INTRODUCTION TO “MR JONES” BY TRUMAN CAPOTE

Function of minor characters in Tom Jones and their implication for the interplay of form and historical representation.

The film “Mr. Jones” (2019), now on Amazon Prime, although set in 1933, is very relevant today. Based on actual events it deals mainly with Ukraine and “fake news.” It depicts the famine suffering and death as seen through the eyes of the Welshman Jones (an excellent James Norton), who travels to Ukraine in early 1933. Stalin was mainly responsible for this famine which killed millions of people. Many Ukrainians perceive it as a “terror-famine,” and believe it resulted almost entirely from Stalin’s collectivization policies and hostility to the peasants and Ukrainians. Acting as a reporter, Jones states, “I don't have an agenda. Unless you call truth an agenda. The truth. There is only one kind. Journalism is the noblest profession. You follow the facts, wherever it leads. You don't take sides.” Opposing Jones is The New York Times journalist and Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard), who spews fake news and discredits Jones’s honest famine reporting.

1984

He was willing to wade into literary Naturalism, working on James Jones while preferring Henry James, and he dauntlessly answered numerous late-night and early-morning transatlantic phone calls. Tommie Olds, of Rocky River, Ohio, typed the second, third and final drafts of this dissertation with astonishing speed and unvarying accuracy. "Typist" over-modestly describes her roles as cryptoanalyst, stenographer, editor, proofreader, and critic. My family supported this work: implicitly throughout, and specifically at the end. My father furnished cites to psychology articles and information on the wartime army. Comparing successive drafts will show how often-many times-I realized my mother was right about a point of style. Dr. James Kilroy, of Vanderbilt University, gave me encouragement and good advice. Thanks are also due to Dr. Frank MacShane and Willie MorriS, for sharing their information on Jonesj to Alan and Lizabeth Buchmann, who never minded the typing in their guest room; to James Maiwurm, Esq., for clearing the use of the word-proceSSing facilities of Squire, Sanders & DempseYj and finally to the friends-from Oxford,

Philological Quarterly, 2017

MELUS, 2018

Transmotion, 2022

While I initially planned for this to be an interview, it was really a conversation and one that occurred at a pretty cool Mexican joint in Denver near DU's campus before Stephen visited one of my classes to talk about Ledfeather. Be sure to check out El Tejado if you're ever in the area—they make a mean michelada! The transcript included here follows the conversation as it took place—minus the food orders and background conversation, which any postmodern writer would usually revel in, as well as the divvying of sopapillas—while being faithful to the cadence of language. Only a few minor changes were made for clarity and context. Given the occasion for the meeting and visit, the focus touches on Ledfeather, and then moves on to a discussion of Jones's more recent works. My primary interests were in the turn towards the genre of horror since Mongrels—a subject he is always eager to discuss, while also delving into other related matters such a weird fiction, the publishing industry, the function of literature, and as always, the future of humanity. You know, as Blink 182 calls it, "all the small things."

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2013

Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 2003