If you have read Alice McDermott before, you don’t need me to tell you she is exceptional (1 National Book Award, 3 Pulitzer Prize nominations); her books always seem to make a quiet entrance but an echoing exit.

Alice McDermott’s newest book, Someone, is half Virginia Wolfe, half Betty Smith. The novel follows Marie Commeford, her growing up and aging. Foolish in love. Raising children. Watching her mother die. Like in her other novels, Alice McDermott walks the line with sentimentality. She seems to be telling the story you’ve heard before–girl born in poverty moving into the comfortable middle class by shear force of will–but this story is anything but predictable. The twists are unusually life-like. The characters cursed with physical ailments (a little Flannery O’Connor-esque) that only emphasize their shortcomings.

Marie Commeford is coming of age over and over again. Coming into the realization that we are all fools; our dreams rarely coincide with reality.

I sometimes wonder if all the faith and all the fancy, all the fear, the speculation, all the wild imaginings that go into the study of heaven and hell, don’t shortchange, after all, that other, earlier uncertainty: the darkness before the slow coming to awareness of the first light.              -10

When I was asked to post on the Lemuria blog in advance of Governor Winter’s biography, William F. Winter and the New Mississippi, being released, I was perplexed.  What could I add that people didn’t know already?  So, here is the condensed version of my journey with this remarkable man:

The sultry hot air and its oppressive ways are a well-known facet of the Neshoba County Fair, and the weather during those lumbering summer days can be pretty intense as well.  Never was this more true than in the summer of 1963.  Though I was only thirteen years old, I remember both the political rhetoric and the sun’s rays felt glaringly hostile.  Phrases like “preserve our southern way of life” and “protecting our heritage” were just passing clouds that hardly softened the glare of vitriol and divisiveness that was tearing our home state apart.

Seemingly out of the blue a bespectacled slender fellow quietly took the stage.  I watched him approach the podium and thought, Gosh, this guy looks more like a history professor than a Mississippi politician.  Like a much-hoped for afternoon shower to calm the dust and break the heat, he spoke in a calm, reasoned manner, reminding us that “we, as citizens of the United States, have an obligation to follow the laws of our country” — hardly a radical thought now, but this was after hours of fist-pounding over “states’ rights” and stump speeches based on the premise that “the South will rise again!”

There then-State Tax Collector William Winter stood speaking out with his gentle Southern drawl against those operating from behind the dark clouds of fear, those actively working to prevent our fellow citizens from voting, eating in restaurants, going to decent schools, or just being treated with dignity as human beings.  Though we were almost three decades apart in age, I felt a connection to this mild-mannered man and his powerful words.

As he concluded his remarks and exited the pavilion, the crowd gathered managed a somewhat tepid, smattering of applause.  Waiting at the bottom of the stairs, there I was–a scrawny teenager sporting Coke-bottle glasses and slick-backed Brylcreemed hair–with my hand extended.

“Mr. Winter, my name is Dick Molpus, and I want to be on your team.”

He looked me in the eye, shook my hand, and said, “I am honored to have you on my team.”

I believe he meant it.

As I I look back over our relationship, he did, in fact, welcome me onto his “team” (and into his life), showing me through his steady dedication of a lifetime the “better angels” of human nature and what courage personified looked like.  I was changed forever to have him as a boss, mentor, counselor, guide, advisor, and, maybe most importantly, a loyal, steadfast, unwavering friend.

And it all started, like so many good Mississippi political stories do, on the red dirt off the pavilion in the square at the Neshoba County Fair some fifty years ago.

Dick Molpus

It is always a pleasure for me to hold in my hands any book published by the University Press of Mississippi,but the publication of William F. Winter and the New Mississippi:  A Biography by Charles C. Bolton gives me particular satisfaction.

In 1993 I wrote to Governor Winter saying that I thought that it was important that he write his memoir and that I wanted the press to publish it.  He said that he too had been thinking about this and was gathering material in preparation.  Periodically, I would remind Governor Winter that he really did need to focus on telling his life story.  He would agree–and that would be that.

In the early 2000’s in a conversation with Chuck Bolton, who at the time headed the University of Southern Mississippi’s fine Oral History program, I mentioned my interest in the Winter project.  Chuck said that he had interviewed the governor in 1979 and had done a follow-up in 2001.  Concerned that Governor Winter’s innate modesty would keep his memoir from  being completed, I suggested to Chuck that he conduct one more interview with the governor, weave it into as coherent a narrative as possible with the previous two, and write a contextual introduction.  Chuck thought he could make this work, and Governor Winter was amenable.  The plan was stymied by the difficulties of scheduling the interview.  And the governor was still working on his memoir.

By spring 2006 Governor Winter seemed to realize the need for help and asked Chuck Bolton if he would assist him in writing his autobiography.  Chuck said he would be pleased to do so.  A year later, Chuck Bolton became Governor William Winter’s biographer, and the rest is truly history.

Seetha Srinivasan, Director Emerita
University Press of Mississippi

Charles C. Bolton and Governor William Winter will be signing tonight at 5:00 and reading at 6:00.

Recently inspired by James McBride’s interview in the New York Times Book Review, I decided to pick up a long-overlooked copy of William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich from our shelves. McBride said of the 1,100 page tome “I wish there were more…I should have read it years ago” to which I responded with a word that sounds vaguely like bullschmidt. Dubious, I decided to tackle the giant– and y’all can just go ahead and color me impressed.

Don’t be frightened by the size or giant swastika on the spine and cover! Yes, people might look at you like you have something growing out of your forehead if you leave it on your coffee table (I haven’t moved my copy yet, I like having it right where I can grab it if I want it- so on the coffee table it stays), but let me tell you, this marvelously researched book is worth the time and the stares. Published in 1960, Shirer chronicles in great detail the names and events that made up the formidable reign and destruction of the Third Reich. I think what is making this book extra interesting for me is the knowledge that Shirer experienced first hand a lot of the things that he was writing about– for those of you who don’t know, he was a news correspondent in Berlin from 1934 until 1940. Peppered occasionally into his writing are his own personal experiences, bringing the narrative into much clearer focus.
I know I’m late to the game here, and hopefully all of you have already cracked open this beauty, but if you haven’t, I heartily encourage you to read through it  (or re-read it!) with me.

I was first exposed to William Winter when he ran for governor in 1967. My father was a friend and a supporter. I remember going to hear him speak at a political rally at Highland Park in Meridian. Even at age 15, I recognized a voice and viewpoint that were different and promising.

Years later, Governor Winter had an important impact on me. He was the thoughtful, progressive voice for a new Mississippi as our governor. His continued idealism and hope – and those of his staff, “the boys of spring” – caused me to assess my own life and priorities (I was a self-serving lobbyist for a Mississippi industry). It was out of the light that was shed from his hopeful view that I turned toward service to my fellow Mississippians as an ordained minister. I doubt he is even aware of the impact he had on me and, likely, thousands of other Mississippians.
The Reverend Canon David H. Johnson
Episcopal Priest

Gov. William Winter and Charles C. Bolton will be signing on October 9, 2013 at 5:00 pm and reading at 6:00 pm at Lemuria Bookstore.

If you would like write a guest blog on Gov Winter please click here.