Somehow Opening Day has come and gone and I haven’t recommended any baseball books yet, and it’s time to remedy that. There are are quite a few new baseball books this year, but so far just two have made it into my “to read” stack.

R.A. Dickey’s new book Wherever I Wind Up looks like a typical baseball memoir at first glance. You might expect some well-worn stories about Little League success, long bus rides in the minors, and that first cup of coffee in the majors. Instead, Dickey leaves no embarassing secret untold — his childhood in a broken home, molestation by a babysitter, long-lasting depression, and an extramarital affair. The early reviews have been stellar — Dickey is a smart, well-educated guy, with a capable co-author in Wayne Coffey. I’ve read a few excerpts and I’m looking forward to reading this one.

The writers at Baseball Prospectus have been at the forefront of baseball research and analysis for years now. Extra Innings is a collection of new essays from different writers about all kinds of baseball topics, including the steroid era, player scouting and development, and pitching injuries. I was especially pleased to see that one of the chapters was written by Derek Carty, who is one of my favorite baseball writers. I started reading Derek’s articles back when he was writing his own blog, and it’s been nice to see his excellent work recognized.

Robert Olmstead’s newest book The Coldest Night is a solid work of fiction about love, loss, and the reverberations of war. Those drawn to Hemingway’s or Stephen Crane’s war fiction will undoubtedly be pleased with this novel, and readers who enjoy the stellar and lyrical prose of writers such as Richard Bausch, William Gay, Ford Madox Ford, and of course, Cormac McCarthy, will find much to satisfy them. I’ll get to more about The Coldest Night in a minute. First, I’d like to elaborate on Olmstead as an artist and instructor.

Robert Olmstead is an author I greatly admire, not only for his strong storytelling, but because his work aided me through my graduate years in creative writing. Along with his several novels—most notably his prize-winning Coal Black Horse—a story collection, and memoir, Olmstead is also the author of a work—currently out-of-print—titled Elements of the Writing Craft. This book was essential for me in getting started with my own work as its premise is geared towards helping the student read like a writer: a skill useful to both the writing hopeful and those who simply want to glean more from their reading experience.

Olmstead states, “If a writer doesn’t read with an eye toward noticing specific, technical strategies, development is almost always slow and torturous, an endless cycle of trial and error. By reading insightfully, a writer improves more quickly, develops a sense of what good writing sounds like, and how it works” (1). Many of the exercises I undertook from Olmstead formed the beginning of stories that went on to be a part of my thesis. Whenever discouragement started to settle in, I would go back to Olmstead’s book and read the last line of his introduction: “The best writers have already written the best short stories, novels, memoirs and books, until you write one better. Here is where you begin” (2). In a sense, a writer begins again each time they sit down to the blank page. Without fail, Olmstead proved a guiding light when the task of starting a new story appeared daunting. He was an excellent instructor.

Often, whether or not an author is worthy to instruct depends on the individual student asking, “How does the author’s work hold up for me?” As one of my favorite poets, Gregory Orr, said in an issue of Writer’s Chronicle, “I often ask my students, ‘Why do you listen to what I have to say if you’ve never read my work?’” With The Coldest Night, Olmstead reminds me that he is indeed an author whose fiction speaks to me, and to spend time with him is become a better reader and writer. I read his work and feel the pull of envy. Whenever this happens with an author, I tend to gather their body of work and read it all, hopefully allowing their sentences to influence my own.

It is absolutely undeniable that The Coldest Night possesses an immense amount of sentences that sing. My reading life involves a great deal of stealing. If a book doesn’t contain a line I wish I had written, I am often unable to connect with the prose. Not so with Olmstead. During my graduate years, I learned that to write even one paragraph without stirring at least one of the reader’s five senses was one too many. One of the paragraphs in The Coldest Night that I really felt occurred in Part II, during the protagonist’s stint in the Korean War: “The wind blew like a scythe, but they kept north, crossing another plateau and marching up the road. It was an empty and evermore desolate country they entered, a landscape of stunted evergreen, granite boulders, and swirling winds of snow” (120). That first line, “The wind blew like a scythe” does a great deal of work on the page. I believe a lesser writer would have stuck with something along the lines of “The soldiers shivered as they walked, “ or “The wind cut like a knife”—lines we’ve read again and again. But a scythe—now that really speaks, sings as I said before. I hear the sound a scythe makes when it swishes through wheat, feel the sharpness of the blade and the cold steel, and of course, there’s the connection we make between death and the scythe—a poignant evocation since our protagonist is at war. And even the pronunciation of the word “scythe” has a cutting and cold sound on the tongue.

Please note, I am not trying to drum up symbolism from Olmstead’s prose, but am underscoring the work done by the use of a single word on the page. We also get the scent of evergreen, the snow swirling in the wind: striking images that resonate, stir the senses, and make for a story that is alive. These attributes are consistent in each of Olmstead’s paragraphs, and these traits alone make The Coldest Night worth reading, but the story is a killer as well.

As a story, The Coldest Night is affecting in its depiction of war and the trauma many endure in war’s wake. I was reminded of The Iliad and The Odyssey while reading, since our hero is flung into the thralls of war, and afterward sets out to get home again. Home also includes the story of Mercy, the love of Henry’s life, who was torn away from him through a sort of Romeo and Juliet family conflict. Part III is especially reminiscent of Hemingway, namely his short story “Soldier’s Home”, as our hero, Henry, struggles to find his footing upon returning to a home greatly altered from the one he left behind, and subsequently shaped by his disastrous experiences at war. Such a story is particularly significant for our 21^st century, as we Americans progress through what some have termed a state of “permanent war.” There’s no glory or hyper-patriotism here, just brave kids trying to stay alive, both in and after the war.

This section also contains powerful and moving images. Chapter 31 reads, “He unbuckled his trousers, let his pants fall and directed her to his right leg. A spray of scars, as if a school of minnows, darted his leg” (228). Again, the syntax stuns; one sees the shrapnel scattering into the leg, fleck-shaped, and the darting is applicable to both what caused the wound and the wound’s comparison to a school of minnows. We also know from Henry’s background that he has grown up in the mountains, spent time outdoors, and has probably seen a school of minnows cut beneath the surface of a pond many times. Thus, the simile works all the more. And above all, the same is true of the novel as a whole.

With The Coldest Night, Olmstead proves his is a voice I will return to again and again, for material, inspiration, and instruction. I am certain that you will also find his work compelling and enjoyable, and if you have yet to read his work, come to the event tomorrow and pick up Coal Black Horse as well as The Coldest Night, and let the voice and tone of these stories become more alive with a reading from the artist himself. I intend to thank him for Elements of the Writing Craft, as well as his stories which show us how it’s done.  -Ellis

Robert Olmstead will be signing and reading from The Coldest Night at 5:00 and 5:30 this evening.

A hearty thanks to Sarah Ryburn Mealer, Creative Writing teacher at Jackson Academy for the following guest blog.

I have been a fan of Ron Rash since reading his novel One Foot in Eden, and if there was any reserve in my adoration of his writing, the novel Serena banished it entirely. Although this blog is mostly about his newest novel, The Cove, I must in all good conscience say to you that if you haven’t read One Foot in Eden and Serena please run, don’t walk, to Lemuria right now for all three! Let me explain my sense of urgency and conviction.

Ron Rash is undoubtedly one of the best writers of literary fiction writing and publishing today. I know, I know– you read and/or hear this constantly. It seems that every debut novelist these days almost gratuitously earns the moniker “the most astonishing/vibrant/important new voice in fiction today,” and every published author’s next work is evidence of “a master at the height of his powers.” The phrases may be hackneyed, but in the case of Ron Rash, they are both fit and truthful.

Rash writes in a voice that is astonishing and vibrant, and because he is a master and one of the best contemporary talents in Southern fiction, we need to read his work! One of the things I respect most about his writing is the sheer consistency of its quality. The Cove establishes, as if it needed proving in my mind, that Rash is an author with a gift for more than great story-telling. His narrative style is lyric and poetic, hardly surprising since Rash has published several volumes of poetry in addition to his novels. He is also a teacher of writing, and this experience shows in his attention to detail, his careful crafting of character and situation. More even than this, in his use of setting.

In each of his novels, Rash paints a rich and living portrait of his beloved Appalachia. In The Cove, as in One Foot in Eden and Serena, the landscape is more than setting and takes on the dimension of character in its own right, giving to the novel both rooting in time and place and somehow an other-worldly atmosphere. The Cove is a haunting, almost mythical place, and Rash’s characters have been molded by their own and others’ beliefs about its other-worldliness.

Laurel and Hank Shelton are brother and sister, bound by ties of blood and a shared identity as outsiders. They have grown up in the Cove and on the outskirts of a small Appalachian community steeped in tradition and superstition. As the novel opens, Hank is recently returned from the trenches of World War I. He is now a veteran soldier, wounded in the line of duty, and as such has lost the shroud of suspicion and fear that encircles both the Cove and those who live in it. Hank’s acceptance by the community and his impending marriage introduce a wholly new dimension of loneliness to Laurel’s existence. The appearance of a stranger, himself an outsider and shrouded in mystery, opens for Laurel the possibility of understanding, love, and happiness– experiences she has too rarely encountered in the Cove or what little she has seen of the world beyond it.

Rash’s picture of this insular community, its ignorance and fearfulness, resonates deeply with our world today in the sense that great literature always does transcend time and place. The Cove probes the causes that lead one man to despise another. Laurel’s “birth stain” destines her for isolation and the contempt of her community, but Rash moves quickly beyond surface issues. His tale reveals an intimate portrait of human loneliness and the great, heart-breaking tragedy that arises from those moments when we are unable to accept understanding and compassion for ourselves or to offer it to those around us. These are timely themes for a digital world that moves with lightening speed from one meaningless twitter-bite to the next, often at the cost of real human connection.

Add to the poignancy of his themes the abject beauty of his language. As in his use of setting, Rash’s narrative voice seems richly evocative of time and place. Laurel’s speech runs with lyric grace through the shadows and spots of sunlight in the Cove like the music of the stranger’s flute. It sings with the musical cadence of the Blue Ridge, with turns of phrase like “before full dark” and “kindly of you”– phrases like those a dear friend (another unabashed lover of all things Ron Rash) hears still spoken through childhood memories of her grandparents’ speech “away home” in Tennessee.

Stunning– this is the best word I can imagine to describe these novels. Ron Rash is absolutely one of my favorite authors, so I invite you to experience the magic of his artistry. Read The Cove– read One Foot in Eden and Serena– and we’ll wait together, impatiently, for his next work of art!

Join us on Wednesday, April 18th for a signing and reading with Ron Rash at 5:00 and 5:30.

Waking: Poems by Ron Rash

(Hub City Press, 2011)

April is the national poetry month, and since Lemuria does not have a seasoned poetry reader/bookseller, I decided to write about two of Ron’s four poetry books.

Waking is Ron’s first book poetry in nearly a decade. I read Waking soon after it appeared this fall. It was the first of Ron’s poetry books that I had read and I enjoyed it. Ron’s rural details capture southern man’s enchantment with nature, lightening, weather, and so on. These elements are easy to relate to and they speak to the southern myth.

On water from “Watauga County: 1959”

as I hear silence widen

like fish swirls on a calm pond

On reflection from “Mirror”

come clear in first light and find

only herself, which is all

she wishes for this moment

On love from “Rebecca Boone”

the bed

where need and memory merged

On the known and unknown from “Rebecca Boone”

then lifted the newborn, smiled

at a face more his own than

even he could understand.

On contemplation from “Waterdogs”

passing clouds

read like pages turned in a book

After Waking I immediately picked up Eureka Mill (Hub City, 1998), a book of poems which captures life in the mill town of Eureka. With emphatic vision, Rash captures the trials of Appalachia. Though I appreciate the Eureka Mill concept through poetry, for me personally I did not find as many signals of the truth in this collection.

Please join us for one of Lemuria’s favorite writers. Ron takes the banner of southern literature forward with his new novel The Cove. But I sure hope Ron will enchant us with some of his poems, maybe some new ones. Unfortunately, Ron’s first two book of poems Among the Believers and Raising the Dead are long out of print. I wish Hub City would reprint them in a single volume.

Join us this evening, April 18th, for a signing and reading with Ron Rash at 5:00 and 5:30.

The Real Cool Book of the Day for last Friday was the 1977 Franklin Library Edition of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Not only is it a favorite novel for many but it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

When I choose the Real Cool Book, it is often a first edition, but sometimes it is a brand new book. Sometime it is signed, sometimes not. The Real Cool Book of the Day must be something unique, something to treasure. I’ve done over 20 Real Cool Books of the Day so far. They appear on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (LemuriaBooks). I don’t always do one every single day. Sometimes I am too busy with customers to share it with you. But if you came in the store, I promise that I would be able to show you one beautiful book that you might not find on your own. All of the Real Cool Books are for sale. I usually don’t list the price but you are welcome to inquire or check our website. (Our online inventory includes only some of our first edition books.)

There was such a great response to To Kill a Mockingbird on Lemuria’s Facebook page that I wanted to mention it again today and give you a little more information about this beautiful edition.

The Franklin Library edition of To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1977 and illustrated by David Millman. Our red leather-bound copy is in very good condition with some minor fading to the green satin paste-down. This is an unread copy with tight binding. The price is $300 and the book is available for in-store or online purchase. We are also happy to assist you over the telephone: 601.366.7619.

The Franklin Press was founded in 1973 and was one of the finest and largest publishers of leather-bound books. Sadly, the press closed in 2000, but book lovers continue to admire and collect these books. These leather-bound classics  include such authors as Raymond Carver, John Steinbeck and Kurt Vonnegut. We have quite a few at Lemuria and Joe is always looking for Franklin Library books to add to our inventory. All of our Franklin Library books are used and found on the out-of-print market.