Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite novelists, is credited with a tidy 8-item list for would-be fiction writers. Number two is simply, ”Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.” Sounds reasonable enough. But then, in item six, writers are commanded to be “sadists” and “make awful things happen” to the character whom we readers are supposed to pull for.

Smith Henderson must have been paying attention to Vonnegut when working on his debut novel Fourth of July Creek. Set in rural Montana, the novel follows Pete Snow, a social worker who rescues children from abusive and dysfunctional families and accidentally stumbles across Benjamin Pearl, son of paranoid homesteader Jeremiah. We like Pete. He does good work, despite the fact that he himself is broken. He gets kids out of dangerous houses with drug-dealing parents. He slowly gains the trust of Jeremiah Pearl, whose paranoid delusions forced him and his family into the wilderness, eventually sharing much-needed medicine and food with them. Pete does this all while in the background, his personal life is falling apart: his brother is in trouble with the law; his crumbled marriage threatens his relationship with his daughter; the interactions with his dad are too complicated to summarize. These bad things boost Pete’s “good-guy” credibility with us.

But then, we don’t like him, too. He slugs a client in the stomach. He admits to alcoholism but does nothing to correct himself, and his drinking often flings him into violent blackouts. He’s a bit of a misogynist.

The complexity of the book’s main character is just one of the highlights, though. The rest of the cast is just as delightful in their varying degrees of dysfunction and likability. They are all quite real. My mom is a retired social worker and, while she never punched a client (to my knowledge) I can assure you that the crazy people Pete encounters do honestly exist in real life. All of these characters are presented to us through Henderson’s lively prose, which allows us to follow several sub-plots at once without getting confused.

It might sound like a bleak book, but it’s not. Without spoiling the plot, I can assure you that Fourth of July Creek is suffused with hope, stubborn and fleeting it may seem at times. Pick up a copy and see for yourself.

Smith Henderson will be at Lemuria signing Fourth of July Creek on Wednesday, July 16 at 5:00.

Jim PathFinder Ewing has written six books, published in English, French, German, Russian and Japanese. His latest is “Conscious Food: Sustainable Growing, Spiritual Eating” (Findhorn Press, 2012). His next book — about which he is mysteriously silent — is scheduled to be released in Spring, 2015. Find him on Facebook, join him on Twitter @EdiblePrayers, or see his website,www.blueskywaters.com

In the photo, it’s called Old Tavern on George Street, but folks of a certain age – those who first listened to the Beatles when they debuted on the Ed Sullivan Show – remember it as George Street Grocery. A lot of schemes were hatched in the back of that bar back in the 1970s and early 1980s. 

Not many people remember that there used to be a framed plaque on the wall next to a round table at the very back that read in gold: “Capital Press Corps.” That’s where a handful of journalists used to retire after work and have drinks with various movers and shakers, including legislators, judges, even former and sitting governors on occasion – all “off the record.” It was a great way to find out what was really going on and why. The rule was: We couldn’t quote anything we heard at that table; but if we found out about it elsewhere, it was fair game.

I doubt that goes on much anymore in Mississippi (fraternizing between journalists and public officials, or even between public officials of different parties). There’s a Capital Press Corps that still meets, convened by the Stennis Center, but I doubt they even know who the founders were — or where, why, when or for what reason they met. Last time I went to one of the Stennis meetings, I had to invite myself and they didn’t know who I was. Everybody looked very serious and, well, sober. The meeting was orderly and on the record.

Back then was more fun.

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

As one of Lemuria’s youngest employees, I am just now entering my second year of college at Millsaps, which means I have ALL the freshman stories, but I think I’ll keep the majority to myself until that elusive diploma rests safely in my hands. And while I do not have any personal experiences or stories to share about Millsaps’ observatory (which is featured in our upcoming book about Jackson), I do have many of the campus itself. Back when I was in high school (so, forever ago) I went through the typical teenage struggles of deciding which college I should attend after graduation. In short, which campus would be right for me? Then I made my list of pros and cons, visited the other college I was considering, made some revisions to that list until the only thing left I had to do was visit Millsaps’ campus; on which I found a swing bench by one of the dorms, sheltered by trees. That’s when I decided Millsaps was the right choice. I could see myself on that bench reading after class, relaxing…which I did (for about a week) until I realized that I needed to spend some quality time with my homework. But do I regret my choice? NEVER! And since I chose to stay in Jackson that means I not only get to continue working at Lemuria but I also get to go to all the other cool places shown in our book. So there.

Written by Elizabeth

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

My memories of downtown are firmly rooted in the Mayflower and all the other buildings’ locations are, in my head, in relation to the Mayflower. This is was the go-to place for my family to go out to eat until I was in my teens. Now, a few words about how my family eats:

There are rules to eating, like if we go to a new place I will not allow anyone to order the same thing (you have to try as much of the menu as possible). Each family member has a quirk but all of them pale in comparison to rule #1, my mother’s rule: if shrimp are ordered, they MUST be eaten. This was non-negotiable and established in large part because of how good the shrimp are at Mayflower.

We ate there so much we cultivated usuals. Mine was crab bisque and fried shrimp. We knew all the staff, and more importantly they knew they couldn’t take any of the plates away while they still had shrimp on them. Seriously, I was forced to eat shrimp cold-green-beans style, choking them down so we could pay the check and leave. I went back there because I saw the photos in this book. The usual still tasted as good as I remember. I finished all the shrimp.

Written by Daniel

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

The Mississippi State Fair is dynamic: loud and quiet; simple and gaudy; here and gone. And this dynamism trickles down to the individual, too. During my childhood, the fair meant a day trip up from Hattiesburg and falling asleep on the return trip down Highway 49. As a Millsaps student, it was a distraction from whatever paper was due the next day. Now, as a parent, it’s something entirely different.

My son’s daycare closes so their staff can attend the annual Mississippi Early Childhood Association conference, and for the past three years, this has coincided with the opening week of the Fair. Since I had to take off a day of work to stay with him, and I love corn dogs, the Fair seemed a logical way to spend part of our day. He was two during our first outing, and he didn’t last too long; it was chilly that October, and the petting zoo kind of freaked him out. But each subsequent year, he’s enjoyed it more.

The next year he rode the carousel with me in tow till the both of us were nearly laid out with vertigo. Last year he rode his first ride alone: a kiddie roller coaster shaped like a cartoonish centipede whose track waved a lazy oval. Wanting something a bit faster, he and I did a few tandem trips down the big slide, becoming airborne on the last hump and laughing like . . . well, like a dad and his 4-year-old. No longer afraid of the petting zoo, he cackled and made up an impromptu song as the goats nibbled carrot chips from his hand.

For my son, the Fair means ice cream, funnel cakes and rides. Right now, it means a day with dad. Sooner than I’d like to think, it’ll be a place where he goes with his friends, shunning his goofy dad’s presence as teenagers are supposed to do. I hope that the Fair will mean nostalgia for him as he treads through memories with fondness similar to mine. The rides he’ll ride will be bigger, faster, more fun, more dangerous. For him, the Fair will be an ever-increasing whirling blur of excitement and screams and light, just like when he was growing up. But for me, part of the Fair will always be me sitting on a square of burlap, my kid locked between my knees as we zip down the fiberglass slide, our laughter trailing behind us.

Written by Jamie

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!