Dean Faulkner Wells passed away yesterday at the age of 75  after suffering a collapsed lung. Dean Faulkner Wells was the niece of William Faulkner and he became her legal guardian shortly before she was born when her father died in a plane crash.

It was just this past spring when Dean Faulkner Wells released Every Day in the Sun, a memoir of the Faulkner family and her life with William Faulkner, her “Pappy.” Lemuria enjoyed a signing and a visit with her in March. Jerry Mitchell talked with writer Hunter Cole about Dean and the Wells family and shared this quote in The Clarion Ledger:

Author Hunter Cole, who knew the Wellses for 40 years, also was saddened by the news.

He said the book enables “all who knew and loved her to be forever connected with her voice and her presence. We’re blessed she wrote it.”

She is the last of that generation that knew Faulkner, he said. “When Willie Morris went, I thought the world would end, and now Dean is gone.”

Read the rest of Mitchell’s story here.

Sandra Beasley has had severe allergies to certain foods her entire life. When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other joys of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!”

Now an award-winning poet, essayist, and editor, Sandra has written a captivating memoir about a subject that has only been addressed in either medical guides or recipe books: a cultural history and sociological study of food allergies, melded with her own humorous and sometimes heartbreaking experiences.

From her short-lived gig as a restaurant reviewer to the dates that ended with trips to the emergency room, Sandra writes with verve and style about the struggle of a modern young woman to come to terms with a potentially deadly disorder.

Join us this evening at 5.00 for a signing and reading with Sandra Beasley!

Born to Run is one of those books that I wanted to read when it was released, but the stack of books on my nightstand was too tall at the time. Occasionally I’d spot the book when unpacking boxes or while I was looking for something in the sports and outdoor section, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago when I suddenly found myself with nothing to read for the weekend that I finally rang up a paperback copy and took it home.

The book barely got me through the weekend – Born to Run reads so effortlessly that it’s easy to lose track of time and find that you’ve ripped through half of the book or more in one sitting. Christopher McDougall balances 3 or 4 parallel storylines, skipping back and forth between his search for the Tarahumara Indians, the development of the American ultramarathon, and his own struggles with running injuries and quest to run pain-free.

McDougall captures that perfect tone that provides just enough background information without belaboring the finer details. I’m not a runner, and never have been, but that was no impediment to my enjoyment – on the contrary, the story made me, for the first time in my life, consider the possibility that running could be something other than painful and torturous. And if you are a runner, well, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend a better read to you.

When Preston Lauterbach set out to write The Chitlin’ Circuit I’m sure he never intended for it to be a “secret history” of Mississippi, but that’s what it feels like to me. As the dust jacket marketing says, The Chitlin’ Circuit is “The first history of the network of black nightclubs that created Rock ‘N’ Roll through an unholy alliance between vice and entertainment.” Lauterbach succeeds in writing the history he intended to write, but in doing so he fills in a blank space in Mississippi history for those of us who having been living here for years along side this interesting music and culture that is Chitlin’ Circuit music.

Sometime after moving to Mississippi in 1999 I began to notice some pretty interesting music on the radio. First I noticed a station that played classic soul music in the Stax vein. Then I noticed WMPR – a great station that plays blues, gospel, and talk shows. But the blues on WMPR didn’t sound a whole lot like the blues I know – very little Muddy Waters and very little John Lee Hooker. No, this music sounds more like a soul/blues fusion. In fact to my East Tennessee ears it sounded like a throw back to 1980s soul music, but it became apparent that this is not throw back music at all, but a vibrant and alive music culture.

Soon I started to hear a lot about a guy named Bobby Rush (find some of his CDs here) – a man who refers to himself as the King of the Chitlin’ Circuit. I did think, “what is the Chitlin’ Circuit” but I also thought, “wow, I like this”. If you’re in Lemuria late on a Friday afternoon Marvin Sease, Latimore, Ronnie Lovejoy, and Ms. Jody are just a few of the sounds you’ll hear. All of this led to Bobby Rush eventually playing a live show in our dot com building in 2007.

Now after all of these years of enjoying the music and the culture Preston Lauterbach gives us a wonderfully well written history of the Chitlin’ Circuit that explains how all of this came to be and fills a gap in American music history. To me this book fits perfectly between Robert Gordon’s Can’t Be Satisfied and Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music. So you can see why, to me, this feels like a “secret history”. The music is right here all around us in Jackson, MS, but for the first time the history has been researched and brought to light.

Join us Tuesday evening at 5.00 for a signing and reading with Preston Lauterbach, author of The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘N’ Roll.

On Thursday, July 7, our book club, “Atlantis” met to discuss The Long Song by Andrea Levy. This novel made the short list in 2010 for the English award, the Man Booker.This was the second work on Jamaica which the author, a native of Jamaica herself, has published.  What an invigorating, delightful time we had during our book club hour!  Something that makes our book club unique is the fact that we do “stick to the book” during the discussion…not our lives, not our families, not the economy, not “what we are doing, will do, or have done”. We talk strictly about the literature! Many who have been in  other book clubs have told me that this feature is what makes “Atlantis” book club so different and refreshing.

While a lot of our discussion about The Long Song centered around the devastating  conditions of slavery on the sugar cane plantations in Jamaica in the mid 1800s, we also talked about the general state of all women, not only in Jamaica, but also in the United States during that time period when our country was expanding westward with the advent of the new transcontinental railroads, as well as the introduction of the telegraph and numerous industries. That led us to talking about other types of slavery, such as existed in the sweat shops with underage children in NY in the early part of the 20th century. Hence, one can see that our discussions lead from one challenging topic to another.

Come join us on Thursday, August 4, for our discussion of Parrot and Olivier by Peter Carey, another Man Booker nominee of 2010. Already a two time winner of the Man Booker, Carey is known for his incredible mastery of the English language. He is a talented wordsmith indeed.  -Nan