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Lawyer's Reviews > The Sharpshooter Blues
The Sharpshooter Blues
by
by
Lawyer's review
bookshelves: arrowcatcher-mississippi, 2015, 20th-century, moderator-s-choice, on-the-southern-literary-trail, contemporary-southern-literature, guns, a, signed-first-edition, lewis-nordan
Jan 17, 2015
bookshelves: arrowcatcher-mississippi, 2015, 20th-century, moderator-s-choice, on-the-southern-literary-trail, contemporary-southern-literature, guns, a, signed-first-edition, lewis-nordan
Read 2 times. Last read January 17, 2015 to January 23, 2015.
The Sharpshooter Blues: Guns, Loving and Loss, a Half Bubble off Plumb
Slightly more than three years ago I founded a group On the Southern Literary Trail. It is not a "moonlight and magnolias" site. Here readers choose works by iconic authors of Southern literature and new voices in what I call the Southern choir. Along the way, my fellow moderators and I added an alternative read, The Moderator's Choice, usually an author previously unread by the group. I chose The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan for February, 2015, the "Trail's" introduction to the works of Lewis Nordan.
I have loved the writing of Lewis Nordan since I discovered him on a summer trip to the crystal shores of the southern coastline of my home, Alabama, more than fifteen years ago. Having read all of his work since that time, I'm pretty sure that Nordan would appreciate that folks around these parts refer to that area as "The Redneck Riviera." He would also appreciate it because it is a place where it's not hard to find magic if you take a little time to look.
Nordan came to writing relatively late in life, not deciding to pursue it until age thirty-five. He graduated from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, served a two year hitch in the Navy. Took a Masters Degree from Mississippi State and finally a PhD from Auburn University. Along the way he taught high school, was a college instructor, was a night watchman, an orderly in a hospital. Life didn't come easy. Two marriages. The first one failed. But it was his first wife who recognized his desire to write. He began with short fiction, was awarded the John Gould Fletcher Award for fiction in 1977 from the University of Arkansas. The hardest part of life was the death of two children, one at an early age, the other a suicide at the age of twenty.
Lewis Nordan was a likeable man. His friends called him "Buddy." All of his friends. He was a careful writer, constantly revising, getting the words right. He followed in Faulkner's footsteps creating his own little "postage stamp size piece of soil" as Faulkner called his Yoknapatawpha County. But Nordan's was Arrow Catcher, Mississippi.
Arrow Catcher came to life in his first collection of short stories printed by LSU Press in 1983, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair. It was such a short print run, it is now a choice collector's item for the bibliophile. I can't touch it. Can't even come close.
Nordan returned to Arrowcatcher with his second collection of short fiction in 1986 with The All-Girl Football Team: Stories, again published by LSU Press. It is as equally rare as the first Arrow Catcher anthology.
Nordan said in an interview with Blake Mahler, "writers will find a little postage-stamp size plot of land, their spiritual geography and a handful of people that live there, and they will write those people’s stories over and over again.… I’ve just invented out of pain and joy a family and a place they live and have watched them move in love through that place.” Sounds a lot like Faulkner, doesn't he?
And on magic, we can't forget magic, this is what Buddy Nordan had to say: “Magic is the imagination” [something that} “seems to be both necessary and evil and destructive in these characters.” Comments made after Nordan had been signed by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, NC. The novel was immediately recognized with best fiction awards from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and the Prize for Notable Fiction from the American Library Institute of Arts and Letters.
Lewis Nordan would go on to become a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas. From there, he would become the professor of Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh where he ended his professional career.
Nordan died of complications of pneumonia in 2012. His last work was [book:Boy with Loaded Gun: A Memoir|672273] published in 2007. In an interview conducted at the 2006 Faulkner Conference at the University of Mississippi, Nordan said he planned on returning to Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. I wish he had. But he never did. I miss the writing of Lewis Nordan. When you read him, if you read him, you will grow to miss him too.
The magic place I discovered Lewis Nordan was a little book shop, long gone. It was called Just Books. The owner's appearance was deceiving. Not who you would expect to carry the eclectic selections on the tables and shelves. She was elderly, quite prim, coiffure that perfect bluish white. Always dressed in a dark navy suit, crisp white blouse, hose, matching navy pumps. I never caught her name. However, I expected to see her at a tea celebrating an upcoming marriage, or at early church service on a Sunday morning. She dressed as though the temperature was a cool spring afternoon, not a humid summer afternoon, where the pavement was hot enough to burn the soles of your feet through your shoes.
This particular day I found first editions of Music of the Swamp, Lightning Song, and Wolf Whistle. I read the dust jackets. Perused the first chapter of each of the books. I was immediately lured into the world of Lewis Nordan. I was puzzled. Curious. I had never heard of him. The lady waited patiently at the register.
I took my purchases to the counter. Her voice was not that of an old woman. More of a siren's song. A southern siren, her tones soft and honeyed. "You have found something quite special. If you can believe in magic. Can you?"
"Why, I think I can."
"Tell me something you've seen that was magic."
"The lillies blooming in the Cahaba River. Trilliums on the forest floor. Scarlet Buckeye in flame along a back road in spring."
Cahaba Lillies in bloom, Cahaba River, June, 2009, photograph by the reviewer. The largest stand of these rare flowers in the world.
Red Trillium, Mount Cheaha, highest point in Alabama, mountain hiking trail, May, 2008
Scarlet Buckeye, April, 2008, outside Ashville, Alabama
"Oh, I think you and Buddy Nordan will get along just fine."
I have often wondered what became of her. She clearly knew her stock. And she knew Nordan's books.
I never got to meet Lewis Nordan. I hate that. I loved his books. I love this one. Welcome to Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. It does not exist. However, it stands in for the Mississippi town in which Lewis Nordan grew up, Itta Bena. Nordan laughingly said in an interview he wanted to title his memoirs, "Don't Cry for Me, Itta Bena." However, he refrained for fear that readers wouldn't know how to pronounce it. Yes, it rhymes with Argentina.
Were Nordan to be reading over my shoulder, he would tell me he doesn't like being compared to Flannery O'Connor. To him, her world is too stark, her characters too cold, and her God too harsh. Buddy Nordan believed that humans could save one another through their love. He acknowledged critics' comparison to O'Connor. Yet, he preferred to consider himself descended from Faulkner and a much closer relative of Eudora Welty.
So, what of The Sharpshooter Blues? Nordan's work is one of love, loss, and humanity. Yes. He is closely akin to Eudora Welty. However, freaks abound in this novel. They live in all his work. There is a great degree of the grotesque in Nordan's work.
Meet The Prince of Darkness, Arrow Catcher's mortician, resurrected from the Dead by Aunt Lily, the local Hoodoo Woman. The Prince can throw a funeral like nobody's business.
Then there's The Sharpshooter, Morgan, a trick shot artist. It's fitting he's the offspring of two circus workers who abandoned him, left him floating in the swamp around Arrow Catcher, to be retrieved and raised by a black woman, the same Aunt Lily who resurrected the Prince of Darkness from the Dead.
Preacher Roe likes to go down to the William Tell Grocery and take the sordid confessions of those like Leonard, who tries to resist the urge, but can't resist a tryst with the truckers down at the truck stop.
And down at the William Tell, the cashier is Hydro Raney, the hydrocephalic son of Mr. Raney, widowed since his wife died giving birth to Hydro.
Hydro and his father live in the fish house out in the swamp. There are no other houses there. Mr. Roy, the postman brings the mail by boat, once a week.
However, it is magic in the swamp. The trees are filled with parrots and monkeys. The water splashes with dolphin and porpoises. Hydro's father calls him "Peaches," "Honey," and loves him dearly.
It is a tale of father and sons. Those who clearly love one another. Those who seem to be completely detached.
It is a tale of husbands and wives. Those who clearly love one another. Those whose marriage is on the rocks.
There is definitely magic in Nordan's world. However, it goes beyond what we commonly know as magical realism. It seems more akin to the "Marvelous Real," a concept deeply ingrained in the works of Latin American authors. One thinks of the opening line of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
This is a world where love and death are separated by an instant. Where the grotesque lives beside the apparent normal. Where swift, unexpected violence alters life in a second.
What occurs in The Sharpshooter Blues is what happens when guns come out on a summer day and two "lovely young children" decide to rob the wrong grocery store. They run into a sharpshooter.
The question is just who is the sharpshooter and why is he singing the blues?
No, I've already told you about Morgan, the trick shot. He shot a cantaloupe off Hydro's head. Then he invited Hydro to shoot one off of his.
Morgan's got the blues. He's been putting the wood to Doctor McNaughton's wife, Ruthie. Even the Doctor knows it and has become rather detached over the whole idea. However, Ruthie may be done with Morgan. Morgan may have a death wish and hopes Hydro just puts him out of his misery. But Hydro turns out to be a crackshot, too. Morgan's still got the love sick blues.
When the two lovely children robbers all dressed in black come rob the William Tell Grocery, they end up dead for their trouble. Morgan ends up in jail.
Young Louis McNaughton says Morgan did it. But did he?
Hydro disappears. Why?
Can the McNaughton marriage be saved?
Will Louis ever feel acknowledged by his own father?
How come "Having a pal with a firearm is a blessing?"
What's up with all these parrots?
Where did all these porpoises come from all the way from the Gulf?
This is a novel that will enchant you. Nordan will make you laugh. He will make you cry. As one of my great reader friends, Diane Barnes, Co-Moderator on "The Trail" said, "Start a sentence with laughter and end with tears." Buddy Nordan will leave you with the belief that love does save us. Forgiveness frees us. And, no, we are not meant to be alone. That is, if you have the ability to look for the possibility of magic in this world. It's not just in Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. All those folks that strike you being a half bubble off plumb? They're not all that different than you and me. Nordan will make you squirm. But life is a little easier when you can laugh at yourself and know when to cry with your neighbors.
EXTRAS!
Lewis Nordan on the Marvelous Real:
Lewis Nordan and Parrots: It just so happens that Lewis Nordan liked parrots. When Thomas Bjerre interviewed Nordan at his home in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 2001, he noticed a number of Parrot prints on the walls and commented on them. Rather glibly, Nordan answered, "I really like parrots." See:
Interview with Lewis Nordan, at his home in Pittsburgh, May 19, 2001, Thomas Bjerre, Mississippi Quarterly Summer 2001, Vol. 54 Issue 3, p365.
Of course, parrots and their ancestors and relatives in the United States are not that rare. Five and a half million years ago, what we know as the Carolina Parakeet made famous in Audobon's Print ranged from the southernmost point of the North America to what is today's New England. They became extinct in 1918 as a result of man's gradual deforestation of the east coast.
The last Carolina Parakeet died in a Cincinnati Zoo in 1918.
Print by Audobon
A species of parrot is native to the mountains of Arizona. Another is native to Louisiana.
Porpoises in the Mississippi Rivers? No, Nordan's trolley didn't slip the tracks. The presence of Porpoises and Dolphins in inland Mississippi Rivers are routinely studied by Mississippi scientists. See Writing in the Caribbean with a Mississippian Accent: Lewis Nordan and the Magical Grotesque,MANUEL BRONCANO,University of León, Spain, Mississippi Quarterly. Fall 2007, Vol. 60 Issue 4, p661-675.
What's the significance of guns in The Sharpshooter Blues Lewis Nordan Speaks!
"Guns are a metaphor for power, and sometimes power is expressed just in a hoop or a shout or a celebratory yell. And that's in a way what shooting a gun is. It's yahoo. bang-bang! oh-boy ain't life great. I'd hate to see that statement taken out of context, but in fact that is a part of what the people in The Sharpshooter Blues are doing; they're saying life is great and these gunshots are a kind of shouting. (view spoiler) Not only have I done this thing but I have betrayed the whole idea of guns as something celebratory."
See: Interview with Lewis Nordan, at his home in Pittsburgh, May 19, 2001, Thomas Bjerre, Mississippi Quarterly Summer 2001, Vol. 54 Issue 3, p370-371.
Some of my fellow readers have questioned whether Nordan takes on America's fascination with the gun culture. In this and other comments within this review, Nordan flatly states he confronted the issue of gun violence and its consequences.
Slightly more than three years ago I founded a group On the Southern Literary Trail. It is not a "moonlight and magnolias" site. Here readers choose works by iconic authors of Southern literature and new voices in what I call the Southern choir. Along the way, my fellow moderators and I added an alternative read, The Moderator's Choice, usually an author previously unread by the group. I chose The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan for February, 2015, the "Trail's" introduction to the works of Lewis Nordan.
First Ed., Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, NC, 1995
“Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one...Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. They cast strange shadows, particularly in our literature. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.”― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional ProseMystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
Lewis Nordan, b. August 23, 1939, Forest, MS; d. April 13, 2012, Pittsburgh, PA
I have loved the writing of Lewis Nordan since I discovered him on a summer trip to the crystal shores of the southern coastline of my home, Alabama, more than fifteen years ago. Having read all of his work since that time, I'm pretty sure that Nordan would appreciate that folks around these parts refer to that area as "The Redneck Riviera." He would also appreciate it because it is a place where it's not hard to find magic if you take a little time to look.
Nordan came to writing relatively late in life, not deciding to pursue it until age thirty-five. He graduated from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, served a two year hitch in the Navy. Took a Masters Degree from Mississippi State and finally a PhD from Auburn University. Along the way he taught high school, was a college instructor, was a night watchman, an orderly in a hospital. Life didn't come easy. Two marriages. The first one failed. But it was his first wife who recognized his desire to write. He began with short fiction, was awarded the John Gould Fletcher Award for fiction in 1977 from the University of Arkansas. The hardest part of life was the death of two children, one at an early age, the other a suicide at the age of twenty.
Lewis Nordan was a likeable man. His friends called him "Buddy." All of his friends. He was a careful writer, constantly revising, getting the words right. He followed in Faulkner's footsteps creating his own little "postage stamp size piece of soil" as Faulkner called his Yoknapatawpha County. But Nordan's was Arrow Catcher, Mississippi.
Arrow Catcher came to life in his first collection of short stories printed by LSU Press in 1983, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair. It was such a short print run, it is now a choice collector's item for the bibliophile. I can't touch it. Can't even come close.
Nordan returned to Arrowcatcher with his second collection of short fiction in 1986 with The All-Girl Football Team: Stories, again published by LSU Press. It is as equally rare as the first Arrow Catcher anthology.
Nordan said in an interview with Blake Mahler, "writers will find a little postage-stamp size plot of land, their spiritual geography and a handful of people that live there, and they will write those people’s stories over and over again.… I’ve just invented out of pain and joy a family and a place they live and have watched them move in love through that place.” Sounds a lot like Faulkner, doesn't he?
And on magic, we can't forget magic, this is what Buddy Nordan had to say: “Magic is the imagination” [something that} “seems to be both necessary and evil and destructive in these characters.” Comments made after Nordan had been signed by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, NC. The novel was immediately recognized with best fiction awards from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and the Prize for Notable Fiction from the American Library Institute of Arts and Letters.
Lewis Nordan would go on to become a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas. From there, he would become the professor of Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh where he ended his professional career.
Nordan died of complications of pneumonia in 2012. His last work was [book:Boy with Loaded Gun: A Memoir|672273] published in 2007. In an interview conducted at the 2006 Faulkner Conference at the University of Mississippi, Nordan said he planned on returning to Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. I wish he had. But he never did. I miss the writing of Lewis Nordan. When you read him, if you read him, you will grow to miss him too.
The magic place I discovered Lewis Nordan was a little book shop, long gone. It was called Just Books. The owner's appearance was deceiving. Not who you would expect to carry the eclectic selections on the tables and shelves. She was elderly, quite prim, coiffure that perfect bluish white. Always dressed in a dark navy suit, crisp white blouse, hose, matching navy pumps. I never caught her name. However, I expected to see her at a tea celebrating an upcoming marriage, or at early church service on a Sunday morning. She dressed as though the temperature was a cool spring afternoon, not a humid summer afternoon, where the pavement was hot enough to burn the soles of your feet through your shoes.
This particular day I found first editions of Music of the Swamp, Lightning Song, and Wolf Whistle. I read the dust jackets. Perused the first chapter of each of the books. I was immediately lured into the world of Lewis Nordan. I was puzzled. Curious. I had never heard of him. The lady waited patiently at the register.
I took my purchases to the counter. Her voice was not that of an old woman. More of a siren's song. A southern siren, her tones soft and honeyed. "You have found something quite special. If you can believe in magic. Can you?"
"Why, I think I can."
"Tell me something you've seen that was magic."
"The lillies blooming in the Cahaba River. Trilliums on the forest floor. Scarlet Buckeye in flame along a back road in spring."
Cahaba Lillies in bloom, Cahaba River, June, 2009, photograph by the reviewer. The largest stand of these rare flowers in the world.
Red Trillium, Mount Cheaha, highest point in Alabama, mountain hiking trail, May, 2008
Scarlet Buckeye, April, 2008, outside Ashville, Alabama
"Oh, I think you and Buddy Nordan will get along just fine."
I have often wondered what became of her. She clearly knew her stock. And she knew Nordan's books.
I never got to meet Lewis Nordan. I hate that. I loved his books. I love this one. Welcome to Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. It does not exist. However, it stands in for the Mississippi town in which Lewis Nordan grew up, Itta Bena. Nordan laughingly said in an interview he wanted to title his memoirs, "Don't Cry for Me, Itta Bena." However, he refrained for fear that readers wouldn't know how to pronounce it. Yes, it rhymes with Argentina.
Were Nordan to be reading over my shoulder, he would tell me he doesn't like being compared to Flannery O'Connor. To him, her world is too stark, her characters too cold, and her God too harsh. Buddy Nordan believed that humans could save one another through their love. He acknowledged critics' comparison to O'Connor. Yet, he preferred to consider himself descended from Faulkner and a much closer relative of Eudora Welty.
So, what of The Sharpshooter Blues? Nordan's work is one of love, loss, and humanity. Yes. He is closely akin to Eudora Welty. However, freaks abound in this novel. They live in all his work. There is a great degree of the grotesque in Nordan's work.
Meet The Prince of Darkness, Arrow Catcher's mortician, resurrected from the Dead by Aunt Lily, the local Hoodoo Woman. The Prince can throw a funeral like nobody's business.
Then there's The Sharpshooter, Morgan, a trick shot artist. It's fitting he's the offspring of two circus workers who abandoned him, left him floating in the swamp around Arrow Catcher, to be retrieved and raised by a black woman, the same Aunt Lily who resurrected the Prince of Darkness from the Dead.
Preacher Roe likes to go down to the William Tell Grocery and take the sordid confessions of those like Leonard, who tries to resist the urge, but can't resist a tryst with the truckers down at the truck stop.
And down at the William Tell, the cashier is Hydro Raney, the hydrocephalic son of Mr. Raney, widowed since his wife died giving birth to Hydro.
Hydro and his father live in the fish house out in the swamp. There are no other houses there. Mr. Roy, the postman brings the mail by boat, once a week.
However, it is magic in the swamp. The trees are filled with parrots and monkeys. The water splashes with dolphin and porpoises. Hydro's father calls him "Peaches," "Honey," and loves him dearly.
It is a tale of father and sons. Those who clearly love one another. Those who seem to be completely detached.
It is a tale of husbands and wives. Those who clearly love one another. Those whose marriage is on the rocks.
There is definitely magic in Nordan's world. However, it goes beyond what we commonly know as magical realism. It seems more akin to the "Marvelous Real," a concept deeply ingrained in the works of Latin American authors. One thinks of the opening line of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)
This is a world where love and death are separated by an instant. Where the grotesque lives beside the apparent normal. Where swift, unexpected violence alters life in a second.
What occurs in The Sharpshooter Blues is what happens when guns come out on a summer day and two "lovely young children" decide to rob the wrong grocery store. They run into a sharpshooter.
The question is just who is the sharpshooter and why is he singing the blues?
No, I've already told you about Morgan, the trick shot. He shot a cantaloupe off Hydro's head. Then he invited Hydro to shoot one off of his.
Morgan's got the blues. He's been putting the wood to Doctor McNaughton's wife, Ruthie. Even the Doctor knows it and has become rather detached over the whole idea. However, Ruthie may be done with Morgan. Morgan may have a death wish and hopes Hydro just puts him out of his misery. But Hydro turns out to be a crackshot, too. Morgan's still got the love sick blues.
When the two lovely children robbers all dressed in black come rob the William Tell Grocery, they end up dead for their trouble. Morgan ends up in jail.
Young Louis McNaughton says Morgan did it. But did he?
Hydro disappears. Why?
Can the McNaughton marriage be saved?
Will Louis ever feel acknowledged by his own father?
How come "Having a pal with a firearm is a blessing?"
What's up with all these parrots?
Where did all these porpoises come from all the way from the Gulf?
This is a novel that will enchant you. Nordan will make you laugh. He will make you cry. As one of my great reader friends, Diane Barnes, Co-Moderator on "The Trail" said, "Start a sentence with laughter and end with tears." Buddy Nordan will leave you with the belief that love does save us. Forgiveness frees us. And, no, we are not meant to be alone. That is, if you have the ability to look for the possibility of magic in this world. It's not just in Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. All those folks that strike you being a half bubble off plumb? They're not all that different than you and me. Nordan will make you squirm. But life is a little easier when you can laugh at yourself and know when to cry with your neighbors.
EXTRAS!
Lewis Nordan on the Marvelous Real:
The idea of the "marvelous realist" strikes me as exactly right, better than "magical realism," for sure.... The idea of just plugging in magical elements to reality is not what I do; it is a way of seeing reality, which is completely different, it is from the inside rather than from the outside.... When I look at the world, I can understand what other people are seeing, but I am seeing something else at the same time....It is entirely a matter of vision, and that vision can be described as comic, or can be
described as grotesque, or otherworldly.... When somebody says, "What does this mean, and how can this be?" I just have to say, maybe this world is not the real world, maybe this is another planet, maybe this is some other dimension of life that we can't see clearly. Because for me it is as real as anything, though I understand that they [the stories] do not actually happen in this world.' See: An Interview with Lewis Nordan, Russell Ingram and Mark Ledbetter, Missouri Review Volume 20, Issue 1 (1997): pp73-89.
Lewis Nordan and Parrots: It just so happens that Lewis Nordan liked parrots. When Thomas Bjerre interviewed Nordan at his home in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 2001, he noticed a number of Parrot prints on the walls and commented on them. Rather glibly, Nordan answered, "I really like parrots." See:
Interview with Lewis Nordan, at his home in Pittsburgh, May 19, 2001, Thomas Bjerre, Mississippi Quarterly Summer 2001, Vol. 54 Issue 3, p365.
Of course, parrots and their ancestors and relatives in the United States are not that rare. Five and a half million years ago, what we know as the Carolina Parakeet made famous in Audobon's Print ranged from the southernmost point of the North America to what is today's New England. They became extinct in 1918 as a result of man's gradual deforestation of the east coast.
The last Carolina Parakeet died in a Cincinnati Zoo in 1918.
Print by Audobon
A species of parrot is native to the mountains of Arizona. Another is native to Louisiana.
Porpoises in the Mississippi Rivers? No, Nordan's trolley didn't slip the tracks. The presence of Porpoises and Dolphins in inland Mississippi Rivers are routinely studied by Mississippi scientists. See Writing in the Caribbean with a Mississippian Accent: Lewis Nordan and the Magical Grotesque,MANUEL BRONCANO,University of León, Spain, Mississippi Quarterly. Fall 2007, Vol. 60 Issue 4, p661-675.
What's the significance of guns in The Sharpshooter Blues Lewis Nordan Speaks!
"Guns are a metaphor for power, and sometimes power is expressed just in a hoop or a shout or a celebratory yell. And that's in a way what shooting a gun is. It's yahoo. bang-bang! oh-boy ain't life great. I'd hate to see that statement taken out of context, but in fact that is a part of what the people in The Sharpshooter Blues are doing; they're saying life is great and these gunshots are a kind of shouting. (view spoiler) Not only have I done this thing but I have betrayed the whole idea of guns as something celebratory."
See: Interview with Lewis Nordan, at his home in Pittsburgh, May 19, 2001, Thomas Bjerre, Mississippi Quarterly Summer 2001, Vol. 54 Issue 3, p370-371.
Some of my fellow readers have questioned whether Nordan takes on America's fascination with the gun culture. In this and other comments within this review, Nordan flatly states he confronted the issue of gun violence and its consequences.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
January 17, 2015
–
Started Reading
January 17, 2015
– Shelved
January 23, 2015
–
51.55%
"Welcome to Arrowcatcher, Mississippi, where everything's about a half bubble off plumb. It's the stomping grounds of Lewis "Buddy" Nordan, may he rest in peace. He has a keen eye and knows that the people of this odd little town and those who live out in the delta aren't too different from folks anywhere else. That's where he skewers us all. Makes you squirm. America, home of the brave, lovers guns. Howdy!"
page
150
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
arrowcatcher-mississippi
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
2015
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
20th-century
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
moderator-s-choice
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
on-the-southern-literary-trail
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
contemporary-southern-literature
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
guns
January 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
a
January 23, 2015
–
Finished Reading
February 25, 2015
– Shelved as:
signed-first-edition
February 25, 2015
– Shelved as:
lewis-nordan
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Jenny (Reading Envy)
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rated it 4 stars
Jan 24, 2015 05:56AM
My copy came in the mail yesterday. I'm looking forward to it!
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Fabulous review, Mike. Loved the story of the lady proprietor of Just Books. Proves the theory that one can't always tell a book by its cover.
This is a sharpshooter of a review even if it is only half-cocked. More please. Let's drop that hammer and see where the bullet lands. What a wonderful story within a story of your meeting with a book siren (they don't have to be beautiful just knowledgeable). At your urging I've picked up several Nordan firsts. I even have this one holding down a spot in my library. The Nordan's have not found a home yet as I'm shuffling my library and have only reached the Ms, but they will find permanence in my library very soon.I have not read a Nordan yet. Imagine my red face and my sheepish grin, but in March sometime I am determined to add a check mark next to Nordan's name on my cosmic reading list. You have been a wonderful advocate for him and many readers will be enlightened very soon when they read this spectacular review.
Jeffrey wrote: "This is a sharpshooter of a review even if it is only half-cocked. More please. Let's drop that hammer and see where the bullet lands. What a wonderful story within a story of your meeting with a b..."JK, Nordan is one of America's relatively undiscovered diamonds. The literary criticism glows. In this sense, he is of the magnitude of Donald Harington, another jewel in American literature. Once discovered, never forgotten. There is much more to follow.
It is really too simple to say that Nordan resorts to magical realism. There is a concept called the marvelous real from Latin literary analysts. It applies to works by Marquez and others. There are startling similarities to Latin authors and Nordan. There is the often sudden violence, the ease with which life slips into death, the possibility of resurrection. What Nordan completely resists in being compared to O'Connor is the bleakness of the interplay of her characters. For Nordan points to the pervading sweetness of the personalities of the residents of Arrow Catcher. Ghosts do haunt Arrow Catcher and its surroundings. Apparitions come and go. Yet, there is always a humor that flows through most of his work. The most notable work of Nordan is Wolf Whistle his retelling of the Emmett Till murder case in Money Missippi, and it is one of the most haunting novels you will ever read. I cannot recommend him highly enough. Yet, I must thank you for having equally led me to authors and reads for which I shall ever be grateful. That is the most wondrous thing about this community. And the friendships that grow from it. Yes, another half-cocked review. You know how I delve into the writings that surround a work. And that is what I have done with this extraordinary novel. Quotes remain to be pulled. And I am in the process of pulling the perfect images. For this is a novel that calls for the careful presentation it so rightfully deserves.
Many thanks, my friend.
Zoeytron wrote: "Fabulous review, Mike. Loved the story of the lady proprietor of Just Books. Proves the theory that one can't always tell a book by its cover."Dear Zoeytron, some of my most memorable meetings have been with other readers and most special book sellers. The proper combination between reader and seller is a connection that lasts long and leads to a rewarding connection. Others are fleeting, ephemeral, and leave a feeling of loss that leads to a sense of loss of something precious. That the lady in the prim blue suit with the mischievous glint in her eye is a friendship that should have grown and lasted much longer. I regret not having asked for her name, having been more diligent in finding what happened to her business. However, since my first meeting, the coast has been struck by major hurricanes. Many businesses did not come back. I hope that was the case with her and that she possibly still finds the magic that she so patiently inquired of her potential readers whether they had the ability to accept. An extraordinary person who entered my life for only a brief period, but left her indelible presence in my memory. Those that do, are the most special people we chance upon who create the most special moments in our lives. My thanks for reading and commenting. I have long learned not to judge a person by their appearance. Though, oddly enough, find myself to be an unassuming presence, unlikely to leave a lasting impression in person, more facile with the expression of words and thoughts in writing. One of the peculiarities of the foibles of human nature. That is one of the foibles of what makes us human you will find addressed in Nordan's works. My sincere thanks for your time in reading and commenting.
Virginia wrote: "Thanks, Mike."Virginia, you are most welcome. Please bear with me as there is more to follow. My hours grew late last night. Time required sleep, lest I begin to ramble. Reading over this morning shows a bit of editing is due. And there are more thoughts to come, references to add. And definitely images. I do hope you make it to this one. It is especially good.
Oh! I also hope you've had an opportunity to check on some of my thoughts in response to your recent question of the other day. As always, happy reading.
Mike wrote: "Virginia wrote: "Thanks, Mike."Virginia, you are most welcome. Please bear with me as there is more to follow. My hours grew late last night. Time required sleep, lest I begin to ramble. Read..."
Thanks, Mike. ALL the recommendations you gave me are now on my Kindle or wishlist and I can't wait to get to them. I have a backlog of TBRs; the hurrier I go the behinder I get.
What a beautiful review, Mike. Love the description of your book shop experience!
Cher wrote: "What a beautiful review, Mike. Love the description your book shop experience!"Thank you Cher, for your time in reading and your kind words. This is a good one. I must drop by and see what you've been reading. Things have been a whirlwind round here of late. *grin* Hope the weather's kind to you this next predicted storm. Keep a good stack of books in reserve. Best.
Unbelievably good review, Mike. I'd never heard of this writer but your words make want go and seek him out.
Glad you liked it sir,and greatly done review as always:)
This review is one of your best. I love the background on Nordan, it answered a lot of my questions. I have ordered "Boy With Loaded Gun" and "Music of the Swamp". And of course, now that I know I can't get his short story collections, I'll have to delve deeper at used book sales. Thanks for turning me on to him, and for Donald Harington, they are both treasures that I would hate to have missed. I know these reviews are a lot of work for you, but keep them coming. Your fans have spoken!
Andrew wrote: "Unbelievably good review, Mike. I'd never heard of this writer but your words make want go and seek him out."Andrew, Thank you so much! I do appreciate your having read the review and your kind words. Nordan is a relatively undiscovered diamond. However, I think his reputation continues to grow. Should you wish to sample him, I highly recommend you start with Wolf Whistle dealing with the horrendous murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi in 1954. Till was killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Emmett was visiting his grandparents, having traveled from his home in Chicago. Historically, his killers were the husband of the woman at whom Emmett allegedly whistled, and the husband's brother-in-law. They were tried and acquitted. Both murderers were later interviewed by journalist and author William Bradford Huie for Look Magazine. Both killers admitted to the crime and boasted of it. Double Jeopardy prevented their retrial. Emmett Till's murder was one of the sparks that ignited the Civil Rights Movement in the States. The novel is Nordan's literary take on it. It is especially good. And I HIGHLY recommend it.
Etnik wrote: "Glad you liked it sir,and greatly done review as always:)"Good morning, Nick! Thank you, as always. Hmmm. I believe I have a spare copy of this. *grin*
Diane wrote: "This review is one of your best. I love the background on Nordan, it answered a lot of my questions. I have ordered "Boy With Loaded Gun" and "Music of the Swamp". And of course, now that I know..."Diane, you are so very welcome. And you blow me away saying this is one of my best. You blew me away with your line about from laughter to tears in a sentence. It's a perfect way to sum up Nordan. It's going to be exciting to have a group read of Wolf Whistle. You know how much I love "The Trail," and just turning folks on to books in general. On the Arrow Catcher short stories, you can get Sugar Among the Freaks, which was published by Algonquin. It contains the BEST of the two original anthologies of the Arrow Catcher stories. You will meet Sugar Mecklin, who is Nordan's childhood stand in. And you will continue to follow Sugar in Music of the Swamp. Swamp is considered Nordan's first novel. However, it has an interesting structure. You could consider it a novel. Or, you could consider it an interconnected series of shorts and a novella. I think you will enjoy ALL of Nordan. I adore him. And, as I said, I sure miss his writing. Clyde Edgerton truly mourned over his death. Nordan was one of the writers Edgerton and I discussed at length. There's a wonderful tribute to Nordan by Edgerton in the Paris Review. I'll see if I can't look it up and post it. Hope you're doing well. Andalusia is trudging through Physical Therapy with broken wing. Jeeves is ever at the ready. Hope this finds you and Billy well!
Amazing review, Mike. I'm going to go look for a Nordan book now. :)
Tadiana wrote: "Amazing review, Mike. I'm going to go look for a Nordan book now. :)"Thank you, Tadiana. Get thee to a bookery, post haste. Surf's up! Mr. Strachan would agree wholeheartedly. *smile* I think you would really enjoy Wolf Whistle.
Now, as to your saying "Amazing," no more than your work, Ms. T. I must catch up on what you've been up to. I get tunnel vision when I'm in the midst of constructing one of these things. *grin* Must stop in for a visit. Wax the board. Catch a wave.
I haven't been reading anything really praiseworthy in the last few days. In fact, I'm deciding right now what my next literary book should be. :)
Thanks for the great introduction to a writer not encountered and images and memories to crystallize your affinity to this world for us. Maybe I've avoided so much of southern literature because of all that freaky underground stuff born out of swamps and twisted guilt over their slavery past. I've had more affinity with the wide open spaces and frontier challenges of western lit. But some of my favorite writers owe some of their success with me due to their hybrid vigor. For example, McCarthy spent a long time in Tennessee and carries his Gothic concerns to the western plains and mountains. And James Lee Burke divides his writing between Southern grit lit inclinations and tales set in Texas and Montana.
You've sold me on this book, and on the little bookstore woman. Wonderful, wandering review, digressions included (have you ever considered writing flash fiction?)
You always capture my attention. I have read Wolf Whistle but never considered seeking another Nordan. SO many books, but I'll add it anyway.
Tadiana wrote: "I haven't been reading anything really praiseworthy in the last few days. In fact, I'm deciding right now what my next literary book should be. :)"Now, I know you were reading Nevil Shute, definitely praiseworthy. I do hope you wrote a new review reflecting your re-read. I must check it out!
Carol wrote: "You always capture my attention. I have read Wolf Whistle but never considered seeking another Nordan. SO many books, but I'll add it anyway."Thank you so much, Carol. I'd recommend any of Nordan's works, especially since you've read Wolf Whistle. This one is a close second for me! Thanks for reading, writing, and commenting!
Lisa wrote: "You've sold me on this book, and on the little bookstore woman. Wonderful, wandering review, digressions included (have you ever considered writing flash fiction?)"Dear Lisa, It pleases me to know end to have sold you on Nordan's novel. However, there's a natural incongruity in asking a Southerner whether he's ever considered writing "Flash" fiction. *laughing* It's all those meanderings and diversons in Southern storytelling that make it Southern. Asking a Southerner to write flash fiction is rather like asking a lawyer to write a "Brief" and keep it short. *grin*
Actually, I have written flash fiction on a number of occasions as writing exercises. At the time I did it, the standard exercise was to complete at fiction story in a hundred words. An amazing excercise!
Michael wrote: "Thanks for the great introduction to a writer not encountered and images and memories to crystallize your affinity to this world for us. Maybe I've avoided so much of southern literature because o..."Michael, You're most welcome for the introduction to Nordan. He's definitely what you would consider the typical Southern writer. Touches of the gothic, the grotesque? Definitely. However, the touches of humanity, the positive notes of community and the belief in love and forgiveness give Nordan a unique twist on the typical Southern Gothic novel, not that I don't find the merit in authors of those more characteristic novels. After all, I venerate Faulkner, O'Conner, McCullers, and many others. However, I find a refreshing quality to Nordan's writing. While there is always the possibility of the tragic in Nordan's world, it is never completely a bleak landscape. Even in Wolf Whistle there is a moving scene where a white athlete expresses his dismay and disgust over the barbarity of Till's murder. Consider giving Nordan a try. I'll be surprised if you are disappointed in his work.
Mike, I did finish A Town Like Alice and wrote a new review, so go take a look. :) Make sure you check out Hana's review too; it's great.I just checked and there are no Nordan books at my library. :( If I do this, it's going to have to be the more expensive route.
Tadiana wrote: "Mike, I did finish A Town Like Alice and wrote a new review, so go take a look. :) Make sure you check out Hana's review too; it's great.I just checked and there are no Nordan books at my library..."
I'll see what I can do to help. :)
This is truly a great review. I love your anecdotes.
Jane wrote: "This is truly a great review. I love your anecdotes."Dear Jane, Thank you! Your supportive comments encourage me to continue writing. As to the anecdotes, I have always been intrigued by people, the things that make them so special. At times I have called myself a collector of characters. After considering that, in fairness, I've had to think just how many collections has my character become a curious exhibition. Among the quirky category. *ahem* I find readers and booksellers among the most interesting people I meet. Most engaging people. And true examples of the old saw you cannot judge a book by its cover. So glad to know of your return from vacation. Hoping the new computer is a whiz bang. Will look forward to your contributions on the Trail for this months reads!
Cannot wait for this and next month s reads; they are all exciting and Wolf Whistle is marvellous of course he has been my discovery of the year -thanks to this group !
