer‘s office was closed for the winter holidays last week, I received an email from one of Dickey’s many ardent fans who was trying to track down hardbound copies of Dickey’s early novels. Since the announcement today of his passing, heartfelt tributes from fans and other authors have appeared on social media. 

Prolific and hardworking, Dickey was the author of 29 novels. Recently, his debut novel, Sister, Sister, was listed as one of Essence’s “50 Most Impactful Black Books of the Last 50 Years,” and USA Today featured him on their list of “100 Black Novelists and Fiction Writers You Should Read.” More than seven million of his books have been published worldwide.

In 1994, Dickey’s first published short story, “Thirteen,” appeared in the IBWA’s River Crossings: Voices of the Diaspora: An Anthology on the International Black Experience. Soon after, Sara Camilli, of the Sara Camilli Agency, signed Dickey’s first novel and became an advocate for his work and a close friend. Dickey published his first book, Sister, Sister, with Dutton in 1996, and the imprint remained his publishing home as he made a name for himself in the field of contemporary urban fiction. Camilli said, “Eric and I have been together since the start of both of our careers. He’s been like a member of our family. His death leaves a large void not only in the literary world but in our lives as well. He was a writer’s writer — always striving to make everything he wrote the best it could be.”

Several of Dickey’s novels were nominated for the NAACP Image Awards, and his 2014 novel, A Wanted Woman, won the NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work. Dickey was also honored with awards for Best Contemporary Fiction and Author of the Year (Male) at the 2006 African American Literary Award Show and nominated for Storyteller of the Year at the first annual Essence Literary Awards in 2008. He was the author of a six-issue miniseries of comic books for Marvel Enterprises, and he contributed to multiple anthologies, including Got to Be Real: Four Original Love Stories, Mothers and Sons, and others. He also wrote the screenplay for the movie Cappuccino. Dickey’s final novel, The Son of Mr. Suleman, will be published on April 20, 2021.

Dickey leaves behind four daughters. Due to COVID-19, there will be no services at this time.

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Ghost and the Darkness: Russ Thompson’s Loop Breaker Signing at 901 Comics

The tragic loss of her mother, a recent move from the ’burbs to the middle of nowhere, disembodied voices in the woods calling for help — it’s fair to say that Lee Ann Daniels has a lot on her plate.

As it should be; Lee Ann is the 16-year-old protagonist of Memphis writer/musician Russ Thompson’s debut YA novel, The Loop Breaker: A Beacon and the Darkness (Winterwolf Press), the first in a trilogy. And if the teen protagonist of a YA novel doesn’t have too much on her plate, the writer has done something seriously wrong. That’s not the case here, though.

Thompson, a Dyersburg, Tennessee native, has lived in Memphis for most of his life. He’s an avid reader, a songwriter, a former teacher, and now an author of YA fantastical fiction.

As Thompson writes, “The deep woods lining the road gave way to occasional houses and buildings; [Lee Ann] looked at the burned-out automobiles and the trailers with assorted junk in the yards and began to see things differently than she had before.” That effort to see things differently is at the heart of The Loop Breaker — as are the “deep woods,” both literally and metaphorically. History and, often, motivations are obscured in Thompson’s novel, leaving Lee Ann to attempt to find the right path forward. She has her friends, of course, and eventually finds a guide (her Gandalf, if you will), but the way forward for Lee Ann is never simple or direct.

Thompson is signing copies of The Loop Breaker: A Beacon and the Darkness at 901 Comics Saturday, December 19th, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

I spoke with him in advance of the signing, about the hidden history of Thief’s Hollow, his favorite ghost stories, and the real-life psychic who helped inspire the book.

Memphis Flyer: I know you’ve done some ghost writing. Did you study creative writing?

Russ Thompson: I did a great deal of ghost writing for about three or four years to pay the bills when I quit my job at Shelby County Schools, and it taught me a lot about the novel-writing process and gave me a lot of practice. I was an anthropology major in college, but I have been writing stories since college.

How does being a musician impact or inform your writing style?

Being a musician definitely informs my writing. Outlining a story to me is like writing the main theme of a song in many ways. The story or song begins with a general idea (usually a riff for me in the case of songwriting) and the details get filled in either with characters and dialogue or with instruments or singing in the case of a song. I also believe that the practice of songwriting helps strengthen my abilities as a writer and vice versa.

Were there any other works that influenced or inspired you?

When I was young, “The Haunting of Hill House” was probably my favorite ghost story. Even before that I was inspired by a collection of stories I read by William Faulkner called “Ghosts of Rowan Oak.”

Speaking of ghost stories and spiritual spookiness, what are three things readers need to know about Lee Ann?

1. She has the gift of being able to see and hear those who have passed on and to help them “cross over” although she has to learn how to help them with some assistance. 2. She is somewhat of a snob at the beginning of the novel when she moves to the country, but she changes and grows as the novel progresses. 3. She is somewhat of an outsider who likes to draw and listen to underground music.

Russ Thompson

Tell me about the voices Lee Ann hears and the orbs she sees in the woods. Did you base the fantastical elements of the book off of existing mythology or history?

The orbs and voices that Lee Ann sees in the woods are souls reaching out to her for help, because to them she shines out like a beacon in the darkness and they instinctively know that she can help them because of her special abilities. Some of these fantastical experiences are very loosely based on some of the experiences of a friend of mine who has real psychic abilities.

I like that you have a moment where Lee Ann’s dad, Charles, basically defends libraries. I know from experience they’re especially important in rural areas where access to news can be scarce. Will you talk about the setting a bit?

The setting is the tiny town of Laverne, in Middle Tennessee. It is a tiny town surrounded by remote, forested hill country. Residents of the town are fairly close-minded and distrustful of new people and outsiders. The library in the town helps Lee Ann research the legend of Thief’s Hollow when she can’t find out much on the internet. It is also the place where she meets Felicity, the town psychic who serves as Lee Ann’s friend and guide throughout the story.

One thing I noticed is how much Lee Ann has on her plate, which felt true to being a teenager, at least how I remember it. Can you talk about balancing the mysterious and mundane aspects of her life?

Lee Ann has to balance her grief at the loss of her mother with the pressures of moving to a small town from the suburbs. As if that wasn’t enough, these pesky spirits start contacting her in the nearby woods. She has a great deal of trouble finding a balance because the supernatural events dominate the more mundane circumstances of her life. She is only able to avoid being completely freaked out and overwhelmed with the help of her new friends at school and with the help of Felicity, the town psychic.

I noticed you mentioned Cat’s Cradle. Is there any special significance?

Cat’s Cradle was an important book for me when I was a teenager because of the way that it combines science fiction with humanist/philosophical concerns and sardonic humor. I included it because I wanted Lee Ann to experience it much the same way I did when I was about her age.

I don’t want to give anything away, but how does the history of Thief’s Hollow inform what happens in the book?

It is an explanation that the locals use to explain the strange goings-on near Lee Ann’s family’s property. Lee Ann soon finds that this explanation contradicts with her discoveries, which makes Lee Ann determined to find out the truth about what happened to these lost souls.

Can you tell us what readers might look for in the sequel to A Beacon and the Darkness?

The sequel to The Loop Breaker will find Lee Ann trying to escape her life in Laverne and go off to college, but she will find that she cannot escape her destiny to help lost souls and she will be faced with the most difficult and frightening challenge that she has yet to face.

Russ Thompson signs The Loop Breaker: The Beacon and the Darkness at 901 Comics, Saturday, December 19th, from 1 to 4 p.m.

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Wakanda Forever: Bluff City Writers Contribute to Black Panther Anthology

Memphis looms large in the just-announced Marvel Black Panther prose anthology, Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, due next February. Not that T’Challa is hanging out on Beale Street, taking in a view of the Mississippi, or attending art shows at the CMPLX. No, it’s that so many Memphis authors have contributed to the collection.

Memphians all, poet/editor/author Sheree Renée Thomas, teacher/author Danian Darrell Jerry, and FIYAH magazine publisher and Memphis Flyer contributor Troy L. Wiggins are all featured in the anthology, which is edited by Memphis/Holly Springs native Jesse J. Holland.

“I was like, ‘This is a dream that I wouldn’t have said aloud.’ I was thrilled. Can this year get any crazier?” says Thomas, who is having something of a banner year. Her short story collection, Nine Bar Blues, was published in spring (and many stories are eligible for awards), she contributed to the Slay vampire anthology, and was named the new editor of long-running The Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction. “It’s a 20-plus year overnight success. I spent years quietly just working, publishing, of course, but not getting huge fanfare beyond the anthologies,” Thomas says. “That’s how it is for everyone, but we focus on the exceptions.

“Writing is a long game. You’ve got to be a long distance runner. It’s one thing my mentor Arthur Flowers has always said,” she continues. “It may be a while before you’re published in something your family recognizes.”

But if there’s a list of high-profile recognizable characters, Black Panther is indisputably on it. Though Thomas is a longtime reader of sci-fi and fantasy, she says she’s newer to the world of comics. “I wasn’t able to read comics regularly as a child. [It was], ‘Here’s your library card, go to the library.’” But, the author says, she is a fan of the character. In fact, she dressed up to attend the 2018 screening of Black Panther and even made it onto some news clips about the night. “They show me in my Wakanda outfit with a huge afro. I was ready for Wakanda,” Thomas says with a laugh. And anyone who’s read her work can attest that Thomas will be right at home in the Afrofuturism of Wakanda.

“When Chadwick Boseman passed, that was a big blow to everyone,” she continues, remembering the charismatic Black Panther star who passed away in August of this year. “I had to take a moment to kind of regroup from that. I think it had an effect on us. We were so hoping that he would be able to enjoy the book. So it put new passion into the writing to honor his amazing performance. He embodied the Black Panther.”

Of course, writing for Marvel means digging into decades of history. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby debuted the character of T’Challa in 1966. “When I was writing my story I had to do a lot of research,” Thomas says. “You’re not using the Marvel Universe; you’re using the canon. And of course, the new story threads that are being written out by Ta-Nehisi Coates and others.” (Note: Coates’ The Water Dancer was my favorite novel of 2019, and his ongoing run on Black Panther makes for some of the most exciting and challenging comics I’ve ever read.)

“I’ve always been a big Marvel fan,” says Danian Darrell Jerry. “Not just Black Panther, but anything they’ve put out — X-Men, Spider-Man, Avengers, Doctor Strange. So this is a great opportunity for me to get in there and tap into some of the things I imagined as a child. It’s a little surreal, but it’s fun.”

Jerry is a native Memphian with deep roots in the city’s creative scenes. He’s a hip-hop artist who works with the Iron Mic Coalition. “I’ve always been interested in reading and books and comics, but I’ve always been interested in the arts in general,” he says. What’s more, Jerry works here to help promote literacy and an appreciation for literature — from childhood on to adulthood.

He has his MFA from the University of Memphis, where he now works as an adjunct English instructor teaching composition and literature classes. “This last semester I got a chance to teach Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me in my lit classes. [It was great] taking my literature class and adding a BIPOC focus and lens to it, examining hard questions on race relations in class, which was very productive.”


As founder of Neighborhood Heroes, a community outreach program, Jerry has used comic books as a tool to foster an appreciation of reading. Now he’s writing some of those same characters. “We use comics and fantasy to promote literacy to kids, teaching kids how to read through comics,” he says. “Last year, we threw an event on Mud Island, and it’s funny because we had ‘Black Panther’ come out and greet the kids and take pictures. We had cosplayers, and they loved it. Last year I was doing that, and this year I got the chance to actually write in the Black Panther book.”

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It’s Here: Matt Bowers Signs Copies of Memphis No. 2

Memphis-based comic book artist Matt Bowers released the debut issue of his Memphis comic last year on 901 Comics’ Bad Dog Comics publishing label. The series — written, illustrated, and lettered by Bowers — got off to a good start. But, as is often the case with independent ventures, fans found themselves waiting for the series’ second issue. That wait is over. Bowers and Bad Dog Comics released Memphis No. 2 Wednesday, October 14th.

The second issue of Bowers’ Bluff City-based series is an evolution. The art and character design is excellent, and the action is nicely balanced. Plus there’s a fight between a woman who’s shape-shifted to become a panda and a hulking android called a Warbot. What more could one ask for? Memphis owes much to alternative comics of the ’80s and ’90s (Love and Rockets, for example), but there are shades of more mainstream titles as well. Lady Omega looks a little like X-Men‘s Storm, and there’s a resemblance between Memphis’ Pigeon and X-Men’s Archangel. Killjoy would have been right at home in Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. Overall, though, Bowers is making something new in Memphis, albeit with loving homages to other works.

Bowers will sign copies of Memphis No. 2 at 901 Comics Saturday, October 19th, beginning at noon. I spoke with him about the new issue, plotting ahead, and producing in a pandemic.

Memphis Flyer: As always, the art is incredible. Is it a challenge laying out pages, or does it just come naturally to you?

Matt Bowers: Both, actually. Some days it’s a breeze and other days it’s like I’ve never drawn before. The key is to do it anyway. You can always correct your mistakes later. But I lay out each issue all at once in very loose, rough thumbnails. Almost stick figures honestly. At that stage it’s more about pacing and figuring out what’s going to work, layout-wise.

Who’s your favorite character to draw?

Probably Pigeon or China Monroe.

Working on a story that’s told in installments must have its own challenges. How far in advance do you have the story planned out?

I actually have the first 50 issues plotted out. As I complete each issue, I come up with new ideas and sometimes lose interest in others so I’m always updating. Issues No. 1 and 2 were originally meant to be just one issue, for example.

Gaps between publications are pretty standard for independent comics, but what would you say to the people who are used to the Netflix business model? You know, being able to binge a whole story in a night.

I sometimes save comics up and then read several issues at once. A lot of modern comics work better that way. Memphis No. 1 and 2 should work well if read back to back. No. 3 is a stand-alone issue, but there will always be ongoing subplots in every issue.

What’s it like creating during a pandemic?

It was tough at first. I sheltered in place with my family back at the beginning for about three weeks. I feel I was shell shocked the first couple of days but then eventually realized that I needed to take advantage of being at home. So during the remaining time at home I was able to finish the pencils and inks for the next issue of Memphis, issue No. 3. Working on pages was definitely better for my mental well being than obsessing with what was happening with the pandemic.

Did you have plans to go to any conventions that had to be put on hold?

I was going to do MidTown Con in May, I think but that eventually got canceled. Bad Dog Comics had plans to attend Dragon Con as a group but that also couldn’t happen.

You’re two issues into your partnership with Bad Dog Comics now. How is it working with Shannon Merritt?

Shannon is great, but I’m used to doing everything myself with the digital versions of my comics. It can sometimes be frustrating, but overall I am very happy with the process. Shannon and Gabe DeRanzo have done a lot for my comic that I couldn’t have gotten done on my own.

Bowers will sign copies of Memphis No. 2 at 901 Comics Saturday, October 19th, beginning at noon. The comic is available at 901 Comics and will be available at the Memphis Made Brewing Taproom and Crosstown Brewery next week.

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‘Art & Soul’: The Two Burtons Delve Into Faith and Life

Art & Soul lives brilliantly on so many levels. It is a book of works by the acclaimed Memphis artist Burton Callicott. It is a collection of his calligraphy as well, elegant in execution and thoughtful in the poetry expressed. It is further joined with writings of Burton Carley, former minister of the First Unitarian Church of Memphis, Church of the River.

The pairing is perfectly natural, as Callicott was a member of the church (since the early 1930s) and the two Burtons found an instant connection when Carley came to the church in 1983. Both shared an abiding spirituality and deep curiosity about religion, philosophy, humanity, and life.

The two talked some two decades ago of collaborating on a literary work, but Callicott’s death in 2003 seemed to put that dream to rest.

It eventually came to Callicott’s son, Baird Callicott, to pull the project together. In 2015, Baird retired from teaching and Carley retired from his position at the Church of the River. They met and the project was rekindled, but with a more ambitious goal. The volume, it was decided, would have numerous examples of the elder Callicott’s artworks that would be joined with his poetry as well as with Carley’s meditations.

The result is a gorgeous collection of extraordinary artworks, beautifully lettered poems, and thoughtful contemplations from both Burtons. Both were an essential part of the history of Memphis, and important context is provided in the foreword by Baird and his sister Alice, as well as in the introduction by Carley.

It’s a tribute to the quality of the book that photographer Murray Riss signed on as image editor for the volume, and Jeff McMillen designed it.

Callicott’s biographical information is treasure enough with his long life in and impact on Memphis. After art school, he worked for his impresario stepfather, who was in good favor with Boss E.H. Crump. Young Callicott worked on floats and displays for the Cotton Carnival parades and whatever else his stepdad needed. He would meet and marry Evelyne Baird during the Great Depression, but both made enough to sustain a life.

Callicott was able to work for the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project in 1933 to paint murals in the foyer of the Pink Palace Museum. Then in 1937, he was among the founding faculty of the Memphis Academy of Arts where he taught until his retirement in 1973. (One fascinating fact is that during World War II he worked as a draftsman doing highly detailed “exploded drawings,” such as one pictured in the book of an illustration for a B-29 pressurized gunner’s cabin sub-assembly.)

When he retired, he was well enough regarded that he could live on the sales of his artworks, and to this day it’s a mark of distinction to have a Callicott in one’s collection. If an original is not in your price range, you can still get a rainbow license plate designed by Callicott to benefit the Tennessee Arts Commission.

It was only late in his life that he started his earnest writing of poetry and rendering many of them in calligraphy. They run a wide variety of emotions and observations, but one that evokes his artistic sensibility is expressed in “No. 10”:

How still and peaceful

is the horizontal:

of distant tree lines

beyond flat Delta fields,

of striped western skies

at sundown;

gently laying the diagonals

of my unquiet mind.

Art & Soul is for sale at Burke’s Books and Novel.

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Connor Towne O’Neill’s Down Along With That Devil’s Bones

America is having a moment of cultural reckoning — with a violent, racist past that still influences the current day. Often, the images look not unlike scenes from a Memphis park in December 2017, when, after protests and vigils, a statue of Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was removed. In some ways, Memphis led the nation that night, as similar scenes have played out in many cities in 2020. Connor Towne O’Neill’s Down Along With That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy (Algonquin Books) works to examine similar moments of social judgment. O’Neill will discuss his new book at a virtual Reader Meet Writer event hosted by Novel. bookstore Tuesday, September 29th, at 4 p.m. But first, the author spoke with me about truth-telling, the myth and reality of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and white supremacy.

Memphis Flyer: Did you have any idea the book would come out at a time when it would be so relevant?

Connor Towne O’Neill

Connor Towne O’Neill: No, I didn’t. Although, even though there have been a couple of these flash points throughout the course of reporting and writing this book — the Charleston nine murders that set off these protests, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and now the summer of toppling monuments in 2020. There have been these flash points in which it feels like it’s a very timely or topical book. But one of the things I realized while working on it is this is perpetual. The underlying tensions, the unresolved central questions of this country make for the fact that we’ll always have flash points like this. So no, I didn’t plan on it, but I’m not shocked it’s in the news again.

In researching your book, did you find any helpful strategies to get reluctant people to address racism and white supremacy?

Yeah, that’s the question, right? My approach was to seek out characters and have it have real people and real stories at the heart of it. It also needs to be more than that. Addressing these questions is more than just looking into the hearts of people and trying to decide if they’re racist or not. If we’re really going to address these questions, then we need to address them through policy. We have a 10:1 racial wealth gap in this country. You address that through policy, and that necessitates more than just statues coming down. It’s a really good start, and the stories that come out of protesting those statues and trying to remove them are incredibly important because it does reveal this underlying history. But it’s just a start.

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We had a Nathan Bedford Forrest statue come down in Memphis in 2017. It’s definitely not enough, but I also feel that it has to be a positive that people aren’t walking by it and thinking it’s normal.

I might have come off too glib there. Because I do think it is important, and I agree with what you’re saying; we do need to find a way to get on the same page, to have a shared common history. I think what’s happening in Memphis are important steps in that process. You know, the Forrest statue coming down, and soon after Calvary Episcopal Church in Downtown Memphis putting up a marker that tells the truth about Forrest’s role in this city and Forrest’s role in the slave trade. So I think that project of truth-telling that’s happening with Forrest and is also happening in Memphis with the Lynching Sites Project, that project of truth-telling and squaring to the darkest elements of our history I think is really important because it gets us on that same page. Because those policy measures don’t happen until we can come to that common understanding of what our past is and its consequences on our present.

Since you brought up truth-telling, can you talk about the myth of Forrest?

The myth of Forrest is that he was this cunning, shrewd cavalry tactician who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He’s both like an everyman and a superhero of the South. And yet he’s also a slave trader, an accused war criminal, the first Grand Wizard of the Klan, ran a convict-leasing program on President’s Island. And the people who revere him don’t talk about that stuff because the myth requires us to look at his life and the history of our country at the time through rose-tinted glasses that’s unwilling to acknowledge the theft and violence that propelled it.

This isn’t a question, but I don’t see how anyone can look past the slave trading and convict leasing. Statues aren’t just historical. You choose who you honor.

It can feel perplexing, but it’s how we’re encouraged to think about American history so often, even outside of the context of someone as infamous as Forrest. We just think of it as “one of those things.” The stories we tell ourselves of American progress and exceptionalism teach us that we are a great country and our founding on freedom and liberty distinguishes us in the world. And yeah we might have made some mistakes along the way, but we’re constantly evolving and it was just one of those things. The “it” being slavery. It wasn’t great, but we’ve worked past it. I think that unquestioning belief in the unimpeachable goodness of this country is what allows some of us to try to overlook some of the horrific parts of our history that Forrest is a part of.

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Was it difficult for you to confront myths of America you’ve internalized? Even with research and study, you’ve grown up with these narratives, too, haven’t you?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Especially given my family’s history with deep ties to New England, coming over on the Mayflower, and having this really gauzy vision of what the origins of this country were. And that’s something that gets reinforced everywhere, not just school curriculums, but in public commemorations, holidays, political rhetoric. We’re swimming in it. It was only through the process of writing this book — and being around the past couple years when there has been a referendum on our history and our sense of our history — it’s only through that that I’ve come to see that our undoing was built into the founding of this country. Starting a settler-slaver society and trying to found a democracy on it was always going to lead to inequity and violence. But of course, when you’re myth-making, when you’re trying to create a national identity, that kind of stuff is convenient to leave out.

Do you have anything else you want to add?

The process of writing this book has been a process of squaring up to the darker aspects of American history and then being forced to connect that history and see its bearing and its consequences on our present. And I think that’s a process that a lot of people are coming to right now, and I hope that that resonates with readers.

Connor Towne O’Neill will discuss Down Along With That Devil’s Bones in a virtual event hosted by Novel. bookstore, Tuesday, September 29th, at 4 p.m.

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J.W. Ocker’s Cursed Objects

Memphis-based fans of the strange and unusual have to have a healthy interest in curses. Flyer film editor Chris McCoy’s documentary about the beloved alternative music club Antenna begins with drummer Ross Johnson stating, plainly, that Memphis is cursed. Then there’s the allegedly haunted Ernestine & Hazel’s, the ghost girl of the Orpheum, and that giant-sized yellow fever mural at the Pink Palace that’s so spooky it looks like a Swedish death-metal album cover. Not to mention the crystal skull of the pyramid.

To refresh, a crystal skull was reported to have been installed in the Pyramid, and that bit of wild rumor was actually true. It turns out that the skull was installed under the direction of Isaac Tigrett, cofounder of the Hard Rock Cafe, New Age fan and disciple of guru Sri Baba, and son of Pyramid guiding light and patron John Tigrett. Isaac said the skull was intended to be part of a promotion called “The Egyptian Time Capsule.” Weird, right? Well, yes, but also, unexplainably, so very Memphis.

All this is a long way to say that when the kind folks at Quirk Books sent me a copy of Edgar Award-winning travel writer, novelist, and blogger J.W. Ocker’s new Cursed Objects, I was already primed to appreciate it.


Cursed Objects is broken into sections based on the location of the cursed object in question — in a museum, a private collection, or the world wide web (think chain emails). The chapters are titled things like “Lurking in Homes,” “Under Glass,” and “In the Graveyard”; and if that doesn’t get you ready for spooky season, what will?

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but many seemingly innocuous objects will make your life suck,” Ocker writes in the book’s introduction. His tone throughout is one of the highlights — it’s what you might call “humorously journalistic.” Cursed Objects is well researched, but even the best-laid plans can fall apart with shoddy delivery. Luckily for the reader, that’s where the author shines. One gets the feeling that Ocker is sharing an inside joke — and marveling that people could be foolish enough to keep such a plainly cursed object in the home or workplace.

Ocker’s subjects range from the Hope Diamond to the Basano Vase and the Ring of Silvianus — a Roman artifact believed to have inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The entry about the Black Aggie statue in Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland, is especially chilling. “They say her eyes glow red at night and that if you look into them, you’ll go blind,” the author writes.

The extravagantly violent curses that grace the Björketoro Runestone, an Iron Age monolith in Sweden, are so vile they’re almost funny. The runestone is made even more interesting by the mystery surrounding it — no one knows quite what purpose it served or why it needed to be protected with such lavishly applied written curses. Was it a gravestone marking the grave of a proto-Viking? Or perhaps it was a cenotaph (a grave marker honoring someone whose remains are elsewhere), or a tribute to Odin. The only sure thing is that, superstitious or not, it probably isn’t worth the risk to mess with the thing.

The illustrations, rendered in a sickly sea green, tie the whole book together. They act as a kind of recurring visual motif, a complement to Ocker’s tone, that helps unite the disparate stories within Cursed Objects. The only question that remains is, who is courageous enough to brave the myriad scary (and true) stories within?

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Richard Grant’s The Deepest South of All

CREDIT: William Widmer

British travel writer and journalist Richard Grant penned an instant bestseller when he wrote about his misadventures in impulsive homeownership in the Mississippi Delta in Dispatches from Pluto. Grant’s accounts of his time in Holes County, “the poorest county in America’s poorest state,” were marked by a keen eye for details and the author’s lively sense of humor. The same can be said for Grant’s most recent work, The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi (Simon & Schuster). I spoke with Grant to learn more about what drew him to study Natchez — and how he found it to be a timely example of today’s America, in its contradictions, eccentricities, and in the way it’s haunted by its past.

William Widmer

Richard Grant

Memphis Flyer: What drew you to Natchez as the subject for a book?

Richard Grant: It’s one of the most haunted places I’ve ever been. I came into town past the old slave market and there was an impoverished Black neighborhood that had grown up around the old slave market. Then these mansions came into view. The place feels really haunted by slavery. It’s kind of beautiful and tragic at the same time. You have these gorgeous mansions that are built on slavery.

MF: That description sounds like it could be applied to all of the U.S. right now.

RG: At first it just seemed really eccentric and incredibly Southern, but the more time I spent in Natchez, it just seemed like a distillation of the national situation. I mean the whole nation is haunted by slavery. We’ve never really addressed what that means to our history. In Natchez, people were asking these questions and having these discussions. They’d been having them intensively for quite a few years before I got there, and then it kind of felt like the rest of the country started catching up this year.

MF: And some aspects of Natchez that you saw as contradictory intrigued you as well?

RG: A lot of the prominent white families dress up their children in Confederate uniforms and they put on hoop skirts. So that kind of made Natchez sound like a bastion of the Old South. Then I found out that they had elected a gay Black mayor with 91 percent of the vote, which made Natchez sound like an extraordinarily progressive place for the Deep South.

MF: Will you talk about the Southern eccentricity you mentioned?

RG: In this book we’ve got a woman named Ginger Hyland. She decorates 168 Christmas trees in a costume jewelry collection at Christmas. She’s got a collection of 500 antique eye wash cups. She lives in an Antebellum mansion that she believes is haunted. Natchez is very accepting of a person like that and, I think, enjoys a person like that.

There’s a strong streak of eccentricity running through it. I think that’s the way that the brothel was tolerated in the middle of town for 40 years or however long. I think people in Natchez enjoyed the fact that they had a brothel madame riding around town in a white Cadillac with a white poodle on her lap and a pistol. It provides lots of good material for cocktail party storytelling.

MF: Is there anything else you want to make sure I bring up?

RG: I want to mention the story of this West African prince who was enslaved in Natchez for 40 years. That’s a pretty important thread in the book, and I think it tied the whole thing up. I wanted to find a way to get into slavery since Natchez wouldn’t exist without it. All its wealth was built on slavery, but there’s very little in the records from the slaves’ point of view. So I seized on [Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima], who ended up in the White House and going back to Africa. It was very interesting to meet his relative in present-day Natchez, one woman who was descended both from him and the family that enslaved him.