Tag: Germantown

Categories
News News Blog

FBI Seeks Information on Masked Bank Robber

CREDIT: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The FBI says this man robbed a Germantown bank at gunpoint in December.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking the public’s help to identify a man in a hockey mask who robbed a bank at gunpoint in December.

The FBI issued the call for assistance Monday. The agency said the man robbed a SunTrust bank branch at 7770 Poplar in Germantown on Dec. 7th, 2018.
Federal Bureau of Investigation

“The unknown male robbed the bank at gunpoint, placed the money in a red bag, and fled the scene on foot,” reads a statement from the FBI. “The subject is described as a male, black, approximately 5’10” – 6’0″ tall. The suspect was last seen wearing all black clothing, a white hockey mask, work-type gloves, and dark shoes.”

The FBI said the subject is armed and dangerous.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the FBI Memphis Field Office at (901) 747-4300 or Crime Stoppers Germantown at (901) 757-CASH (2274). Tips can also be submitted online at tips.fbi.gov.

Find more information about the robbery here.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The FBI is still looking for another subject who robbed a bank here in 2015.

That man, dubbed the “Devil Mask Robber” wore a “red devil mask” when he attempted to rob the First South Financial Credit Union at 7166 Winchester. the agency believes that robbery attempt was related to previous robberies at the same bank in 2014 and another time earlier in 2015.

“The subject is described as a male, black, approximately 5’10” to 6′ tall. The suspect was last seen wearing a red devil mask, a dark blue hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, work-type gloves, and white tennis shoes,” reads a statement from the FBI.

The subject is considered armed and dangerous.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the FBI Memphis Field Office at (901) 747-4300 or the Crime Stoppers of Memphis and Shelby County, Inc. Tips can also be submitted online at tips.fbi.gov.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Trader Joe’s Opens West Nashville Location in Germantown

It’s no mistake that the bags handed out on opening day at the new Trader Joe’s say “Nashville,” and “Music City.” After all, it’s a new day for Germantown — Trader Joe’s has arrived. And while the city will remain in Shelby County, the addition of Trader Joe’s to a market that already included Whole Foods and Sprouts, means the Memphis suburb can officially describe itself as being Westest Nashville.

Via:

Trader Joe’s Opens West Nashville Location in Germantown

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Rock ‘N Dough now Brewing Beer

The Rock ‘N Dough in Germantown is now a brewpub, according to operations manager Trevor Jones.

They began serving its own house-brewed beer in mid-April.

There are 12 taps serving the beer, which ranges across all styles. American blonde, Belgium wit, several IPAs (both single and double), stouts, and porters are all offered. Everything, Jones says, to suit all tastes.

One of the porters offered is called Smoky Porter and the Bandit.

The Jackson, TN, location already operates as a brewpub.

Jones says the cool thing about making their own beer is that they can design it to taste good with their menu offerings. Plus, pizza and beer is simply a no-brainer.

“The marriage between pizza and beer doesn’t take too much explaining,” he says.  

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Death of Suburbia

There was a fascinating series of stories on the Business Insider website last week called “The Death of Suburbia.”

That phrase will no doubt create immediate outrage among many Flyer readers, especially those living in booming Memphis ‘burbs such as Germantown and Collierville. “We’re not dying; we’re thriving!” they’ll say. And they’re correct.

But those places are not so much suburbs as self-contained towns that existed long before the suburban housing boom. The BI articles document the problems facing neighborhoods that were created by urban sprawl, neighborhoods that have no real core. And the future of those communities is not bright, to say the least.

The reasons for the decline lie in the initial genesis of these neighborhoods just outside the urban core, subdivisions comprised of winding streets filled with similarly constructed houses built within a few months of each other: instant neighborhoods, more or less. These housing developments were constructed with the thinking that bigger is better. They were built around schools and malls and were designed for an automobile-centric lifestyle, dining at fast-casual restaurants, and shopping in chain and big-box stores. Now, malls are shrinking and dying as Americans increasingly turn to shopping online, or alternately, focus on “shopping local.”

New developments are being designed with walkability and environmental concerns at top of mind. Instead of “subdivisions,” developers are creating “communities.” And, not so shockingly, McMansions are losing value.

The real estate site, Trulia, defines a McMansion as a home built between 2001 and 2007 that has between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet of space. Trulia released data last August that showed that the premiums paid for McMansions have declined significantly in 85 of the country’s 100 biggest cities. Real estate experts told Business Insider that younger homebuyers value efficiency more than size and think that McMansions are impractical and wasteful.

Speaking of impractical and wasteful … Malls are major economic generators for the suburbs, providing jobs as well as dining and shopping options. When they shutter, they leave a large empty footprint, comparable to the gutted downtowns of small-town America that resulted from Walmart-ization a couple of decades ago. That trend seems to be reversing. BI reported that commercial real estate firm CoStar estimates nearly a quarter of the malls in the U.S are at high risk of losing an anchor store. Dozens of malls, large and small, have shut down.

Another trend that is hurting the suburbs is the migration of corporations and big companies back into the center city. Since 2015, McDonald’s, Kraft Heinz, Conagra Foods, UBS, and General Electric, to name just a few, have moved from suburbs into downtown office space. Here in Memphis, the same thing is happening. See ServiceMaster coming to Peabody Place and the development of Sears Crosstown as two recent examples.

Other factors cited by Business Insider include the death of golf courses, a trend which has reached an epidemic level since the course-building boom of the 1990s. Most suburban courses were designed as centerpieces of housing developments. There is little charm in living in a McMansion on a dead golf course.

And fast-casual restaurant chains, long the mainstay of suburban dining, are in trouble. BI cites Sbarro, Cinnabon, Jamba Juice, Panda Express, Ruby Tuesday, Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Grill, and Buffalo Wild Wings as all facing financial crises.

And cities are now facing increasing problems with trying to provide services to their sprawling suburban neighborhoods. As the malls shrink and die, sales and property tax revenue shrinks. As houses are sold off, the tax base further decreases. Increasingly, as is happening in Memphis, de-annexation becomes an option.

It’s a problem that all of us — city and suburban dwellers alike — will be forced to confront in the coming decade. The good news is, if you’ve always wanted one of those big ol’ McMansions, your odds of getting one on the cheap are getting better with every passing year.

Bruce VanWyngarden
brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open in Germantown: Rock ’N Dough and Grimaldi’s

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

When Jeremy Denno ordered his first mobile wood-fired pizza oven from Italy, he didn’t anticipate that his venture into owning his own business would turn into a sort of pizza dynasty.

“It was definitely rolling,” Denno says of his first food truck, Rock ‘N Dough Pizza Co.

That was in 2012.

In early 2013 the former Trolley Stop Market pizza pro opened his first brick-and-mortar restaurant at Park and Ridgeway, soon to be followed by another brick-and-mortar eatery in Jackson, Tennessee, but this time with the words “and Brew Co.” added to the name.

It didn’t take long for Denno and company, namely his wife, mother, and brother, all who work with him in some capacity, to outgrow the East Memphis location, and in 2015, they moved to 3445 Poplar at the corner of Highland.

“It had a bigger kitchen, so we could have a full menu,” Denno says.

Most recently, Denno added Germantown to his list of addresses.

In April, he opened his third brick-and mortar-establishment at 7850 Poplar in the old Maui Brick Oven space across from Whole Foods.

“They were looking for someone to take over their spot. They already had an oven, the mixers, and all the equipment, and we were looking for a presence outside the 240 loop,” Denno says.

Needless to say, business is good.

Folks are still lining up for the New York/traditional, hand-tossed USA! USA! — their version of the supreme — or the Spinning Goat, with spinach, mushroom, and goat cheese. And devotees are also now trying brunch on Sundays, which will eventually expand to Saturdays. Ditto for the wings, burgers, and appetizers, such as Garlic My App — housemade bread with garlic butter, tomato sauce, and goat cheese ($6).

Denno points to his dedication to being an in-house maker and using local ingredients for his success.

“One of the biggest things about what we’re doing is that everything is made in-house — the bread, the sauces. Our veggies are prepped fresh every day, and our meats are roasted and smoked here,” he says.

That, and the fact that he likes to keep it a family affair, even if it’s a joint-family venture.

“Last year we partnered with the Moody Group, a family out of Louisiana. That was always my goal — to get the attention of somebody to help me grow what I think this could be, but they’re still a small family,” he says.

“That’s always been my motto, that we are family-owned and operated,” he says.

As far as the food truck, it will be back and rolling in September.

“We take off during the summer because it’s just too hot, but we’ll be back to full catering in September. That’s the pulse of the business,” Denno says.

Rock ‘N Dough Pizza, 3445 Poplar, Suite 1, 512-6760; 7850 Poplar #6, 779-2008. rockndoughpizza.com

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria can now add Tennessee to its list of states where it serves up its award-winning and distinct coal-fired-, brick-oven-cooked pizza.

On June 21st, the famous pizza chain (which has boasted groupies such as Frank Sinatra and Rudy Giuliani, who were/are regulars at its original Brooklyn Bridge location) opened its doors to the Memphis demographic in Saddle Creek in Germantown.

“The demographic of the area is very good, and it fits our model,” Grimaldi’s president and COO Eric Greenwald says.

The cooking tradition is 100 years old and incorporates 25-ton, hand-built ovens that use 100 pounds of coal daily, heating up to 1,000 to 1,200 degrees and cooking the thin-crust pizzas in three minutes. They also pay attention to their water, using a system that recreates the mineral content of the water used in the original New York establishment.

“It’s a very unique flavor with the coal, and it’s cooked all the way through very fast. So with the New York-style thin crust, it doesn’t dry out,” Greenwald says.

Grimaldi’s serve their pizzas with housemade mozzarella and a secret sauce and several other proprietary ingredients. The restaurant chain specializes in pizzas, calzones, antipasto, salad, and desserts.

“That’s our ‘KIS.’ We keep it simple with five things,” Greenwald says.

They also serve local beers, an extensive draft selection, and a “user-friendly” wine list.

The original Grimaldi’s operated under the Brooklyn Bridge until the owner, Patsy Grimaldi, sold the restaurant to Joey Ciolli in 1995, who later called Greenwald to join in the fun.

“Joey and I had always talked about doing something together. He called me and said, ‘I know what we’re going to do the rest of our lives,'” Greenwald says.

The headquarters are now housed in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Germantown location marks the 47th Grimaldi’s.

Grimaldi’s is open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week.

Grimaldi’s, 7605 W Farmington, 751-4106.

grimaldispizzeria.com

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Terrorism By Any Name

When I first moved into my cozy condo, located in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood of Germantown, Tennessee, I was in heaven on earth. But I soon had an eerie feeling that I was not alone.

Then it hit me like a thunderbolt when I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. I turned on the kitchen light, and staring at me was a giant cockroach. Most roaches scatter when you turn on the light, but this guy just stared me down, as if it were daring me to do something. This roach was so big I almost offered him my wallet out of fear.

The next day I called the exterminator to get an emergency visit. I was told by a company representative, “Areas with a lot of trees will have roach problems.” In other words, I just had to live with them, which I found unacceptable. The lady on the phone called them “American roaches,” which were harder to kill than the typical “German roaches.”

Call them what you will, but both versions are awful. I don’t have to live with them. Any word that involves the name roach is ugly. It is the same thing with the word “terrorist.”

The recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, have given those with a political agenda an opportunity to exploit fears by insisting on attaching the words “radical Muslim Islamic” to terrorism. I’m just going to assume if you are a terrorist, you are a radical, but calling all Muslims terrorists does a great disservice to the six million American-born Muslims in this country, and to millions of peaceful people who worship Islam.

The subdued nature of President Barack Obama is an affront to Republican presidential candidates and other conservatives, who foam at the mouth as they call for war. Right-wing regulars are seizing on the tragedies to put pressure on the president by asking, “Why won’t he call them ‘radical Islamic terrorists’?” As if semantics were the main concern in this case.   

“I think that fear and uncertainty are extremely powerful motivators for humans, certainly including voters, and candidates know this,” University of Memphis political science professor Doug Imig says. This is evidenced by the fact that the events in Paris and now San Bernardino are being used to dominate the 2016 election.

Donald Trump was way out in front on the immigration issue when he first announced his candidacy. His most recent outrage is a plan to deny Muslims entrance into the U.S., which is an idea he refuses to walk away from.

Despite his high number of what would seem ordinarily to be gaffes and his inability to stop himself from throwing mud on everyone at large, Trump’s numbers continue to outpace the rest of the field as shown by the latest polls. Those voters don’t care.

“As a Muslim living in America, I get worried that Mr. Trump’s language and rhetoric might be contributing to the rise of Islamophobia and hate crimes,” says Mustafa Hmood, president of the Muslim students’ association at Christian Brothers University.

“Fortunately, and thanks be to God, the majority of the people here know and understand that terrorism has no religion. Terrorist groups like ISIS commit crimes in the name of Islam, but people know better than seeing them as representatives of 1.6 billion Muslims,” Hmood says. 

To spread lies, fear, and hate are un-American. Being American means setting aside your prejudice and yes, I am suggesting this, getting behind our president, for once.

Let’s make a real effort to stop the name-calling. Like it or not, our world is evolving. It is a dangerous, scary place. But we are in this thing together.

There are no “American roaches.” There are no “German roaches.” They are just roaches to me. There is no “radical Islamic terrorist.” They are just terrorists.

If we send our troops there to fight without a massive coalition, our enemy will scatter and blend into the environment much like roaches do. We will return home bloodied. Some good people won’t return alive, and we will be left with another costly quagmire in the Middle East.

My new pest control company got to the root of the problem. Maybe our nation’s leaders can follow suit. The roaches are gone. Problem solved. But I remain vigilant, as every American should.

Mark Woodall is an Army veteran and a graduate student at the University of Memphis.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Halloween Costumes That Don’t Bluff

I was never too keen on Halloween as a kid. Each year our church hosted an event that featured both a haunted house and a fright-free “fun house” for the little ones who couldn’t handle it. And me. I tried to act as if I was protecting my much-younger little sister, but nobody fell for that trick.

I wore the same witch costume for at least four years until the dress was a tunic and the pointy hat’s elastic band was tight enough to cut off the circulation to my brain. I spent the next few Halloweens going door-to-door in my soccer uniform, before finally deciding I was too cool to participate in that lame kiddie stuff. October 31st was just another day until I was old enough for Adult Halloween.

Adult Halloween is a totally different holiday, one that’s more about cocktails than candy. Adult Halloween means multiple weekends of party-hopping in a costume that’s either clever, timely, skimpy, or terrifying as hell. Or all of the above. I don’t know if there’s an upper age limit for Adult Halloween, but if there is, I’m not there yet.

I usually try to come up with a Memphis-themed costume, but I haven’t managed to top Halloween 2009, when I was “The Vacated Season.” That costume consisted of a meticulously reproduced 2008 NCAA Final Four banner over a white sheet with eyeholes and a mouth hole that grew as the night progressed. I could barely breathe, let alone drink my beer without making a mess, but it was worth it.

I thought of this year’s costume on November 1st last year. Because, as we all know, that’s when all the best Halloween ideas happen. For once I actually wrote it down, instead of trying to remember it a year later.

I’ve come up with a few others since then. Halloween is fast approaching, and I know some of you are waiting until the last minute (or until someone invites you to something) to put together a costume. Consider these costume ideas my gift to the people — a public service, if you will. Bonus: you can make them using items you already own or can acquire cheaply.

Statue of Liberty Bowl: Wear a blue sheet as a toga. Carry a football under one arm. Keep a beverage in your “torch hand” at all times. Print out a picture of the exterior of the Liberty Bowl and wear it as a crown.

Bike lane: Wear a black shirt and black pants. Paint two vertical white stripes down the front of each. Find a bike lane symbol online and stencil it on the front. If you want to take it a step further and be the Madison Avenue bike lane, affix a toy bus to the front of the shirt.

The Roo: Procure a stuffed kangaroo. Wear the kangaroo on your head. Give people piggyback rides in exchange for candy.

Grindfather clock: Make a kindergarten-style paper-plate mask of a clock face. Or paint a clock on your own face, if you prefer. Just make sure you don’t paint it backwards. Mirrors can be tricky, you know. Wear a Tony Allen jersey. Make a pendulum by affixing some kind of a gold disk to a chain.

Bass Ho Shops: for those who like to slut it up on Halloween, I’ve got three words. Sexy. Bass. Pro. Wear a silver triangle bikini top and the shortest camo shorts you can find. Complete the look with some hunting boots and an iconic Bass Pro trucker hat. If you insist on accessorizing further, carry a fishing pole. Whatever you do, please leave the firearms at home.

Overton Square Parking Garage: Cut holes for your head and arms in a cardboard box. Ask people to give you three bucks. Pair up with The Roo for an easy couple costume.

The “At Least We Look Good” Ole Miss Football Fan: Here’s another potential couple costume. Wear a red dress and brown boots. No tights, no leggings, no matter the temperature. Or go with a navy blazer, white dress shirt, red tie and khakis. Loafers are a must — but no socks. (What is it with the aversion to hosiery, y’all?) Accessorize with a red Solo cup. If you’re going to a party, act like you own the place, and then leave early.

Germantown: Print out about a dozen grocery store logos. These must be high-end stores — anything with “Save” in the name is forbidden. Affix the logos to your body. Make sure they adhere to Chapter 14 of Germantown’s Code of Ordinances. Good luck with that!

I’m sure I could think of a few more ideas, but I would hate to undermine my own chances of scoring a gift certificate or a free bar tab in a costume contest. Feel free to use them, and tweet me a photo if you do. And if you win anything, you know what to do. I accept PayPal, Venmo, and cash.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and digital marketing specialist.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Two Trains Running

There’s two, two trains running,

Well, they ain’t never going my way.

One runs at midnight and the other one

Running just ‘fore day. — Muddy Waters

I was sitting in my favorite little neighborhood bar the other night and fell into a conversation with a couple of realtors. They were bemoaning how Midtown was changing. “All we do these days,” one of them said, “is show houses to people from out east — Germantown and Collierville.” The realtors were happy to be selling homes but afraid that the invaders from the east would change the character of Midtown.

“They drive more aggressively. They tear down hedges and put up big security lights,” she said. “Midtown’s a special place, and we don’t want it to become just another ‘burb neighborhood.” But to be honest, for Memphis, that’s a pretty good “problem” to have. And that conversation feeds one of the two central narratives that are driving Memphis these days.

Here’s one: The city is changing for the better. The reinvestment and reinvigoration of Overton Square, Cooper-Young, Broad Avenue, Sears Crosstown; the downtown and Bass Pro Shops boom; the greenlines, bike lanes, the big trees and old houses of the central city, all are luring people back and fueling a renaissance.

Lots of people believe this to be true. I’m one of them. So are those realtors.

But there’s another narrative that also has a lot of adherents. It’s a simple credo, comprised of just one word: Crime. That’s Crime with a capital C. Crime is the most important thing ever, they say. We have to fix crime, or nobody will ever want to live in this hellhole.

You can point out to the Crime People that crime rates have been falling for eight years. They will respond by telling you that the statistics are rigged. They will tell you that five people got shot last weekend and ask, “How can crime be going down?” They will cite local television news, which will give you all the crime you can handle on a nightly basis. Telling someone whose car has been stolen that crime is going down is like trying to explain to someone who’s freezing that global warming is a problem. It doesn’t matter.

So we have two trains running. Two ways of looking at our city. Two trains that both carry some truth. Crime in Memphis is a big problem, as it is in lots of cities. We need to keep trying to fix it — by improving our education system, by working to bring in more jobs, by using smarter policing. But to focus on crime to the exclusion of the other narrative is wrong and does a disservice to all of us living here and working to keep Memphis vibrant.

I’ve lived here 23 years, and I’ve seen a transformation, especially over the past few years. There is a momentum that’s real right now. We need to keep that train running.

And derail the other one.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

No Red-light Cameras

The city of Memphis has a large (and growing) red-light camera program. Every year, we faced a budget crisis. And every year there was a temptation to expand our traffic camera program.

In our past council meeting of the fiscal year, we decided to amend our speeding camera program from 15 cameras to 150. It was a heated discussion of city finances and future deficits, not so much about public safety.

In the last five years, Memphis’ traffic cameras have raised $10.8 million. However, most of that money goes to American Traffic Solutions, ATS, the Arizona company that installs the cameras and administers the program. Of the $10.8 million, ATS received $6.2 million. That means that more than 57 percent of the money from Tennessee residents goes to a private out-of-state firm.

They are really in charge of these programs. They are, in effect, policing our streets. 

Of course, since so much money from our cameras goes to an out-of-state vendor, their representatives were at virtually all our council meetings, regardless of whether there was discussion of anything related to cameras.

Through bipartisan legislation for which I am a co-sponsor (SB 1128; HB 1372), the Tennessee General Assembly will get a chance in the current term to curtail the use of these cameras.

I believe the cameras fly in the face of the American tradition of “innocent until proven guilty.” The red-light camera issues a citation and there is very little people can do to defend themselves against an improperly issued citation. 

In Memphis, you would have to travel to our criminal complex to fight the ticket, wait for several hours in line, and try to recall the circumstances surrounding a picture that was taken of your car several weeks earlier, when you may or may not have even been the driver of the vehicle.

The cameras distract from real public safety challenges. In Tennessee’s big cities, the most important problem with respect to public safety is what’s happening in our neighborhoods, not at red-light intersections. 

Some motorists are racing through neighborhood streets, looking for a shortcut to their destination. To do something about the most serious public safety problem plaguing our neighborhoods, we need more speed humps, speed bumps, and other simple, cheap traffic-calming devices.

Lastly, based on the evidence, it is not clear that the cameras contribute positively to public safety. 

True, two studies produced by a major manufacturer of traffic cameras argued that they did. One study, of a community in Florida, suggested that red-light cameras had reduced crashes there by as much as 72 percent. The authors of that study also published a poll purporting to show that 85 percent of respondents supported the installation of red-light cameras.

If you believe the company that makes traffic cameras, in other words, then you believe the cameras eliminate the vast majority of traffic accidents — and that almost everyone loves them.

In fact, other, more neutral studies show different results. According to a report commissioned by the federal Department of Transportation, the cameras do not change “angle accidents.” Further, the study finds large increases in rear-end crashes and many other types of crashes that occur at intersections. The study concludes that red-light cameras create (not reduce) public safety problems. 

The red-light camera program is not a program of and for cities or communities. The red-light camera program is a program for the profit of private vendors that deploy the cameras and process the citation.

Plenty of individuals from both parties, from all over the country, have grave reservations about approaching public safety in this way. 

At the federal level, legislation to ban red-light cameras has been proposed by members of both parties and from all areas.

For years, the ACLU on the left and the Tea Party on the right have opposed red-light cameras. And what’s more surprising is that both groups oppose them for largely the same reasons.

This issue is not about Democrats versus Republicans or urban versus rural areas. It’s about restoring credibility in government, fairness for motorists, and effectiveness to our public safety programs.

Categories
Blurb Books

Stephen Schottenfeld: Counter Culture, Bluff City-Style

“You’re a pawnshop, Huddy. You’re supposed to be in a bad area.”

That’s Joe Marr, Huddy Marr’s successful builder/developer brother who lives in Germantown, doing the talking. Joe owns the building housing Huddy’s business, Bluff City Pawn.

“Pawnshop should be close to bad,” Huddy, who’s just trying to make a honest living, answers back. “Right on the edge of bad. Just a little ahead of bad.”

And that’s right where Bluff City Pawn is: out on Lamar, pretty close to bad. But the stores on either side of Bluff City are closing shop. A blood bank’s moving in. Bluff City’s about to get real close to bad. And that’s why Huddy Marr is looking to move the business, and he has his eye on Liberty — Liberty Pawn, on Summer.

“You must be the only person who drives down Summer and says, ‘Count me in,’” Joe later says to his brother. “Summer and Lamar, they’re both ghetto streets.”

“Summer is doing business with the whole city,” Huddy, who knows his stuff, says in response. “Don’t matter ghetto.”

[jump]

And maybe, business-wise, it doesn’t matter. What matters more in the new novel Bluff City Pawn (Bloomsbury) is family. And family starts to really matter when Huddy, Joe, and a younger brother named Harlan, back from Florida with nothing to his name (apart from a police record), enter into a deal.

Nothing fishy about that deal, nothing un-law-abiding about it. Huddy has been offered to buy a valuable gun collection off a rich widow in Germantown. Huddy, Joe, and Harlan stand to earn real money off the resale of those guns. But Huddy knows that it’s critical they do the deal right. He knows how ATF operates. More than ATF, he knows how his brothers operate. Which is why Huddy puts it this way going in: “As long as we don’t trust each other equally, we’re okay.”

Bluff_City_jacket.jpg

Until, after the deal’s done, they don’t trust each other equally. That’s when things in Bluff City Pawn go south. And no, this is not Memphis overlooking the Mighty Mississippi. It isn’t Memphis, home of the blues, birthplace of rock-and-roll. Beale Street might as well be a world away. This is Memphis as tourists don’t see it but as citizens day to day live it. It’s Memphians staying put despite the city’s leadership and hardships. It’s Memphians pulling up stakes to seek greener, safer pastures out east. It’s Memphis as only an insider could depict it. Except that this novel’s author, Stephen Schottenfeld, is no native son. He grew up in Westchester County, just north of New York City, and he got his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

But before moving to the University of Rochester, where Schottenfeld now teaches, he was on the faculty at Rhodes College, and during his years there, 2003-2008, he got to know this town real well. He wrote a short story called “Stonewall and Jackson,” which appeared in New England Review in 2006. He wrote a novella set in Leahy’s Trailer Park called “Summer Avenue,” which appeared in The Gettysburg Review in 2010. For Bluff City Pawn, though, Schottenfeld knew he needed a wider field — a story with more possibilities, more points of tension.

So Schottenfeld got to know local pawnbrokers, local builders, local realtors, and even local garden-club members. He visited local gun shops, gun dealers, and gun shows. He talked to local ATF agents on the right way to write up a gun inventory, on how those agents conduct themselves. And Schottenfeld wanted especially, as he said in a phone interview from his home in Rochester, to thank all those good people who helped him in his research: “They were incredibly generous with their time.”

Schottenfeld’s literary agent, once he read the manuscript of Bluff City Pawn, was something else: puzzled.

“He expected, first of all, a Southern accent,” Schottenfeld said. “Then his next question was: ‘Did you grow up around a pawnshop or a lot of guns?’ I said: ‘No, I didn’t … at all.’”

What Schottenfeld did grow up blessed with is a fine ear for dialogue (he once worked in film postproduction in New York; he’s taught screenwriting in his classrooms), and Bluff City Pawn confirms it: No over-obvious Southernisms here; just the plain-spoken (verging on elliptical) give and take you’d expect to hear between a business owner and his customers (or brother to brother) and the more polished strains (and no less elliptical speech patterns) you’d be likely to hear among Germantown’s old-guard, horsey set.

Schottenfeld also has a real eye, not only on the broad canvas but down to the smallest, most telling matters. You want a tutorial in the right way to handle a pawnshop customer angling to sell a non-flat-screen TV? It’s here in Bluff City Pawn. The right way to lay out the merchandise so you’re not, when your back’s briefly turned, robbed blind? That’s here too. So too the smoothest way to earn the trust of a gracious widow and to skirt the superciliousness of her superannuated preppy son.

Call details such as these “texture.” Schottenfeld does, and it’s the product of this author’s almost journalistic attention to real-world verismo:

“I’m curious about people’s lives. I don’t have a great storehouse of autobiographical tales. I don’t tend to reach back into my own childhood. There is a journalistic impulse in me to get out there, do the fieldwork. And yet I’m not interested so much in nonfiction. As a writer, I’m interested in ‘texture,’ specificity of language, information. I’m interested in what people do. I want to observe it, understand it. And Memphis, at the time I wrote this book, was kind of perfect for me.

Stephen_jpeg.jpg

“Before I moved to Memphis, I didn’t think of myself as a writer of ‘place.’ But my eyes and ears were opened when I was there. I was so interested in what people were saying, what people were doing around me. But when I realized I was going to be writing about pawnshops, yes, it was intimidating. I knew there couldn’t be any shortcuts. I was going to have to ‘negotiate’ this new space … write as a real insider. William Faulkner, Alice Munro, Daniel Woodrell: They’re steeped in place. They gain their authority through their years in those cities and towns they write of. But there are other writers who gain their understanding of place precisely because they’re not from it.”

But forget Memphis for a moment. Consider its big suburb to the east.

“Germantown was for me the ‘discovery’ of the book. I’d lived inside the city, in Memphis. I’d had my own feelings about Germantown. And, frankly, it didn’t interest me much. But I came back to Memphis a couple more times and came to, in some ways, appreciate the impulse to flee, like my character Joe. Some reviewers have talked about him as the villain of the book, and he may act in a villainous way. But I’m moved by his work ethic, how honest he’s been in so many ways. He just got caught up in a bad time.”

The bad time Schottenfeld is referring to is the recession of 2008, which threatens to ruin everything Joe’s worked so hard to achieve, and that includes a big house and garden and an upscale enclave of unsold houses he’s built in a development called Heritage Cove.

But what of Harlan, one part lost little boy, two parts real rascal?

“I’m sad for him,” Schottenfeld admitted. “He’s an unintimidated kind of guy. But what scares him are these memories he can’t reconcile — memories of his family when he was growing up: what wasn’t there for him; what wasn’t given to him.”

And as for Huddy Marr — Bluff City Pawn’s wonderfully drawn major character: Can’t question his street smarts and realistic view of the way the world runs. But can you also think of Huddy in terms about as un-Southern as can be: Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka? Schottenfeld can:

“I may write in a social-realist vein. My work may be located in an actual place and not some blasted non-zone. But, like in Beckett, there are ways that Bluff City Pawn ‘gestures’ at feelings of being lost, of being estranged, of being caught in some zone where you’re not regarded, you’re not understood. And as in Kafka, there are moments in the book where Huddy is caught by forces — institutional forces, bureaucratic forces — inside a system that even he, at times, can’t decipher.”

Which brings us back to Beckett and his minimalist mode. Surprising to think, but there’s that too in Bluff City Pawn, which is as naturalistically told as any novel by Richard Ford or Russell Banks. Still …

“There’s something about a pawnshop that has a kind of elemental connection to what a story should be and can do,” Schottenfeld said.

“You’ve got two characters. You’ve got a counter separating them. Things are being pulled out, placed on the counter, individual pieces. I’m looking at that counter, those little bits.” •

Stephen Schottenfeld will be guest of the River City Writers Series at the University of Memphis on Tuesday, September 16th, when he will read from and sign Bluff City Pawn. The reading is inside the University Center’s Bluff Room (Room 304) and begins at 8 p.m. A student interview with Schottenfeld will take place the next morning in Patterson Hall, Room 448, at 10:30 a.m. For more on the River City Writers Series, go here.