University of Mississippi eGrove
Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College)
2004
Faulkner's Wake: The Emergence of Literary Oxford
John Louis Fuller
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This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Faulkner’s Wake: The Emergence of Literary Oxford
Bv John L. Fuller
A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Mississippi in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.
Oxford April 2005
Advisor; Dr. Judson D. Wafson -7
■ / ^—- Reader: Dr. Benjamin F. Fisher
y. Reader: Dr. Andrew P. D^rffms Copyright © by John L. Fuller All Rights Reserved 1
For my parents Contents
Abstract 5
I The Beginnings 9
(4Tell About the South 18
A Literary Awakening 25
II If You Build It, They Will Come 35 An Interview with Pochard Howorth
44Football, Faulkner, and Friends 57 An Interview with Barry Hannah
Advancing Oxford’s Message 75 An Interview with Ann J. Abadie
Oxford Tom 99 An Interview with Tom Franklin
III Literary Grounds 117
Works cited 120 Abstract
The genesis of this project was a commercial I saw on television advertising the
University of Mississippi. “Is it the words that capture a place, or the place that captures the words?” noted actor and Mississippi native Morgan Freeman asked. I had been confident in my knowledge of literary Oxford, but the commercial made me wonder just what had created this literary environment I took for granted.
I set about my task dividing the culture into three realms of influence, the town and its history, the school and its academic authority, and Square Books and its economic influence. As I began to research the history of Oxford, and to meet the people involved in its literary world, I realized how difficult it was to keep these realms of influence distinct. They did not simply bleed one into another, they poured. I realized Oxford’s literary culture was not simply a number influences working together as I had assumed, but rather at times it appeared as the precise and diligent work of individuals. Together, many people—both authors and enthusiasts—have contributed to Oxford’s literary reputation.
This project attempts to present, in prose form, the literary history of Oxford, while also presenting, in dialogue, the personal accounts of some who have been a part and a product of that literary history. As interview subjects, I chose four individuals who represent distinct entities of Oxford’s literary culture: a mayor and bookstore owner, an academic, and two authors—one native to Mississippi and one a transplant. While each
5 approached the subject from a particular perspective, their opinions converged. Oxford is unique, and it is literary. All spoke of Faulkner, but all spoke of other qualities as well.
Its rich history, varied culture, and exposure to a variety of influences—all within a fifteen mile radius—create fertile ground for aspiring writers.
In the future Oxford will likely continue as a place where writers may find nourishment. Having been effectively canonized by Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha, Oxford and Lafayette County can go nowhere. It will be preserved, if not in actuality, in the pages of his novels. There, it may be of even more influence, uncluttered by contemporary development and expansion. Regardless of its future as a municipality, I believe those who have made good use of Oxford’s literary capital will pass on the torch to a next generation. From what I have come to hear and learn during my time in Oxford, there is far too much literary enthusiasm to believe otherwise.
What follows is not a celebration of Oxford, though I admit, at times it may read as one. Rather, I have attempted to construct an informed and rational basis upon which one may better understand the arrival and sustenance of literary Oxford.
6 I have settled here because of the university library and the distinguished bookstore, and also for the gentlemen who sit on the chairs around the square to reminisce. These old men have not been treated well in other fictions by the authors in other states at other times. But you cannot ignore their wisdom...
-Barry Hannah Hey Jack
Chapter One
The Beginnings
Out of its tortured and confusing past, Mississippi has come into the twenty-first century with only few things it can be truly proud of without footnote or reservation. The mighty waterway that shares its name with the state surely fills each Mississippian with pride, but what had we to do with its formation and utility? The state’s name implies more of its geography than a comparison with the mighty waterway. Our Southern hospitality which we claim so fervently must also contain an asterisk; for all too often in
Mississippi, “hospitable” applies only to one’s own color or creed. During its golden years when cotton was king and Mississippi led the country in a pioneering boom, the state was defined by all manner of Southern splendor. Natchez, the river port to the delta, was once among the wealthiest towns in all America. However, this economic plenty was supported by a social order that enslaved and impoverished those without the right color skin, or proper family pedigree. Even the state bird, the mockingbird, as its name implies, seems to understand the troubling nature of Mississippi’s historical identity.
Perhaps the last bastion of the “Old South,” Mississippi has been slow to recover from the shock and disorder that ensued following the Civil War. Mississippi has never regained its antebellum stature of wealth and prosperity. One of the last states to integrate, and hastened only by force, racial tensions have remained high in Mississippi.
9 The disparity between the wealthy and the poor also continues to be large and seemingly
irremediable. As a result of these unpleasant legacies, Mississippi often finds itself at or
near the bottom of national evaluations of education, health and poverty. In spite of these
difficulties, there remains one legacy that Mississippi can always be proud of: its
literature.
The history of Mississippi, as troubled as it may be, has been filled with
storytellers, historians and authors. Although not always actively participating through
the content of their letters, these men and women are part of a history of oral tradition.
Elizabeth Whitlock, in her introduction to an anthology of Mississippi \vriters, suggests
that it is “the storytelling legacy of the South, with its legend-filled history of affluence
and poverty, stability and change, and oneness and conflict with the land” that has
influenced so many Mississippians to pick up the pen and become vmters.* Some believe
Mississippi has cultivated more resident authors than any other state.^ Larry Brown,
Ellen Douglas, William Faulkner, Shelby Foote, Richard Ford, John Grisham, Barry
Hannah, Willie Morris, William Alexander Percy, Walker Percy, Elizabeth Spencer,
Donna Tartt, Margaret Walker, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, and
Stark Young are just some of many well-known Mississippians who have received
critical attention for their literary work. In fact, the Mississippi Writers Directory and
Literary Guide lists one hundred and thirty career writers who have lived a significant
portion of their lives in Mississippi.
Many towns and cities across the state have received attention for their resident
Elizabeth Whitlock, “Introduction,” Mississippi Writers: An Anthology, ed. Dorothy Abbott,(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), xv. “ Aleda Shirley et al., eds., Mississippi Writers Directory and Literary Guide (University: The Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 1995), 5.
10 writers. Greenville, a delta port along the Mississippi River, has been home to numerous
authors including William Alexander Percy, his nephew Walker Percy, the great Civil
War historian Shelby Foote, and Ellen Douglas. Jackson is well known as the hometown
of Eudora Welty, considered one of America’s finest female authors. The state capital is
also the birthplace of Pulitzer Prize winners Richard Ford and Beth Henley, as well as a
childhood home of Richard Wright. However, among the numerous literary locations.
one town has risen to the forefront in recent years.
Oxford, the home of the state’s first public university as well as that of its most
famous author, William Faulkner, has in last few decades become the state’s literary
focus. Currently, over a dozen published authors live in and around Oxford, and more seem to be appearing each year. The town is also home tof one of the nation’s leading
independent bookstores. Each year dozens of authors cross the threshold of Square
Books to read and sign from their latest works. Oxford also attracts hundreds of
participants to its annual literary conferences, including the Oxford Conference for the
Book and the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. But just how this quaint
Southern town came to be a booming hub of Southern literature is a question often asked
by scholars and laymen alike. Is it simply a byproduct of its liberal arts university, or did
it instead develop as a result of fanfare following Faulkner’s Nobel Prize in 1949? What
did the opening of Square Books in 1979 have to do with Oxford’s literary aura? Perhaps
it was the arrival of a man named Morris, returning from New York to his native
Mississippi, which initiated a literary awakening in Oxford.
In an essay that later became the prologue to a collection of essays, Billy Ray’s
Farm, Larry Brown contemplates this Oxford question. He writes: “What is it about
11 Oxford that produces so many writers? I get that question a lot...and I have to confess that I’m just as bewildered by that question as the people who continue to ask it. He goes on to point out his difficulty in avoiding generic answers such as describing the beauties of the land, its people and history, or simply saying “there must be something in the water. Although he seems to believe his answers insufficient, he may have helped answer the question without knowing it. In one sentence he writes, “I think [writing] springs from some sort of yearning in the breast to let things out, to say something about the human condition, maybe just to simply tell a story. This may appear a reasonable answer, but it says little about Oxford. Or does it? On second glance, this may be a point of entrance into understanding the relationship between the town and its writers.
Why does someone in Oxford want to write? To build upon Brown’s statement. maybe an Oxfordian yearns a little more than most to tell his story. Maybe life in
Oxford, or Mississippi, is a little richer—the human condition more vivid. Is the south the last non-native oral culture of America, where everyone lives in stories? Do lives in
Mississippi endear themselves to stories? Not all are good at the telling, yet many have stories to tell.
In the epilogue to his book Faulkner *s County: The Historical Roots of
Yoknapatawpha^ Don Doyle writes that at one time, near the end of his career, William
Faulkner questioned the source of his abilities. Faulkner claimed he had no formal education to teach him to write, and no literary friends from whom to learn. Doyle proposes that Faulkner’s ability came from his own “genius as a writer but also from
^ Larry Brown, “Faulkner’s Legacy in Oxford, MS,” Algonkian, June 1996. Online. Internet. 1 Dec. 2003. Available http://www.algonquin.com/larrybrown/larry5.html.
12 ,»4 deep within the history of the place where he lived. He then goes on to describe this history:
[T]he most salient feature of the past is the constant motion of people through the land and the motion of time and change....First, the ancient Chickasaws....Then.. .DeSoto with his expedition of Spanish soldiers....Then.. .English traders bringing things from the white world- guns and knives, hides and technology, liquor and African slaves, blood and genes....Then, President Jackson and his land hungry supporters....Then war came to the land divided.^
Mississippi does indeed have a rich history, but is it fair to suggest that Mississippi’s history is more deep and significant than that of other states? Probably not. However, it is a place that breeds its own version of southern culture, and continues to do so even into the twenty-first century. Storytelling, it seems, continues to be a part of that culture. A look at Oxford’s history encourages the conclusion that perhaps Larry Brown’s answer isn’t so unfounded after all, and there might really be something in the water.
Oxford and its host county, Lafayette, were just one of the many communities created in northern Mississippi in the 1830’s as a result of the Chickasaw Cession.
Oxford was founded upon land bought by three pioneer settlers from a Chickasaw woman for $800. Hoka, who had held the land under terms of the Indian removal treaties, marked her “X” on June 13, 1836, for the deed transferring ownership of the tract of land that would soon become the county seat of Lafayette.^ When supervisors began to organize the new settlement, the name Oxford was suggested with hopes that state legislators might select the aptly named town as the location for a future state
Don Doyle, Faulkner’s County: The Historical Roots of Yoknapatawpha,(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 374. ^ Doyle, 374-375. ^ Doyle, 45.
13 university/ In 1841, Oxford was selected over other prospective sites for its location along a stage road leading from Jackson to Memphis, and for its higher elevation, relative to the rest of the state, which typically promised less disease/ The opening of the state
University in the fall of 1848 fixed Oxford onto the map of Mississippi and insured that the town would remain an important place for years to come.
The history of literary Oxford begins with the inception of the university and the selection of George Frederick Holmes as the institution’s first president. Holmes was a leading Southern intellectual who published articles and essays in Southern magazines such as the Southern Quarterly Review, DeBow’s Review, and the Southern Literary
Messenger!^ At the Messenger, Holmes had come under the mentorship of William
Gilmore Simms, a leading editor and advocate of Southern literature in the antebellum period. It was not unusual for a man such as Holmes to be selected as president of a university during this era of post-Jeffersonian intellectualism. Writing was simply a component of good scholarship that also consisted of a vast knowledge of literature, the classics and the arts. While at the University, Holmes helped organize the Hermaean
Literary Society, which continued until 1946. It was unfortunate to some when Holmes had to leave the University after only a year of service to return with his wife and sick child home to Virginia, but to others, the vacancy was a quiet victory.
The alternate candidate for the president position in 1848 had been the Georgian attorney and president of Emory College, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. His appointment was blocked only by an anticlerical faction, which had supported the
^ David G. Sansing, The University ofMississippi: A Sesquicentennial History,(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 4. ® Sansing, 23. ^ Sansing, 47.
14 10 academic fHolmes instead. Now, with Holmes back in Virginia, it became Longstreet’s job to direct this infant institution. Like Holmes, Longstreet too was a man of southern
letters. In fact, Longstreet is credited with publishing the first literary collection of
II Southwestern humor. Georgia Scenes, Incidents, Etc. in the First Half Century ofthe
Republic was written by Longstreet as a series of fictional stories for newspapers he
edited in hopes of creating interest and circulation. In these “sketches of backcountry
life” Longstreet employed the dialect and peculiarities of the South to create a satirical
12 social commentary on his region. As a result of the popularity of Georgia Scenes,
William Gilmore Simms published Longstreet’s second series of stories in the
13 Magnolia. Longstreet was also one of the most well-known and admired Methodist
ministers in the American South. This, along with his law and literary fame, caused
14 Longstreet to be hailed as the “father” of the University.
Following Longstreet’s resignation in 1856, the University of Mississippi entered
a period of significant transformation with the selection of Frederick A.P Barnard as the
school’s next president. Barnard was responsible for reorganizing the University’s
governing and administrative structures as well as changing his title firom President to the
>915 more prestigious “Chancellor. He also introduced modem science to the school’s
curriculum and was responsible for making the school’s science department among the
most elite in the nation at that time. Plans for a new observatory to house the nation’s
largest telescope were also made. Although the observatory and science labs were built.
10 Sansing, 46. 1 1 Craig Werner, “The Old South, 1815 - 1840,” in The History ofSouthern Literature, ed. Louis D. Rubin, et al. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 91. Mary Ann Wimsatt and Robert L. Philips, “Antebellum Humor,” in The History ofSouthern Literature, ed. Louis D. Rubin et al.(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 137 - 138. 13 Wimsatt & Philips, 138. 14 Sansing, 59. 15 Sansing, 89.
15 which now stand as Barnard Observatory, the arrival of his telescope was prohibited by the onset of the Civil War. During 1861 most students left the university against the pleading of the chancellor to join Confederate units. Many joined the University Greys, of whom all were killed, wounded or captured. With few students, the school was forced to close for four years. Fortunately, because the school was spared when the Union army set fire to most of the town in 1864, the school was able to continue without major setbacks. In the decades following the Civil War, the University completed its transition from a classical academy to a modem university complete with an elective curriculum
and professional schools modeled after leading institutions such as Harvard and
16 Michigan. This reconstmction period also brought a new library, athletic teams and in
1882, coeducation. During this time, social fraternities began to obscure literary
17 societies, and college athletes replaced student orators as celebrities. Thus by the turn
of the century when Oxford resident Stark Young attended, the University of Mississippi
had become a fully modem institution.
Stark Young is often considered the school’s first writer to earn national
18 prominence. He was bom in Como, Mississippi, in 1881, but moved with his family to
Oxford when he was fourteen. He finished his prep schooling in town and then entered
the University of Mississippi where he graduated in 1901 at age nineteen. After earning
his graduate degree the following year from Columbia University, Young taught as a
professor of English first returning to Oxford, then at the University of Texas, and later at
Amherst College. In 1921, he retired from teaching and moved to New York, where he
began an illustrious career as a dramatist and theater critic.
16 Sansing, 125. 17 Sansing, 139. 18 Sansing, 164.
16 In New York, Young wrote a handful of plays and over a thousand essays and theater critiques for the New Republic^ Theater Arts Magazine, and briefly. The New York
Times. In addition to his interests in theater. Stark Young also played a significant role in
the Southern Renascence by writing fictional stories that explored elements of the Old
19 South to be preserved for future generations. Young also authored the concluding
essay, “Not in Defense, but in Memoriam,” of the Nashville Agrarian manifesto, 77/ Take
My Stand published in 1930. Young’s most successful novel. So Red the Rose, published
in 1934, was an incorporation of many of his short stories and essays about a Southern
family coping with the effects of the Civil War. In spite of Young’s leaving the South, he
never quit writing about what he saw as Southern virtues threatened by a new
industrialized way of life. His departure from Oxford may have been fortuitous however.
in that it allowed room for another young author to develop. That young man’s name
was William Cuthbert Faulkner.
19 John Pilknington, “Stark Young,” The Encyclopedia ofSouthern Culture, ed. Charles Regan Wilson & Bill Ferris,(Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 904.
17 Chapter Two
Tell about the South.99
The words echoed off the walls of a Harvard dorm room, and in Mississippi, through the mind of a high school dropout. “7e// about the South. What 5 it like there.
„20 What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all. These were questions Quentin Compson—the protagonist in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!—^heard over and over from his Harvard schoolmates, and were also questions William Faulkner lived with each day. Southern historian, Don Doyle declared all of Faulkner’s life and
„21 work to be “in some degree or another a response to [these] questions. Even as a child
the young Bill was a loner and spent an unusual amount of his time in observance of
„22 Others, “listening rather than talking, watching rather than playing. By age ten he was
reading Shakespeare and Dickens, rather than playing ball with others his age. He also
enjoyed listening to stories from the men on the Oxford square, and especially Mammy
23 Gallic, a former slave and Faulkner family housekeeper. From these stories, Faulkner
gained vast knowledge of the history of Oxford, of Mississippi and of the South. Cleanth
Brooks once wrote that Faulkner was “most fortunate in the place of his birth,” which
20 William Faullcner, Absalom, Absalom!(New York: Random House, 1936), 174. 21 Doyle, 19. 22 David Minter, William Faulkner: His Life and Work,(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 12. 23 Minter, 12.
18 9924 was to prove “rich in the very materials his genius required, Through his constant interest in the history of his surroundings, Faulkner discovered the questions which he would spend his career answering.
Faulkner’s first works appeared in student publications at Ole Miss. In 1919,just before his twenty-second birthday, he achieved his first national publication with the
44 poem. L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune,” in the New Republic. However, his publications
generally went unnoticed by the Oxford public, perhaps overshadowed by his indolent
reputation. No one knew quite what to think of this young man who had recently faked
his way into the Royal Air Force when turned away from the American recruiting office
for being of too slight a build. He had also added a m to his given surname Falkner to
25 make it more appropriate for an English pilot. Although he never even flew a mission
as World War I ended before he completed his training, Faulkner returned to Oxford
posing as a decorated soldier, wounded in combat. Oxford residents soon dubbed him
44 Count No Count” for his vacant countenance and arrogant personality. Few knew that
this affected and peculiar youth would become the greatest author of the twentieth
century.
There was one, though, who believed in and encouraged Faulkner’s talent. Phil
Stone, a family friend of the Faulkners, had only recently returned to Oxford after
graduating from Yale when he heard that young Bill had begun to vmte poetry. Curious
about his young friend’s new hobby. Stone read William’s drafts. Apparently
recognizing the talent he had learned to respect during his years at Yale, Stone adopted
William as his protege and fostered a relationship that would last throughout their lives.
24 Cleanth Brooks, “William Faulkner,” in The History ofSouthern Literature^ ed. Louis D. Rubin, et al. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 333. Minter, 30.
19 In William, Phil found a willing and able student, and in Stone, William found the
26 informal education he was seeking. Phil Stone was always William’s biggest, and sometimes only, fan. Stone once recalled of their early friendship,“The old families of
Oxford tolerated him because, after all, he was a member of the Faulkner family.... But they did not invite him to their houses, as a rule, and my frequent statements that he was a writer of ability and would one day be more famous that Stark Young...provoked
»27 guffaws from the general public and polite, derisive smiles from the old families.
Faulkner would indeed prove more famous than Stark Young, his first literary model.
Susan Snell writes in her biography of Phil Stone that Stone and Faulkner both paid Stark Young “the homage of imitation, in their social graces as in their
»28 approximation of Young’s ‘artistic’ life. Both young aspirants revered the well-known
University professor for his literary charm. In fact, when Faulkner later escaped Oxford to New Haven with Stone, and then moved on to New York, it was Young who helped
Faulkner find a job.^^ After nearly a decade of living away in New York, New Orleans and Europe, Faulkner finally settled back in Oxford in 1929. During that year he married his childhood fnend Estelle Oldham and published the first of his Yoknapatawpha chronicles. Flags in the Dust, and later that year. The Sound and the Fury. These novels. which told the story of an imaginary Yoknapatawpha county, were Faulkner’s attempts at creating an evocative history based upon the tales and histories of Oxford and
Lafayette County. Faulkner’s novels did not simply retell the stories of his youth; instead, he improved upon them. David Minter suggests that Faulkner wrote not “merely
26 Minter, 25 - 26. 27 Quoted in Minter, 37 - 38. 28 29 Susan Snell, Phil Stone of Oxford: A Vicarious Life,(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 7. Minter, 41. 30 Minter, 77.
20 an image of life; [but] an image of life heightened,” and of how things could or would
31 have been. In over a dozen novels and many more short stories, Faulkner continued to tell the history of Yoknapatawpha County. This mythical place has become one of the most well known fictional settings in literature, and its fictional history is now often confused with the true one.
David Sansing wrote of Oxford as “a town with two histories, one in fact and one
»32 in fiction. What he meant by this statement is something that all Faulkner scholars have discovered: Yoknapatawpha, and its county seat of Jefferson, were Oxford and the surrounding Lafayette. The people of Yoknapatawpha were the people of Lafayette. For example, Mohataha, the Indian princess who with an “X” relinquishes her people’s claim to Yoknapatawpha, was modeled on Hoka, the actual Indian woman who sold the land that would become Oxford. Additionally, Faulkner’s Chickasaw clan of Dckemotubbe,
Issetibbeha and Moketubbe each relived in Yoknapatawpha fates similar to those of actual Chickasaw Indians. Colonel John Sartoris was formed in the mold of Faulkner’s own grandfather and namesake, the “Old Colonel” William Clark Falkner. As Falkner had before him in history, the fictional Sartoris led the soldiers of his town into battle during the Civil War, and, like Falkner, was killed by an angered business partner. Even the story of hidden gold at Frenchman’s Bend in The Hamlet was based upon local legend of buried treasure in a mansion south of town. According to Don Doyle, so much of Yoknapatawpha came from real life that “among his neighbors, it became a local sport
„33 to try to guess the real-life counterparts to Faulkner’s characters. Often only names were changed to differentiate fact from fiction.
Minter, 78. 32 Sansing, 23. 33 Doyle, 6.
21 Appropriate or not, Faulkner also used his friend Phil Stone as a model for many of his major characters. It was likely Phil, the Yale grad who preferred to live in a philosophical world rather than a sometimes-harsh reality, who served as the basis for
Faulkner’s ‘intellectuals’ like Quentin Compson and Dari Bundren. A once elite aristocratic family, the Stones’s legacy had slipped in years following the Civil War.
When Faulkner knew them, the Stones lived in an antebellum mansion on the outskirts of
Oxford. Tomlin Avant, who had come to Oxford in the late 1830s, built the home.
Avant, claiming to be the son of a wealthy Virginia planter, was allowed to purchase the land and materials for the house on borrowed money. After a few years of ostentatious displays of class and finery, his creditors learned of Avant’s inflated wealth. When they approached him, Avant claimed bankruptcy, sold the house and eventually died in great
34 debt. The home housed a succession of university chancellors following Avant’s collapse. This mansion and its history were used as a frame upon which Faulkner created the character of Thomas Sutpen. In a curious turn of events, the Avant mansion mysteriously burned in 1942, only six years following the publication Absalom,
Absalom!, in which the Sutpen mansion also burned at the end of the story. Another factual event, perhaps foretold in Yoknapatawpha, was Phil Stone’s mental degradation.
In 1967, Stone died a resident of the same mental institution to which Dari had been committed in As ILay Dying. These and other thought provoking similarities suggest
„35 that “Faulkner’s most characteristic narrative became Phil Stone’s story, not his own.
In the introduction to his history of Lafayette County, Doyle admits that the real reason for choosing the county as a representative case study for the American South was
34 Doyle, 56 - 57. 35 Snell, 8.
22 that William Faulkner had chosen it before him:
Yoknapatawpha was a place of the imagination, invented by Faulkner as a vehicle for developing a coherent body of fiction, but the raw materials from which he created this place and its people lay right as his front porch. His main subject was the history of this place, these people, and the larger South of which they were a part.^^
It is this so precise parallel that Doyle believes “validates the notion that literature relates
,>37 to life. In his novels Faulkner exposed the ambitious planter through Thomas Sutpen; he revealed the poor, country folk with the Bundren family; he considered the lives of
Southern blacks through Dilsey and Lucas Beauchamp; he used the Compsons and the
Sartorises to critique the Southern gentry; and with the Snopeses, he validated the upwardly mobile yeoman. No historian could wish to record American history in the way Faulkner’s mimeographic eye and ear and his affinity for storytelling allowed him to do with Yoknapatawpha.
It is this fictionalized reality that has so penetrated Oxford with literary consciousness. The courthouse square and its confederate statue greet residents of
Oxford in the same way they greeted Benjy in The Sound and the Fury. The train depot west of the square where Temple Drake was to meet her beau in Sanctuary is now a preserved landmark of Oxford and Yoknapatawpha history. Finally, the graveyard where
Addie Bundren and Quentin Compson were buried, now holds the body of their creator as well. In these ways the town is no longer just a town, but a place veiled in literary veneer. All things become part of a larger history of time, America, and of all humanity in Faulkner’s county. The author once wrote of his fiction: “I am telling the same story over and over, which is myself and the world.” In 1949, Faulkner received the Nobel
Doyle, 5. Doyle, 7.
23 Prize, affirming that the literature of his “postage stamp of native soil” had reached beyond its boundaries and affected readers everywhere. The University may have put
Oxford on a map of Mississippi, but it was Faulkner’s doing that made Oxford a literary
capital.
When he began to write, young Bill Faulkner took advantage of the inheritance
left to him in Oxford by Stark Young and the academic history of the University. Indeed
he built much upon it, leaving behind him a literary endowment many times greater.
Through Faulkner’s novels and numerous local newspaper editorials, Oxford’s residents
began to look at themselves and the town in new ways. In an unsettling, yet perhaps
appropriate coincidence, in 1962 William Faulkner died just three months before the riots
over desegregation at the University. This defining moment in the history of Oxford was
one the town’s author would not be able to retell, but one that through his legacy, Oxford
would be able to survive.
24 Chapter Three
A Literary Awakening
The years following the racial integration of Ole Miss were difficult times for
Oxford. The town’s reputation became so bad that over a decade later, people coming to
visit from other parts of the country still asked if it was safe. Determined to begin a
renewal of sorts, the University began in 1972 to form a Cultural Center. This was
simply a collection of buildings “devoted to the visual and performing arts and to the
>>38 preservation of the university’s literary heritage. These included the Walton-Young
House, where Stark Young had lived, the Mary Buie Museum and, most notably.
Faulkner’s home Rowan Oak, which for many years had been the only tourist attraction
in Oxford that wasn’t a sporting event. The home’s restoration conveniently coincided
with the inception of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference in 1974. Originally a
program to give Faulkner tourists more to do in Oxford, thirty years later the conference
continues to be a regular gathering each summer.
Upon the coattails of the Faulkner Conference, the Center for the Study of
Southern Culture opened on the campus of Ole Miss in 1977. Its stated mission was to
promote scholarship and understanding of the American South, as well as the
preservation, through its archives and publications, of Southern history and culture. With
38 Sansing, 316.
25 its inception began a ten-year project to create The Encyclopedia ofSouthern Culture, a sixteen-hundred page volume of all things Southern finally published in 1989. The
Center’s ambition also led to the temporary publication of a magazine,“Reckon” in 1995.
However, the publication was halted when school officials determined it was not the best appropriation of funds.
One of the most significant literary happenings in Oxford came in 1979 with the opening of Square Books by Richard Howorth. In its early years, the store grew rapidly
thanks to enthusiastic support from the Oxford and University communities. With the
help of Evans Harrington, chair of the English Department, and Bill Ferris, director of the
Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the new bookstore brought many authors to
town for book signings and promotional readings. Authors coming to Square Books
could expect to find bookstore employees who had read their books and were excited
about meeting them. Writers soon embraced the store as a home for their art, and became
one of the chief factors in the store’s success. Most notable among them during the
store’s early years was Willie Morris.
A many-generation Mississippian, Morris had grown up in Yazoo City. He
graduated from the University of Texas in 1956 and went on to Oxford University in
England as a Rhodes Scholar. A few years after returning from to the States, Morris
became an associate editor oiHarper’s magazine, and later editor-in-chief, a position he
held until 1971. He remained in New York as a literary socialite until 1980 when he
decided to come home, and with the help of Evans Harrington, Morris landed a Job
teaching at Ole Miss. Upon his arrival in Oxford, Morris immediately embraced the
bookstore. In addition to promoting his own work through the store, such as his memoir
26 North Toward Home (1967), and the children’s favorite Good Old Boy (1971), he regularly brought his literary pals from New York to visit him in Oxford and do book
signings at Square Books. With the aid of Willie Morris, Oxford’s young bookstore
quickly became a literary mecca of the South, with regular visitors such as James Dickey,
William Styron, and George Plimpton. He also made a significant impression upon the
campus of Ole Miss. With his enthusiasm, intelligence and charm, Willie Morris began
to train a new generation in the love and admiration of literature, many of whom would
become writers themselves. His lessons often carried on beyond the classroom, into his
own home and even local pubs and restaurants.
In an essay Morris once wrote entitled “My Two Oxfords,” he compares and
contrasts Oxford, Mississippi, with its namesake, Oxford, England. He fondly recalls the
days he spent as a RJiodes scholar at Oxford University, telling of his teachers, his fellow
students and his challenging assignments. It is clear he has great reverence for the elite
English school, but his passion for Oxford, Mississippi, appears even greater. In his
essay he jovially compares the “dour” English girls with the “legendary” Ole Miss co
eds. Other comparisons include the common rooms at Oxford, England, with the Hoka
Theater in Oxford, Mississippi, the “sixteenth century gargoyles” and towers with the
courthouse square and the Confederate monument, and the Oxfordshire countryside of
“manicured landscapes” with the farmland and “snake-infested kudzu” of Lafayette
County. During his ten-year stay, his passion for Oxford became more than words and
left an impression on the town that many remember. Recently, the street where Morris
lived. Faculty Row, has been renamed Willie Morris Drive. While Faulkner made Oxford
a town of writing, Morris may have made the place a writer’s town.
27 Morris was not alone in Oxford for long. In 1982, Barry Hannah joined the
English department as writer-in-residence. Hannah’s personality and presence have
brought much to the Oxford community as well as to the University’s writing program.
With Barry Hannah, the University gained an established author well respected in his
field, while the town gained yet another literary icon. Yet even with both Morris and
Hannah teaching at the University, Oxford still was not quite ready for its next literary
boom brought on by John Grisham.
In 1989, John Grisham, a lawyer and State representative from Southaven,
Mississippi, published his first novel, A Time To Kill. The legal thriller received a
moderate printing of 5,000 initial copies by a small press, and garnered only limited
publicity. However, in 1991, his next book. The Firm^ made John Grisham an overnight
celebrity. The film rights for the novel were sold well before its publication and the book
itself spent almost a year on bestseller charts. Around this time Grisham moved with his
family to a home just west of Oxford, and created an instant buzz of literary chatter. As
he continued to produce commercial blockbusters, the media quickly reminded the public
that Grisham’s Oxford had also been home to William Faulkner. Jamie Komegay, a
current bookseller with Square Books who grew up in Batesvilie just west of Oxford, has
said that he never thought of Oxford as a particularly literary place until the rise of
39 Grisham. Like Komegay, Oxford itself began to remember its late muse. During the
late 1990s, a statue of Faulkner was erected on the downtown square. Although the
apparent commercialization of Faulkner received great protest from some, including
Faulkner’s own family, the will of the city would prevail in making Faulkner its favorite
39 Jamie Komegay, personal interview, Oxford, MS,4 Febmary 2004.
28 citizen. Though dramatically different in many ways, much ado was made of the comparisons between the Grisham and Faulkner. In an essay “The Faulkner Thing,
Grisham recounts his continued annoyance with those who pester him about his connection to William Faulkner. Although his prestige has brought a great deal of attention to Oxford—even after moving away to escape the public eye—it is the money
he left behind that will leave a more lasting impression.
In 1993, the English Department at the University of Mississippi, with an
endowment from Grisham, began the John and Renee Grisham Emerging Southern
Writer-in-Residence program. The residency is awarded annually to a Southern author
who has demonstrated the potential to develop into a prominent writer within his or her
field. The recipient instructs a creative writing class each semester while at Ole Miss and
is given the remainder of his or her time to spend on personal >\Titing projects. In
addition to an annual salary of $50,000, the Grisham Resident is allowed to live expense
free for a year in a home purchased by the Grishams for the program and located a block
east of Rowan Oak. The residency is a prestigious award for any author. Many past
recipients, such as T. R. Pearson (1993), Mark Richard (1994), Tim Gautreaux (1996),
Steve Yarborough (1999), and Tom Franklin (2001), have gone on to successful literary
careers.
The following year, in 1994, Grisham acquired the struggling literary magazine
that had published his Faulkner essay in its first issue. The Oxford American, itself a
product of Oxford’s literary and cultural awakening, had not been quite as successful as
its editors had hoped. For many years, Grisham published the magazine and for a time
even used the magazine as a serial platform for a novel, A Painted House. Money was
29 apparently not enough to fully revive the magazine. With dwindling circulation, Grisham eventually pulled out of the magazine marking its almost certain demise. Only a few issues were published under new ownership in Little Rock, Arkansas, and in 2003, The
Oxford American suspended publication indefinitely.
These contributions were not all Grisham would give to Oxford. In 2003, the
University’s English department began a Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing due primarily in part to a $500,000 gift from John Grisham. With two Grisham
Fellowships of $14,000 each year and under the direction of Barry Hannah, the program became nationally competitive in its first year of existence. As if this were not enough.
John Grisham also gives the department an annual gift of $25,000 to fund the school’s
Visiting Writers Series. According to Dr. Joe Urgo and Barry Hannah, without the
generous gifts from John Grisham, the school’s writing program might not be half as
successful as it now has the potential to be.
John Grisham was not the only writer developing in Oxford in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. While Grisham was becoming an international success, another Oxford
resident was making a name for himself on a local level. A fireman with a high school
diploma and two years in the military, Larry Brown represented the other end of the
spectrum from lawyer and politician Grisham. Brown began experimenting with writing
in 1980, and in the fall of 1982, after realizing his need for extra guidance, gained
permission from Evans Harrington to enroll in a fiction-writing course taught at the
University by Josephine Haxton."^^ Through exposure to writers such as Flannery
O’Connor and others, Brown claims he realized what kind of stories he wanted to write.
40 Josephine Haxton, novelist under the penname, Ellen Douglas, taught fiction courses at the University of Mississippi during the Fall semesters from 1982 to 1990.
30 as well as how much more he had to learn in order to write them."^^ In 1988, the fire captain-tumed-author published his first collection of stories. Facing the Music. His first novel. Dirty Work and another collection Z,ove, followed in 1989 and 1990 respectively. During these years he often took advantage of the University’s writing department under Barry Hannah, and the ample supply of reading material at Square
Books to assist his writing aspirations. Larry Brown is significant to Oxford’s literary
culture in that he was the first true resident of Oxford since Faulkner to become a self-
taught fiction writer. Like Faulkner, Brown drew on his own personal history and real-
life experiences in Lafayette County to create fictional settings and plots for his novels.
As Oxford again found its way into the pages of literature, the town enthusiastically
welcomed Brown, making him a new local literary hero. While Brown has never held
the nation’s attention as Grisham often does, in Oxford he receives a royal welcome at all
his appearances.
1993, the year of the Grisham Residency’s inception, also saw both the first
Oxford Conference for the Book, and the opening of Off Square Books, both of which
have guided the town’s literary interest in the last decade. The book conference is a
public affair where writers, editors, publishers and readers gather for lectures and
discussions about literature. Often the conference has a theme honoring a Mississippi
writer. Located a block west of the main store. Off Square Books was opened to feature
remainder and discounted books, as well as some used and collectible books. The chief
service of Off Square Books, however, has been as a host location for book signings and
author events. Lyn Roberts, a long-time manager at Square Books, believes events at Off
41 Larry Brown, “Introductory Essay, The Yalobusha Review: The Literary Journal of the University of Mississippi,” Vol II, 1996, 5 -6.
31 Square Books allow a unique intimacy between readers and authors that rarely exists
42 elsewhere. Here, around one hundred authors a year are given the spotlight where they may read from their work before a live audience.
Off Square Books is also the location of Thacker Mountain Radio, a weekly radio show featuring visiting writers and musical acts, as well as various cultural event promotions. Begun in 1997, the show is locally funded and broadcast live by a local FM station. According to Jamie Komegay, the show’s chief producer, Thacker Mountain
43 Radio serves as an expression of Oxford’s artistic, musical, and literary culture.
Through the years, Thacker Mountain Radio has had a consistent audience of Oxford residents and University students who make the show a weekly appointment. The show reached further in 2003, when Mississippi Public Broadcasting began to rebroadcast the show statewide on Sunday evenings.
In perhaps the most overt celebration of Oxford’s literary culture. They Write
Among Us: New Stories and Essaysfrom the Best of Oxford Writers was published in
2003. Although containing works from twenty-four authors, poets and journalists connected in some way to Oxford, the collection is incomplete, for there have been at least as many more writers who have also spent time in Faulkner’s town.
Literary Oxford” has emerged out of a combination of fortuitous timing and rich history. Authors often appeared in Oxford at times most opportune for the development of their skills. There has also been significant institutional help—economically and academically—for the promotion of a literary culture. Yet underneath the broad terms of providence, there have been individuals who have made certain things happen, without
42 4,^ Lyn Roberts, personal interview, Oxford, MS,6 February 2004. Lori Herring, “Musicians, Authors Team for Radio Show.” The Clarion-Ledger, 21 November, 2001.
32 which Oxford would have remained just another college town. Without Richard
Howorth there would be no Square Books and all his store entails. Even aside from the money of John Grisham, without the magnetic personality of Barry Hannah drawing young writers to Oxford, what would have kept this writing fire alive? Without Ann
Abadie, could the Faulkner Conference have survived? Lastly, what literary future would exist without people like Tom Franklin representing the new face of Southern literature in
Oxford? There would have remained a literary presence—surely Faulkner’s ghost can never die but through the corresponding work of individuals, Oxford has begun to overcome its troublesome past through a literary awakening.
33
Chapter Four
If You Build it They Will Come ... and Do Book-Signings An Interview with Richard Howorth
Richard Howorth is wearing red rag-wool socks and black jeans as he sits across from me in his office on this late winter Friday afternoon. It is a curious ensemble for an elected official, but for the unconventional mayor, appropriate. He no longer spends his days in the bookstore he created. Instead, located a block north of the bookstore. City
Hall has become Howorth’s new home after being elected mayor of Oxford, in 2001.
Here, Howorth now presides over the town his family has been a part of for generations reaching back to his great-grandparents. Professor Thomas Somerville and Andrew
Armstrong Kincannon, who served as Chancellor from 1907 - 1914. Howorth is a quirky yet kind man who has devoted his life to bringing Oxford out from under the backward reputation that has plagued the town since the fiery 1962 desegregation of Ole Miss.
Howorth has championed the idea, instilled in him by his parents, that one day Oxford
44 would become the home of a great university and a great community, Over the last quarter century, few have done more to bring culture and a positive national perception to
Oxford than Howorth. How has he done it? Books.
Richard Howorth was bom in the delta town of Marks, Mississippi, in 1951, but
44 Rob Gurwitt, “How the Vision of One Independent Bookseller has Revitalized the Heart of Faulkner’s Mississippi,” MotherJones. May/June 2000.
35 has lived most of his life in Oxford. Growing up, books and literature were a central part of his family’s life. His grandfather, David Horace Bishop, taught English at the university for nearly fifty years and spent many of them as Chair of the English
Department. His aunt and mother were also involved in teaching and writing literature.
When Howorth graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1972, it was only natural
that he would end up in a literary profession. While his wife, Lisa, pursued a master’s
degree in library science, Howorth began to make plans for a bookstore. Following a
two-year self-apprenticeship at one of the nation’s leading bookstores, the Savile
Bookshop in Washington, D.C., the Howorths returned to Oxford armed with the skills
and motivation to make their dream a reality.
On September 14, 1979, in an upstairs flat on the east side of courthouse square.
Square Books was bom. Few knew—least of all Howorth himself-—that this store would
grow steadily to become such a successful and influential independent bookstore. Within
a decade, Howorth would become one of the most respected independent booksellers in
the country. Beginning in 1989, Howorth served for eleven years on the board of the
American Booksellers Association, and in 1999 he was elected to serve as the board’s
president and chairman for a two-year term. However, his rise to prominence has not
been without much hard work and dedication.
The time was ripe for a bookstore in Oxford when Square Books opened its doors.
The hometown of the late William Faulkner had never had a substantial bookstore. Some
small independent attempts had come over the years, but never succeeded. A reader in
search of a new book had only the Ole Miss bookstore and the book collection of a local
antiques shop to choose from, but each place sold few books beyond bestsellers. With
36 Square Books, however, came a new breed of bookseller: one whose inventory would not be dictated by newspaper polls and reviews. Rather, Howorth utilized an independent and thoughtful approach to seek out literature that begged for readers, and to do all possible to attract those readers. This personal and hands-on approach to bookselling has been a key to Square Books’ extraordinary success. It has fostered long-standing and valuable relationships with both readers and writers, earning for the store community and industry support that has helped the store grow and expand during a time when many independent booksellers have closed their doors.
As confirmation of its success and local influence. Square Books is now one of the largest independent retailers in Oxford, occupying three sites on the downtown square. The main store is prominently located on the comer of South Lamar over looking the square in what was once an old general store and ice cream parlor. Square
Books has been in this two-story building since 1986 after outgrowing its original location. Other expansions include Off Square Books, home of Thacker Mountain Radio, and Square Books Jr., the latest addition to the Square Books family specializing in literature for children and young adults.
I met with Richard Howorth in his office in the Oxford City Hall. He is a ready conversationalist, especially when talking about Oxford and his bookstore. In conducting the following interview, I learned a great deal about the man behind Square
Books. I wanted to discover what factors had encouraged Howorth to open his store.
Additionally, why had the store done so well in Oxford when many other independent bookstores had struggled to stay open? I also wanted to know what insights into the
literary culture of Oxford he had learned as owner and manager of Square Books. Few
37 things have been as significant to Oxford as its bookstore, and no one person has been as
significant to Square Books as Richard Howorth. 1
I
38 20 February 2004
JF Well thanksfor letting me come and speak to you. Ifirst wanted to talk about your reasonsfor opening Square Books. I know it was opened in '79 and that you had worked previously with hooks at the Savile Bookshop in Washington D.C., but what were your reasonsfor opening this store? Did you see economic potentialfor a bookstore in
Oxford, or were there more personal interests? How much ofone or the other?
RH: It was both those things and other things. I was probably about 25, 26 I had
graduated from Ole Miss in 1972. Married not too long after that. I worked out at the
North Mississippi Regional Center while my wife got through school. Then she was
going to go to graduate school in library science at the University of North Carolina. So
we moved to Chapel Hill. She got her degree in one year, and I worked at a similar
facility up there. While we were up there that year, it had always been in the back of my
head this notion about a bookstore in Oxford.
When I was in high school, my oldest brother, who has been a very influential
person in my life in a lot of different ways, he had written, I think, the U.S. Department
of Commerce, or it may have even been the Department of Agriculture, and he had asked
45 for information about how to open a bookstore. And they had this little pamphlet that
ended up just kinda lying around the house or whatever. So I was, I don’t know, 1 was 12,
or 13, or 14 or whatever when I saw this pamphlet. So that idea was kind of, I knew my
brother had thought about that, and the seed was there. And I had grown up in a family
for whom books were a central part of life. My mother’s father taught English at the
45 David Howorth is Richard’s brother referred to here.
39 university here for close to 50 years. And I was never a very good student, and so becoming a teacher or pursuing graduate school-I had kind of niled out at that point.
And had given a lot of thought about writing. You know I thought being a writer was something, but I had no idea what to write or how to write. And knew that it was .. .
JF: Easier to read?
RH: Easier to read and easier to open a bookstore. And actually in the back of my mind I thought that if I fail at the bookstore—and I kind of assumed that 1 would fail at the bookstore at one level—that was sort of my backup thing and then I was going to start writing.
I had a very influential professor at Ole Miss, Evans Harrington. He at that time taught the only writing classes, and I think the only modem literature classes. And I think I took maybe five different courses from him. I took writing expository prose. writing the short story, modem British literature, modem poetry, and modem drama. He was a great teacher and really encouraged me as a reader/student/writer whatever in a lot of different ways. So he was the first person who gave me a sense of, or confidence that I might have a life in books one way or the other.
But to get back to the original question. You’re right it was two things. When
Lisa was finishing graduate school, I knew I didn’t want do what I had been doing, and so the bookstore became more and more increasingly a realistic possibility as other things did not. Combined with the fact that Oxford had never had one, and that I had grown up in this family that had always talked about why there was not a bookstore here.
40 JF: Are you saying that in this way, the store was a product ofyour family?
RH: It was a product of my family. Also a product of the town. And there was dinner
table conversation about why there wasn’t a bookstore in the home of William Faulkner,
the home of a major university. Though I knew why there wasn’t a bookstore, the place
was so small. All those things kinda working at the same time gave me the idea that it
would work. So Lisa and I deliberately, after she finished graduate school, went to
Washington to work in the Savile Bookshop to gain practical experience and to see
whether it was something we thought we could do. And if so, how.
JF: You mentioned table conversation. Do you think at that time it went beyond your family? Were other people askingfor a bookstore? Was it really an interest?
RH: Not really, maybe one or two. Maybe a few people, occasionally.
JF: Where would you go to buy books?
RH: There was nowhere. The university bookstore at that time sold only textbooks.
They had about two shelves of books for general interest reading that were not required
reading. And in fact it was there when I was about 19 or 20 when I first found The
Moviegoer.
41 JF: Would you say the culture has changed?
RH: The culture has totally changed. Even at that time in Memphis. The main
bookstore in Memphis was a little place in Poplar Plaza called the Bookshelf and it was
about as big as this office, maybe twice as big. They also sold a lot of stationery, and
things like that. But they were the only place one could go to find Modem Library
editions, or poems by W. H. Auden, or whatever. You could find some books there. The
University of Memphis had a bookstore that was called the Blue and Grey, but it was sort
of like the Ole Miss bookstore, though they had a broader selection of general interest
books, and a lot of reference books. I can remember buying books there when there was
no other place.
JF: Would you say that reading culture has expanded in a lot of ways? Oxford wasn V
necessarily left out. Booksjust were not an economic thing at that time?
RH: Right. Not just in Oxford, but across the nation there just wasn’t a bookstore
culture. There were some great stores like Brentano’s in Chicago, and the Savile
Bookshop in Washington. But it was really the roll out of the mall stores, Waldenbooks
46 chiefly. When the Southaven mall opened it had a Waldenbooks, and that was
happening all across the nation; malls developing Waldenbooks. In fact I can remember
when I first opened Square Books, it was not unusual for a person to come into the store
and they’d walk in, walk up those stairs, and they’d look around and they would say, “Is
46 The Waldenbooks chain developed out of a bookstore opened in 1933 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Waldenbooks continues to be America’s largest mall-based bookstore. It is now allied with Borders under the Borders Group conglomerate.
42 this a Waldenbooks or what?” So the whole idea of an independent bookstore of any
kind, nobody had ever seen that.
JF: Even in ’79, ’80?
RH: Yeah. When I first opened, as I said, people would walk in and say, “Is this
Waldenbooks or what?” And I’d say,“No, this is my bookstore. And they’d say, “You
mean it’s just your bookstore?
So the idea that a person could, one’s self, open up a bookstore, was just alien to a
lot of people. In fact, the way I understand it is the way John Evans opened Lemuria was
there was no place in Jackson to buy regular books. He had gotten some Hemingway
books, maybe tlirough Book of the Month club or something. And he thought,“You
know this is ridiculous that I can’t buy Ernest Hemingway’s books in Jackson, the largest city in Mississippi.” So he pulled one of the Hemingway books off his shelf, looked on the title page or the jacket flap, got the address of Charles Scribner’s Sons, handwrote a
letter, you know,“Dear Sirs, is there a way that I could buy the books your company
publishes and sell them in a retail store in Jackson, Mississippi?” And that was how he
47 got started.
JF: What elements do you think make Square Books a success? How much do you think Faulkner and his residualfame had to do with it?
47 Lemuria, Mississippi’s other large independent bookstore opened in Jackson in 1975 and is named after the mythical creators of books.
43 RH: Well, obviously that had a lot to do with it—certainly in terms of people from the outside coming in.
JF: From the beginning did you specialize in Faulkner?
RH: Oh, absolutely. I had every single book by Faulkner. In fact, when I first opened.
most of Faulkner’s books were still available in hardcover editions. Not first printings.
but in the original editions,jackets and everything, in which they had been published.
And in fact, some of them were still available as first editions. Flags in the Dust for
instance.48
But a lot of the store’s success had to do with the basis of support of the
community. This is another thing that reverts back to those family dinner table
conversations. Because of the struggle that Oxford as a community went through—the
generations of economic struggles, and also, quite specifically, the troubles over
desegregation when James Meredith enrolled in the University—that stigmatized the
community and made it a place from the perception of people from the outside of
ignorance, bigotry, and hatred, my family for generations had been invested in making it
something other than that. I knew that the bookstore would function as a source within
the community. People within the community who felt the same way that I did about the
community would know that it was a positive sign of cultural life and economic life. I
knew that they would respond to supporting the store out of the same spirit that I had in
opening it. I knew that there would be support that would be greater than, “I’m going to
48 Square Books continues to provide customers with every Faulkner novel or collection in print. They also shelf dozens of critical publications, both domestic and foreign. Altogether, the Faulkner related material takes up as much shelf space as some entire genres.
44 come to the bookstore to buy a book I want to read.” It would be,“I’m going to go patronize that business, because I know that its presence is a good thing in this community.”
JF: You mentioned the University. I wanted to ask what role the University itself played, and authors that were a part ofthe University. For example, it seemed timely
that Willie Morris and Barry’ Hannah came to Ole Miss at nearly the same time you were
opening your store. In what ways did that coincidence help your store grow?
RH: Well, first of all, the University never did—though later in some years in indirect
ways—institutionally support the store. What the university did was place a population
of students and faculty that read and liked to have books. But, at the time that we
opened, there were no writers here. Though signings and reading and that sort of stuff,
were a part of our promotional emphasis from the very beginning. The first month we
were open, Ellen Douglas came and signed her new book. The Rock Cried Out.
JF: Willie Morris came to Oxford in 1980, the yearfollowing the opening ofSquare
Books. What benefit did Willie Morris bring to the store?
RH: He brought an enormous amount of benefit. Another thing I should mention was
that the Center for the Study of Southern Culture was opening at the same time that we
were. I think Bill Ferris had already been hired and was on board. But that was getting
started at the same time as the bookstore was, and Bill and I formed an immediate
45 friendship and partnership. Dean and Larry Wells had befnended Willie at some point and they worked to encourage the University, and I think they actually helped in a fund raising effort to raise money to subsidize Willie’s salary as a visiting writer. That was how Willie Morris got here. And from the very beginning, he was extremely helpful to the bookstore. I remember first meeting him and he said “I’m going to bring all my buddies down here and we’re going to do signings at the bookstore, and I’m going to write books, and this is going to be great.
The bookstore in those early years, it just developed, you know, very quickly like that. The whole manner in which I was desperate to reach out to somebody like Willie, those partnerships were so obvious, and he to us, too. We were promoting writers who were from here, writers who were from Mississippi. We had a section of Mississippi writers from the very beginning. That was a place tliat a lot of writers who were from
Mississippi could latch on to as home. But Willie did bring so many of his friends—
Peter Matthiesson, James Dickey, John Knowles, Shelby Foote—who came to the community, did a lecture on campus, did a book signing at the store. Everything was going great guns at that point.
JF: Do you think Barry Hannah, who moved to Oxford in 1982, and other writers that
have come after him have had the same influence?
RH: Totally, though Barry’s influence was completely different. And I’ve said this
before, you know, that the combination of Willie and Barry at the same time was one of
the things that made it so rich and dynamic here. They were totally different kinds of
46 writers. Willie was primarily non-fiction, Barry, fiction. Willie operated in this vein of journalism about the South that explained the South, defended the South, promoted the
South, understood the South, you know, all at the same time. While Barry was completely, he wasn’t the opposite, but he was also operating in his own quirky sort of
Southern vein. He was very deliberately not being self-conscious about it.
They were both big drinkers in those days, and it was not unusual for them to get in an argument, and they actually got in fights. Literal fights. If you talk to David
Sansing, he’ll tell you a story about sometime Willie called him in the middle of the night crying over the phone because he and Barry had gotten in a tussle in Willie’s backyard and had rolled all the way down the hill in the leaves and Willie had lost his glasses and he couldn’t find his glasses and he wanted David to come over there and help him find his glasses. You know there was a lot of wildness and craziness and fun attached to all that.
I’ve said before, going back to Faulkner, one of the things that Faulkner did for this community, because he was seen as “Count No Count” when he was writing his greatest work and he was at the height of his artistic powers he was known in the community as just a rascal and a good-for-nothing because a lot of those books were not being published or not being understood yet. By 1945, all of his books, all of his greatest books were out of print, even though they had gotten good critical reviews. So the community could say, he just wrote these dirty books.
But then when he won the Nobel Prize, and his career was resurrected, all his stuff came back into print and he became part of the academic canon and everything else. and the town wanted to put up a water tower that said, “Welcome to Oxford, Home of
47 William Faulkner.” Of course he wouldn’t let them do it. But because the town had experienced that same stigma of being kind of backwards, in a similar way to the whole
Meredith thing, it, because of that, ever after, strove to overcome that. And so. consequently, when Willie and Barry got here, with all their misbehavior and everything. there was a great level of tolerance for them as artists, writers, or drinkers, or what-have- you because of the community’s experience with Faulkner. I think.
JF: Sounds reasonable.
RH: Yeah. So everybody got away with a lot in those days. The sort of behavior that somehow, wouldn’t, you know, I don’t know, maybe it would. Of course Evans
Harrington, who is still at that time chairman of the English Department, he was a great friend and defender of Barry’s. Barry, he didn’t have the connections in the publishing and literary world the way that Willie did. Because of Willie’s tenure at Harper 5, he knew Walker Percy, and David Halberstam, and all. He had published those people, he worked with those people, he partied with them, he was at all the Paris Review parties,
Plimpton was his pal. He brought those connections through here. And of course Willie knew the same way that I did that no self-respecting writer can live his whole life without visiting Yoknapatawpha. Again, Faulkner had created, because of the mythology of his fiction itself, it created a place that people wanted to touch at some point.
JF: So would you say that you have a relationship between the school and the
bookstore? Does one benefit morefrom the other? Richard Ford was a recent example.
48 The English department hosted him as part ofan academic program, while on the same day the bookstore also held a signing eventfor him.
RH: Yeah, that kind of got institutionalized through John Grisham. I don’t think it’s
written down in a contract anywhere, but I think there was an understanding that that was
how that would work. Other than that, the University’s bringing writers into the community other than what Willie did, and their also coming to the bookstore, those were
not so much institutional connections as they were personal connections. Again,
institutionally, there is no relationship between the University and the bookstore. Just as
I hope I’ve always offered the bookstore to the community in general, including the
University, as a way of enhancing cultural life, I hope that the University feels that it
benefits from whatever cultural dynamic the bookstore offers for the community. But,
institutionally, frankly, it’s problematic.
JF: In what ways?
RH: Well, there are inevitably lawyers and bean counters that see it as a messy
relationship. And everything the University does in terms of where money is involved
should take place on the campus. And no business in the area should really be profiting
in a direct way from something the University is sponsoring in some way. I’ve never
really sort of gotten this out and flogged the subject with the Chancellor or anybody else,
but it’s true. It was specifically problematic, when the University lured Barnes and Noble
to operate the University bookstore. That’s another story.
49 I’ve tried to always, primarily through the English department, develop a relationship where if we have a writer that is coming to the store, that they, if they want,
Joe Urgo and Dan Williams before him, the writer to come to any class that they have, that I would work with the publishing company to get that right to place that author on campus. Not to sell books, but to visit with the students and talk to the students. They’ve done it some, but not that much. When I think of the number of writers that have been by our store over the last twenty five years, there have been a lot of misses there and there is something about the University as a corporation that doesn’t go beyond the boundaries of the campus and I suppose something about my business that can’t penetrate the boundaries of the campus. So there is a. I’ve never really even spoken about this to anybody, but there is tension in that relationship such as it is. I think I would be better off saying th s not a relationship.
JF: What about the book conference? I know it is something that is sponsored by many people, though Square Books has a sponsor's interest in it as well. I believe it is mostly run out ofthe Centerfor the Study ofSouthern Culture. I know you make some salesfrom it, as well as generate goodwill, but like Isaid you do have an interest in the conference.
RH: I can assure you that the sales that we generate from the book conference have never offset the expense of our involvement in trying to make it happen. That said, you’ve got to tear down these particulars and look at what’s good for the whole. The way the book conference got started was through my involvement in the book business and
50 going to so many conferences and conventions where I would see editors and agents and publishers talk about how they did a book. That was information that was going on at a private level that 1 thought, you know, the public ought to be exposed to more of these kinds of conversations.
There was that idea, along with the idea of the Faulkner Conference, which had been going on for years and so many people who said to me,“I love Oxford, I love the bookstore, I love coming here. I’d love to come to that Faulkner Conference, but 1 don’t
want to do a whole week on Faulkner.” So I knew that there was a desire, a market or
whatever, for a different kind of conference. Ann Abadie and I have always been very close, and people at the Center and I have always been very close. Both of those conferences have succeeded through her extraordinary efforts.
So I suggested this thing to i:or. Then about four or five ye.'?.rs later she said to
me. 'Now what were you saying about this book conference? Why don’t we try this?”
And so we did it, and it’s really been something. But that is very much an
institutionalized partnership between the bookstore and the University. Which has had its
problems because there are a lot of people affiliated with the University that see it as an improper partnership. And in particular there are a lot of professors who want to have
more say into what goes into the conference and what it’s about and what its mission is
and all that sort of stuff. Which we hashed out a few years ago and tried to redefine to
give it more of an academic emphasis and a Southern emphasis. Prior to that it really
didn’t have anything, it was just kind of a grab bag of stuff But I knew that if there was
some sort of focused activity that I could harness our resources in attracting authors to the
store, or to the community, and try to get several at the same time. Possibly those whose
51 books have some academic kinship in some way so that we could put together this
conference. It is what it is. It’s evolved, it’s been the same sort of indefinable event
every year. But 1 think it’s worthwhile academically and certainly for the community.
And it’s a way of saying to the outside world that we do something special here, both the
university and the city that makes us unique.
JF: You know, I ve identified three, or maybe a triangle ofinfluences. You \e got the
city and its culture. Square Books and its economic or business influence, and the school
and its academics. One ofthe things Ifind interesting is to look at how those things go
together and influence an apparently cohesive culture. lam surprised to hear you say
that the store and the school are separate and distinct. Though, like you said, the book
conference is one area w'ncre they appear to work together. Tofollow, I wanted to ask you about how your relationship with the store has changed as you have moved out ofthe store into a political or municipal position as Mayor.
RH: My involvement with the bookstore has been extremely limited since I took
office. Basically, I get monthly financial reports and occasional emails fi-om the manager
about what’s going on over there. Then I’m like, otherwise, a regular customer. I get the
newsletter and I go over there and I see what’s new every once in a while and I now go over there for my coffee every morning. But the first year I was in city hall, I didn’t go over there because I knew if people saw me there they would say, “he’s working in the bookstore” or whatever. So I just deliberately wasn’t in there. I’ve very clearly cut off
my ties to the bookstore. It’s operating almost as if it were in a blind trust.
52 JF: Well has it given you a different perspective on the bookstore?
RH: Not really because I’m still so tied up in what it is and what it does. Maybe if I
were working in the tourism office I would see more, but essentially in this office I have
no interaction with the bookstore. In so far as my relationship with the University, as
Mayor, and how that might affect the bookstore, again. I’m determined to do this job
well, and that requires that I act like a good mayor. You know, part of what I have to do is have a good relationship with the University and the Chancellor and cooperate with them. The University and the city of Oxford are joined at the hip. But again the bookstore is very much not in the scope of that relationship. It’s no problem. Now if the bookstore stans falling apart and going to pieces, and management walks out. you know.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
JF: Do you stillfeel like it s your baby and now it jjust in somebody else 5 hands?
RH: Yeah, pretty much. The people, or at least the senior people connected to the store are people that I’ve worked with for a long time, and trust. They stepped up to the challenge and are managing well without me. I’m sure there are a lot of things they’re not telling me about. But I don’t feel any irresistible urge to go over there and tell them what to do, and straighten the books, and get my hands in it. Though, I miss that. Yeah I miss it greatly. And the thing I miss most is that for 25 years, because I’ve always been engaged in the buying of the books that are in our inventory. I’ve had this great,
53 unbelievable privilege of being exposed to so much information and literature that Avas simply a by-product of that life. That’s what I miss.
JF: Do you lookfonvard to being a part ofit again?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
JF: Do you definitely see yourselfreassuming that position at the store?
RH: Well not necessarily. The truth is that part of the reason I wound up in this job had to do with my years of involvement with the American Bookseller’s Association.
1 he i isi two years were as President and Chairman of the Board and that took a lot of my time and took me out of the bookstore physically. That was how I began delegating more and more of the management of the store to other people. I was kind of enjoying finding that I was able to create this distance and I realized that after I got through with my ABA job I was going to have more time. I sort of made myself, not a promise, but I kind of convinced myself that I could do something different with that time—that I could use it creatively, innovatively, either with the business or maybe get back to this business of writing that I had always told myself I was going to try at some point.
One of the things I’ve learned—this is advice for you, okay—is that if I had actually started writing when I was thinking about it, no matter how poorly I had done it, and continued to try to do it and worked at it really hard, I think I could have done well doing that. It might have taken me a long time because I’m sort of a slow learner, but
54 I’m a hard worker. And I think if I had applied myself to writing in the same way that I did to my business that, I don’t know that I would have been the Square Books of the writing world. I’m not saying that, but I think I would have gone and found a level of success that was satisfactory to me. So now if I go off and try to \\aite a novel or a story or whatever that I’m going to have to teach myself to write in the same way I had to teach
myself to run a bookstore. It takes time.
JF: During your tenure at the ABA, did you meet and work with a lot ofpeople who
were interested in beginning bookstores oftheir own as you have done?
RH: Right, and I think there always have been those people. I rather believe that there
always will be. Because I lihnk, ultimately, I think a bookstore is a, and particularly an
independent bookstore, is a thing that should exist in the same way that I think a book
should exist. I know that’s a mouthful. I mean not quite the same way, but I think the
experience of going into a physical place where you are among books and you have the
opportunity to for some amount of money make one your own is sort of a necessary
experience for any true civilized society.
JF: Well that question was a little out ofplace. To return, and Iguess this will be my
last question. Maybe a tough one, maybe not. What do you think it says about the town,
about Oxford, that they would elect a bookseller to be a mayor? Or Iguess you might
say that had nothing to do with it.
55 RH: Well first of all, I don’t think it’s very remarkable for one thing. I think there are
a whole lot of other things going on. Mostly having to do with, by virtue of the fact that
the bookstore is a place that a lot of people in the community come to and that I know
them on a personal level.
JF: So in that case it's no different than electing any other town or local business
owner? Is there any significance?
RH: I don’t really think so. I think people understand that my business has been in the
middle of things that are going on in Oxford for a while now. And understand that
therefore I am kind of in the middle of it and therefore I know some about what s going
on in the town. No, it probably reverts back to tl\e Faulkner thing that they can loLrate
someone such as a bookseller in the office of Mayor.
56
^ r'
Chapter Five
44 Football, Faulkner, and Friends99 An Interview with Barry Hannah
When Barry Hannah speaks, it is with a voice much larger than his average-sized
frame. The commanding nature of his abrupt cadence reminds me of his written word:
succinct, yet powerful. This in itself is convincing proof that Hannah is distinct among
things literary. Behind this voice, cast in gravel by years of cigarettes, is a supple mind at
●vvoik- ;i discriminating arbiter of mai ;v.J id’s lusts and failures, and bis redeeming sense
of hope and faith.
Hannah was bom in 1942 in Meridian, Mississippi. While still a child, his family
moved to Clinton,just west of Jackson, the state capitol. There, Hannah spent his
childhood and adolescent years as an ordinary Mississippi youth. He grew up attending
the Baptist Church with his family, was in the marching band at Clinton High, and
afterward enrolled at Mississippi College, in Clinton. As a student his interests were
always in literature and writing. Hannah attributes his appreciation for storytelling and
49 language to his parents. He began writing as a child and recalls an elementary teacher
50 who allowed him to turn in short stories instead of the intended assignment. He
continued writing stories through college and, after graduating in 1964, attended the
49 Bariy Hannah, “Why I Write,” The Oxford American, volume 50 # 20 (1997), 12. John Griffin Jones, Mississippi Writers Talking: Volume I (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1982), 133.
57 University of Arkansas to pursue a further degree in creative writing. Hannah received his Master’s degree in 1966 and his Master’s of Fine Arts the following year. Upon leaving Fayetteville, Hannah took a job as writer-in-residence at Clemson University.
There he began his storied and award-filled career as a writer-in-residence at colleges and universities across the country.
Hannah’s life as an author began rather successfully at Clemson. Geronimo Rex, his first novel, was published in 1972 to immediate acclaim. Some reviewers considered
51 Hannah’s debut among the best first novels by any author, This bildungsroman, based upon his own coming-of-age in Clinton, received both the William Faulkner Prize, as well as a nomination for the National Book Award. It also garnered for Hannah the
Bellaman Foundation Award in Fiction, and a Bread Loaf Fellowship for Writing. In
1974, Hannah left Clemson for a year-long residency at Middicbury College in Vermont.
Next he returned south to teach at the University of Alabama where he remained until
1979. While in Tuscaloosa, the 1978 publication of Airships placed Hannah firmly among a new generation of Southern authors. This collection of short stories emphasized
Hannah’s unique talent and was praised as a contemporary classic. It received an Award
for Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and was the
52 first winner of the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award.
In 1980, the publication of Hannah’s novella Ray prompted Larry McMurtry to
53 call Hannah “the best fiction-writer to appear in the South since Flannery O’Connor”.
Ray impressed its readers with a fresh and witty approach that demonstrated a thorough
grasp of both language and humanity. Matthew Guinn, in his recent book about
Mark .1 Chamey, Barry Hannah. (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992), 3. S2 Charney, 23. 53 Barry Hannah, The Tennis Handsome.(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983),jacket.
58 contemporary southern fiction, suggests that with Ray\ Hannah brought southern fiction
54 into a postmodern era.' After a year writing movie scripts in Hollywood, and one year as a writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa, Hannah was invited to teach at Ole
Miss by Evans Harrington.
Barry Hannah’s arrival at the University of Mississippi in 1982 has proven to be significant homecoming of sorts. In spite of his last decade of successful publications, the years had been tainted by personal struggles and divorce. In Oxford, the wnter- friendly community embraced and accepted Hannah, in spite of his eccentricies. He also gained valuable friendships with people such as Willie Morris and Richard Howorth of
Square Books. In twenty-plus years living in Oxford, Hannah has remained, survived cancer, quit drinking and rediscovered religion in addition to publishing five novels and three short-story colioctions, the latest of which, Lonesome^ was nominated ror the
Pulitzer Prize.
While teaching had often come out of necessity to supplement his wnting career, at Ole Miss, Hannah matured into a skilled writing instructor. He has taught numerous aspiring writers who have gone on to successful literary careers, including Oxford residents Larry Brown and Jere Hoar. Jamie Komegay, a bookseller at Square Books and producer of Thacker Mountain Radio, is another recent student of Hannah’s. He believes
Hannah’s instruction is invaluable to any aspiring writer. To Komegay, and numerous others, Hannah has been a helpful teacher and mentor. His demanding tutelage has taught writers to hone their craft to its essential elements, while always respecting the
54 Matthew Guinn, After Southern Modernism: Fiction ofthe Contemporary South. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), xvii.
59 55 reader.' In 2002, Hannah became the director of Ole Miss’s MFA program in creative writing, newly fonned with financial support from John Grisham. In this position,
Hannah has attracted gifted students as well as talented faculty, such as Tom Franklin.
The future of creative writing at Ole Miss is surely promising with Hannah at the helm.
While William Faulkner is Oxford’s most celebrated resident author, Barry
Hannah now carries the torch for contemporary Oxford writers. His publishing has slowed as he has focused more of his energy on teaching, but his reputation has not decreased. Hannah received the 2003 PEN/Malamud Award, honoring his contributions to the art of the short story, even without a published collection in seven years. Without ever producing a bestseller, he has retained an enthusiastic following from wnters and serious readers of fiction. William Styron once wrote of Hannah,“An original, and one .,56 ot the most consistently exciting wiiters of the post-Faulkner generaticn.
I met Barry Hannah in his office on the campus of Ole Miss. There, he graciously entertained my questions about his many years teaching and wilting in Oxford. I wanted to know why he had settled in Oxford and remained at Ole Miss far longer than at any of his other teaching positions. I also wondered why he thought so many wnters seemed to find their way here. Does Faulkner have that much gravitational pull? What other elements might lead writers to Oxford? Through my interview I learned a great deal about Hannah and his dynamic relationship with the place he now calls “home.
Kornegay. William Styron,‘The Author of Sophie’s Choice Picks Five Great Contemporary Novels”, Salon.com, (http://archive.salon.com/books/ba‘^/1999/10/25/styron/) 25 October 1999.
60 17 March 2004
JF: You once remarked in 1980, afterfinishing afive-year position as writer-in-
57 What was it that residence at Alabama, that you were glad to be no longer teaching,
made you come back and what has kept you teaching so long?
BH: Well, to be frank, I did enjoy my vacation from teaching. But I have just simply
never sold enough books. I always needed something else. Iowa invited me, and it s
about one of the best programs, and I taught in the fall of’81. I returned to teaching after
working out in Hollywood about a year and half, yeah. So I, I discovered also, when I
went to the University of Montana, I had a home in Oxford, teaching is worthwhile. I
wasn’t convinced that I could licip people, until I got a bit older—especially in niv 40s.
And I could see that they were writing novels, and that they had remained my friends,
and that indeed I had helped create—helped some young people with their gifts. They
have to be gifted of course before I could really be of assistance. But then I just saw as I
got old enough, and I saw this beautiful man, Richard Hugo, a poet and teacher at the
University of Montana, and I saw that you could do both well and with pride. So since
about 1982 I kind of had that conversion.
I came back. The problem when I got to Ole Miss was there was hardly anybody
to teach. They had a hard time making up classes of creative writing. You know, I mean,
and then the town’s people and the bookstore especially, the Hoka Theater that used to be
there. Oxford used to be much more bohemian. There were more hippies. This is a very
conservative age now. Part of my heart is a little bit broken because of the roar Oxford I
John Griffin Jones, Mississippi Writers Talking (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1982), 136.
61 knew in ’82 when I came here in a big snow and five below temperatures. It was ironic. I had just left Iowa, which is the coldest place on earth. But, that was my introduction to
Mississippi. And I started kind of feeling my roots, cause I am from Clinton. And the people were so generous. You could have a good life here for not much money, then.
But without that bookstore, Richard and Lisa Howorth, Ron Shapiro at the Hoka, Willie
Morris, and his evening sessions till four and five a.m., and I started getting into the scene. Football games: we all sat together in the south end zone. I really felt I was at home finally. Really felt I was at home.
JF: Yeah?
BH: Yeali
JF: And do you think you really settled in here? This is the longest place you have ever stayed.
BH: Yes it is. Including Clinton.
JF: What do you enjoy most, being a writer or a teacher, which aspect? Do you think
you came home to Oxford to write in Oxford, or to live and teach, or is there a distinction for you?
BH: Well 1 have left out entirely the Faulkner milieu—the ambience that his ghost has
62 f ■'
left the place. I do get tired of people talking, talking, talking about Faulkner. Now there
are restaurants for god sake, the Mansion, the Hamlet, but I always thought his ghost was
congenial. It gives you a lot to shoot for. Because my favorite novel ever was vmtten
about three hundred yards down here at the physical plant when he was there, As I Lay
Dying. And so, I never felt - I don’t write anything like Faulkner. I was never under the
shadow of Faulkner. But I have felt assisted by his ghost and the high marks he left for
literature, literary achievement. But it was football, Faulkner and fiiends. That’s what
brought me here.
JF: About the teaching, and the creative writing program—you said there wasn t much
here to start with?
BH: That’s right. No. No.
JF: And how do you compare the students here to other students? How has the
program grown ^
BH: Oh, now we have an MFA program, a master of fine arts program, for three years
and we select only five. So we have choice students. Very high quality students, from
everywhere. But before that, I taught a 500-level course that had townspeople,
psychiatrists, engineers, along with some bright undergraduates and graduate students
and that was a good class. You heard a lot of points of view.
63 JF: There was one class that you published in 1990. Was that right?
BH: Right. The class was so good I felt that I got inspired. We put together
Fiction^ god, thirteen years ago, right. It was a good class, it really was.
JF: I know that was the one with Cynthia Shearer, and Larry Brown.
BH: Yeah. Right. I think Johnny Miles was in that one.
JF: Jere Hoar.
i'll: Jere Hoar. Yeah, riiiht.
JF: Now, how would you compare the current program to other writing programs? Is it
near the top? Or,for example, how does it compare to Arkansas when you were there?
BH: Yeah. Arkansas was, modeled itself, two fellows that taught me had been to Iowa
and modeled the program on Iowa. So, and Arkansas has become first-rate. We’re too.
well, since we’re so new, it’s hard to call us anything right now. I have implicit trust that
our students, who are already winning prizes and publishing, are going to bring national
acclaim to the place. It will be just as good as Iowa, a lot smaller, it’s just simply
smaller. I was thinking more on the model of Virginia, which admits only five, and thus
can have higher quality. John Grisham makes most of this happen by the way. He is our
64 angel. He gives money for two nice fellowships and the Barksdale trust gives a bonus teaching assistantship so that we can compete nationally.
JF: And the Grisham Writer in Residence?
BH: And the Grisham Writer in Residence is always of high quality. So, yes, I would, I
don’t want to be a chauvinist here, but, it, I couldn’t tell--I have taught at, you know, the
best, at Middlebury and Iowa, but my best students at Ole Miss are just as good. I mean
there’s no difference. There’s no difference. In fact, I like them better because they are
less predictable.
JF: Are yon sayiny there are different t\-pcs ofstudents?
BH: I meant at Harvard you would find a sort of uniformity of left liberal politics
are. usually. And the same thing at Middlebury College. That’s just tlie way they
They’ve been that way a long time. There’s no predicting the politics of an Ole Miss
graduate crowd, as opposed to an undergraduate. Now undergraduates are almost
universally conservative here. But you can’t predict the thoughts of graduate students at
Ole Miss. Politics are beside the point usually to a writer when he’s doing his job.
JF: Some have said that the program really benefitedfrom having the compliment ofyou
and Willie Morris here at the same time. Do you think that the combination oftw^o
different styles of writing was a beneficial thing?
65 BH: Oh I hope so. I hope so. Right. He was mainly a journalist, and yeah, I hope.
I’m almost sure that good things came. I am not beating my own drum, I don’t like to do that, but I’m here because I love Oxford. It has also been very good for my writing. I’ve produced. I’ve found a wife seventeen years ago, at the Hoka, which used to show movies and you could eat in the movie, it was beautiful—an old warehouse down there.
JF: Yeah, I'm sorn’ I missed that.
BH: Yeah, I’m sorry you missed it. It was quite an institution.
JF: Ih'u:! were some ofyour favorite n.euiories of working with Wdhc Morris? Or at least being in the same environment as he?
BH: I didn’t work with him. He, because he drew interesting people to him, and some of them very famous, William Styron, David Halberstam, Peter Matthiessen, he had been editor at Harper's at a very young age. I think around late 20’s, 30. So he brouglit a
New York crowd here to speak. George Plimpton, who has since died, with Peter
Matthiessen began The Paris Review. So we were pretty cosmopolitan, as far as writers presence here. And we benefited hugely by people wanting to come see Faulkner’s
place, which the University bought.
JF: That’s another question. You mentioned it earlier, and I hadfound something
66 similar to what you said. You said “the town is good because the mark[he left] is so high. ” You also said, “It s better tofail here trying big stuff' and that one has the ability’ to experiment with him having been here.^^ Have youfound this applicable to your own
writing?
BH: Certainly. Oh certainly. I see Faulkner as a man who freed up the mind. An
absolute genius who caught the actual tempo and pace of thinking. He has his
difficulties, but he was also just splendidly, brilliantly accurate about whatever he wrote
about. History, farm people, townspeople who were scoundrels, greedy, the gritty,
Snopes, Flem Snopes.
Do you think Fauikncr. and his influence is the bc.st aspect of Oxfordfor writers:
BH: No. I, there’s a difference. There’s not a single Faulknerian wnting, a grad student,
they appreciate him, but to imitate .. .
JF: Well. I don ’t mean to imitate.
BH: Right. I think he would have to help anybody who picked up the books and
treated them seriously. Yes. Yeah. If you imitate him though, it’s death. We don’t want
third-rate Faulkner.
JF: Another interesting thing I’ve picked up talking to some people about him is that
58 Rob Trucks, The Pleasure ofInfluence: Conversations with American Male Fiction Writers (West Lafayette, Indiana; Purdue University Press, 2002), 210.
67 it seems clear, being the kind ofperson he was, that he wouldn ’r be involved in this community of writers, or this community that we see now. Do you think that s an interesting idea?
BH: I think it’s only by accident that I’m involved in any community of writers. That’s just because people have found out Oxford is a good place and have moved here. And
interesting people have moved here. I didn’t know we’d ever have a master of fine arts.
Larry Brown and I are friends. Though we never meet and talk about writing. I mean.
writing is very solo, but it helps to be read. That’s what grad school is about. These
workshops where we read each other’s manuscripts. And with commentary. So it’s only
by accident. I wasn’t seeking a community of writers. A community of writers does not
appeal to me. Hut I dc> io ^ve students and just by my profession there has assembled
around me, and other writers, a community that supports writing. Also music and
paintings. Sometimes these things are left out. But there’s some very good music that
comes through Oxford. And we have, three or four, actually good restaurants, the art
gallery.
JF: Would you say it's a culture ofa liberal arts community?
BH: Yeah. You feel like you’re being - Everybody wants to be cheered or respected.
Everybody. You feel like people are on your side. Ok? It’s just a nice feeling. They
don’t bother you. They don’t want anything from you, the good ones. They don’t want
to get in your way. They leave you alone. And there’s an independence of spirit at
Oxford that I really admire, very much. There’s a rumor mill, as in all places. But
68 parlors to me.
JF: /’m asking you because I Jaiow you are often a critic ofculture in some ways.
BH: Yeah. I mean, 1 don’t want a boutique culture. And I don’t want little Aspen to
happen here where hamburgers are $10. There’s a good bit of me that’s still bohemian. I
miss the record shop that folded. I like stuff like record shops, bookstores, good
restaurants, good music. The rest seems to be satisfying sorority girls around the square.
Too much of that for me.
JF: Something Ifound similar to this, in RAY, a student reads a poem and Ray slugs
him arid he says, ‘'Southerners think they can writc'\^^ Is that kind ofwhat you re
getting at? Do you ever get that in your students that come to you and think they can
write?
BH: Yeah, southerners do assume that they are interesting. And that they can wnte.
And I still would mean what Ray did. I mean, he read an asinine poem by this person,
and he’s tired of this. It’s a kind of smugness when you think that you re talented
because you are southern. Southern is special in literature, which I find very bogus. You
know. Although I love the South, don’t get me wrong. Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana,
Mississippi, god, there are no better people in this nation.
JF: Well tofollow up, what do you see are the real and genuine benefits ofthis area?
61 Barry Hannah, RA Y (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 55.
70 iA BH: Right. Absolutely. Absolute love for folks. I haven’t had many occasions to ask for assistance. But say I ride my motorcycle around, or need something if my car broke down. In twenty-one years of, here going — Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia --1 have never had anything but a pleasant experience when I ask someone for help. Not
once. And especially in Mississippi. Faulkner even wrote about this. They can’t do
enough for you. You know, they almost kill you with kindness if you had a flat. You
know, so 1 can’t say enough for the goodness of people. And of course 1 love that and I
settle in with it very easily. You know, every part of the nation has its village feel. The
good places have a village feel, where you don’t have to explain everything. A lot of
commentary isn’t necessary because you are participating in the same environment and
the language is simitar h ween you.
Most of us have about three levels of diction in the south. And especially I ve
noticed with nurses. They can do redneck, they can do hill country, and they can do
proper English. And especially here in Oxford, you get the professors who are always
proper, and then the other people who are just looser with their language, and the real hill
dialect, which is Larry Brown, is yet a third. So even in a small Lafayette Coimty, it s
just more beautiful. Anyway, you’ve got three different languages there and we all know
how to speak to each other. In the sticks - I mean if you get caught in the sticks you
don’t want to be arrogant, you don’t want to be a snob. You know, it’ll kill you. And
you know how to talk as a person. So I like this informed culture.
JF: Yeah. I’ve thought about Oxford in some ways as a crossroads ofculture, where
71 you have, like you say, right outside oftown you 're in the hills. And you vegot this culture around the square, you’ve got your art galleries, you \e got the University, and the way they work together and cross each other they kind ofcreate this artistic emotion. perhaps.
BH: They do, along with the music. The music and the painting inform so many of us that are writers. We couldn’t have done without music through the years. You know.
And a lot of my friends are musicians. And my son is. Of course there’s a cross culture
here. It’s something that boosts you when you’re at your job in Oxford, and I just adore
it.
JF: So vc>ii } illy love it here?
BH: I love it here. I would have moved. I can make twice my salary at a number of
places. In fact I’m going away to Texas next year. But I must love it because I ve hung
in even though Mississippi doesn’t have much money. You know. Sure I love it. Yeah.
It gets slow and my life gets rutted and then I take a trip and I fly away and I m gone four
days and it is a beautiful feeling coming back. Even that thick humid air in the Memphis
airport, it just says “home.”
JF: / rememberflying into Atlanta oncefrom Washington D.C. and I could smell the
difference. So I know what you 're talking about.
BH: Yes. Right. The trees, the smog, even the jet exhaust, the humidity. And when
72 the plane comes in I look out the window and I see that road that I’m going to drive home on, my heart, something beautiful happens all over my body. I’m going to see my wife,
my dogs, and you know, I usually have a check with me. That’s nice for giving a
reading. It repeats. Oxford never gets old to come back to.
JF: So do you think you ’ll stay here as long as you can?
BH: I intend to. Yeah. They’ve actually spoiled me here. They treat me with great
respect. For god’s sake. I’m very humble about that. I don’t like prideflil, smug people,
but by god I will take respect. It helps you deal. People just trust you. They trust you
more i f you know they are going to tell you the straight skinny.
JF: Would you encourage other writers to come, ifsomeone was saying, Look I m
thinking about moving to Oxford"?
BH: I have done that on the phone. Telling them the benefits of being here. And many
of them go to come here when they could get more money at other Universities because
they, the Faulkner thing attracts them, the small program, and they want a deep south
experience, you know, if they’re from Wyoming. They just want a Deep South
experience. So it is a huge, huge, selling point.
JF: Have you convinced some to come?
12, BH: A couple, three, yes, I believe I have. Well, you know, let us not leave out the
money of John Grisham. 1 mean I am competing with people. Anna Baker was just right
in here. She is a fiction writer. She has the Grisham fellowship. She could have gone to
Michigan, Florida. They have to sort of want to come here anyway. But yeah I would
put a sales pitch on her. Say, you know,“It’s small, it’s good. Florida is enormous and
they don’t have seasons.”
JF: True. Well, thanks for your time todav.
BH: Sure.
74 kL. Chapter Six
Advancing Oxford’s Message An Interview with Ann J. Abadie
Since its inception in 1977, Ann Abadie has been a quiet voice behind the success
of the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture. From
serving as chair of the initial director search committee, to an associate editor for the
decade-long compilation of The Encyclopedia ofSouthern Culture, to organizing and
planning the c ;r’s many conferences, Abadic’s hand has constantly been on the pulse
of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Currently, she serves as the Center s
Associate Director where she helps manage its outreach publications and conferences, as
well as grant applications and proposals.
Abadie was bom in South Carolina, but as a young adult moved to North Carolina
and attended college at Wake Forest. There she was introduced to the fiction of William
in a literature class. Faulkner when she read The Sound and the Fury and As ILay Dying
Abadie has said that she was “so taken by William Faulkner” that she had to come to
62 Oxford. Her chance came when she received a National Defense Education Act
Fellowship to attend graduate school. She arrived at the University of Mississippi in
1960. While at Ole Miss, she met and married Dale Abadie, a doctoral student in British
history who had come to Oxford in 1962. When Ann finished her degree, the couple then
62 Arm J. Abadie, personal interview, Oxford, MS, 10 March 2004.
75 Yoknapatawpha County to a phone call he once received from Ann.^^ Oxford residents
and scholars such as Mayor Richard Howorth, Dr. Joe Urgo, current Chair of the
University of Mississippi English Department, and Jamie Komegay all point to Abadie as
someone who has made their jobs easier.
I met with Mrs. Abadie in Barnard Observatory, the home of the Center for the
Study of Southern Culture on the Campus of Old Miss. She is a kind and soft-spoken
woman who was enthusiastic about my interest in Oxford’s literary culture. Because it is
something that has meant a great deal to her in her lifetime, she welcomed the
opportunity to talk about her involvement with it. I entered the interview wanting to
know more about the history of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference and the
Oxford Conference for the Book. Additionally, from her I learned a great deal about the
role of the Center itself and its relationship with other facets ofthe Oxford and Univeiaitv
communities. Afterwards it was clear that through Ann Abadie, the Center made vital
contributions to the literary culture of Oxford.
Doyle, xiii.
77 kL 10 March 2004
JF: Thanks for letting me come and meet with you today. First off, tell me about the
Oxford Conferencefor the Book. I kfiowyou have been quite involved with it over the years. Whose idea was it to begin the conference?
AA: Well, it was Richard Howorth’s idea. He owned Square Books and had been going to all these booksellers’ meetings in the region and nationally, and he came to me and said, “You know booksellers go to these fabulous programs, and they hear all about
the book business and about reading. And they get to hear authors of various kinds, you
know, from fiction to poets to non-fiction,journalists, whatever.” And he said, I think
that gen 1 read would like to know this.’' But they can’t go to the booksellers
meetings because it’s a professional organization. So he said,“I always think it would be
nice if we could have something in Oxford that was like that.” Not like the usual literary
program or writers’ workshop, but something that would have writers and publishers and
editors and critics and librarians and teachers get together.
JF: Did he think that Oxford would be a good place to have something like that?
AA: Of course. Yes. You know we have people come here, and everybody comes
here to see Faulkner and that’s good, but we’re not just a one-author town. By then we
had Barry Hannah, and Willie Morris had been here and just on and on. We have, I don’t
know how many writers.
78 So, he suggested that and this was sometime in the, oh,’85, ’86, something like
that, and we were getting ready to move out of this building to have the restoration and
renovation done. And it was maddening. We were just finishing the Encyclopedia of
Southern Culture^ we were getting ready to move to three or four different places on the
campus. And so I said, “Richard, that’s a great idea, but let’s talk about it when the
building is done and we move back. So, here he came right afterwards. We moved
back in 1992 and we had the first one in ’93. So, he didn’t forget.
JF: Have you had one every year since then?
AA: We missed one year because we didn’t have enough money to put it on. So we
skipped one year. So we just number dncm, we don’t say the number annual because we
missed that year. For that first one, his wife Lisa suggested a painting by a folk artist
from Georgia, and I love it because it has books in it, it’s just great. Then over the years
we’ve just had different images. 1 love the drawing by William Stykes of the pig family
reading. So we find something every year. We had sort of a general program until
Eudora Welty had her 90*’" birthday. So we decided to dedicate the ’99 conference to
Eudora Welty. It was not the whole conference but we had someone talk about Welty
and her importance. For people outside of the academy, general talk about her
importance and influence. And then we had some people talk about knowing her.
But we thought that was a good idea to do that. She was Mississippi’s First Lady
of letters, and she was still alive. Then that was going to be that and we were going to go
back to our usual way of operation. Well, Willie Morris died the next year. We had used
79 k Mildred Wolfs painting of Eudora Welty that is in the National Gallery in Washington.
So we asked Mildred Wolf to do a painting of Willie Morris, and some people hate it because it doesn’t make him look as handsome as he was or pretty or something. But ifs based on a photograph, and it’s like that. He was, very different in the flesh and there was a big controversy over that. Then we decided there’s nothing wrong with this program so we decided we’d do Richard Wright. And so we dedicated the next conference to him, and then Tennessee Williams and then Stark Young, and everybody said, “Stark who?” Even people in Oxford didn’t know about Stark Young, which was exactly why we needed to do that.
JF: I don 't think / did until that conference.
AA: Well I didn’t know about Stark Young until I moved to Oxford in 1960. He died two years later, so I heard about him. But you know he’s not exactly on the front of
every textbook for high school students in American literature. But he was an important
person. Then this year. Walker Percy.
JF: How did you get involved in your current position with the Center and the literary
conferences?
AA: Well, at first I began to work part time as an editor for independent study
correspondence courses. Vasser Bishop was my boss, she is the aunt of Richard
Howorth, and all the Howorth boys. Dr. Webb, who was the chairman of the English
80 department, thought I was working over there doing conferences and so on—he didn’t know what I did. I was just really editing the correspondence courses. But he said, “I wish you’d help me out.” We had acquired Rowan Oak and people were coming.
Wanting tours, wanting talks, and so on. So Dr. Webb came to me and said,“I just really need to have something organized with tours and so on.” Well, I wasn’t doing things like that at all. But right after that Vasser Bishop, and Evans Hamngton and his wife went down to Jackson for a meeting of Friends of Mississippi ETV. We talked about this and planned the first Faulkner Conference riding in the car on the way down there and back.
That was February in 1974.
JF: Did you say you started the conference because there was such an interest in people comif'y the’ you thought you would do soineihing organized?
AA: Yeah, and we were just going to do it one time. So I came back and talked to
Gerald Walton, who was Liberal Arts Dean then. He taught in English and had known
Faulkner, and he thought it was a great idea. He was very encouraging, we never could
have done it without his interest too, and support. So and we had the conference. This
was in February when we were talking about it and somehow we managed to get the
conference together by August of that year. I got the visitor book at Rowan Oak and
went through it and read every address that I could, and made a list and sent out a
mailing. We also bought an ad in the New York Times Book Review. The ad was about
two inches wide and one inch high and we used one of the Faulkner Cofield portraits. It
said, you know,“Faulkner Conference,” and we put the telephone number and the phones
81 started ringing off the hook. People saw that, because it goes to a few million people you
know, and Faulkner interest was quite large. They wanted to come to the conference, but
then we got questions like, “Is it safe to go to Mississippi?'
JF: Really?
AA: You know, the people in New York, and California, and Japan and all it hadn t
been that long since James Meredith had entered the University and we’d had horrible
things happen in Oxford. That was ’62. This was ’74, and people were afraid. They
would have gone to deepest, darkest Africa first, some of them. And so we said, It s
fine, we’re civilized’’ and “it’s ok now” and “you’re not taking your life into your hands
when you come down.” So wo had that conference.
We just wanted to keep it small, you know, about one hundred and fifty people, the next week. We But so many people wanted to come that we repeated the program
had 300 people that year. Joseph Blotner had just published his two-volume biography of
Faulkner. So we invited him and Elizabeth Kerr, who had wntten Yoknapatawpha.
Faulkner's Little Postage Stamp ofNative Soil^ and Malcolm Cowley, because he had
edited The Portable Faulkner. So they stayed and we did the same program over. Then And we said, “Next people kept saying, “Well, what are you all going to do next year?
year? You know, we didn’t, this wasn’t meant to be an annual something. It was just a
time to bring people here to help Dr. Webb out. So we had a program the next year. And
then people said, “What are you doing next year?” And so, that was in 1974 and 75, and
here we are, the 31®^ year of the Faulkner Conference, it’s been annual. We haven t
82 sL missed a year.
JF: Has there always been that much interest in it?
AA: Well, yes. There has been that much interest, but some years we have more people than others. When we started having the Faulkner Conference we would talk
about Faulkner and take tours and have a picnic at Rowan Oak and so on. Then after a
while the University Press wanted us to publish tlie papers. Before when we published
them we didn’t want to put “Faulkner Conference I, II, HI, fV^” so we would sort of get a
theme from the papers that were given. But then we decided we d be really smart and
make a theme for the conference and have the papers about the theme. And so that s
what we have been Jvhng. Somciimes the themes arc great, sometimes they are pretty
academic. And the wonderful thing about the Faulkner Conference is that it s not like
going to the Modem Language Association meeting where you have people read their
papers to each other and you all fall asleep in the chairs. Not always, I m exaggerating of
course. But the conference has appealed to academics, and to just readers and lovers of
literature and Faulkner. But once or twice we’ve gotten pretty academic like the year we
did “Faulkner and Postmodernism”, You know, and then people said. Oh boy, I m not
. But we’ve managed to going back.” Because some people have come almost every year
keep it interesting.
Also this was one of the few literary conferences available to general readers.
There were always professional meetings like the Modem Language Association, the
Society for the Study of Southern Literature and these programs, but for the non-
83 academic person there really were not very many at that time. And now, there’s a book conference or literary festival going on everywhere. Every big place and little place in the world. Or at least in this country.
JF: Do you think that you all led the way in getting readers involved in these kinds of
things?
AA: Yes, that’s true we did.
JF: Especially with that and the other book conference.
AA: Right.
JF: Would you say about the significant rise in popularity you re talking about, that
these conferences led the way in pioneering that? Perhaps opening it up and saying you
don 7 have to be an academic to enjoy literature and authors and beyondjust daily
reading.
AA: Yes, you’re exactly right. That’s true.
JF: Ok. Another question about the conference I have is what has it brought to
Oxford. You said you came to Oxford because ofFaulkner, but do you notice that people
are coming to Oxfordfor other reasons now? Do you think it's opened up new
84 attractions?
AA: Yes, yes, there were people coming to Oxford, wanting to know about Faulkner
from, really going back to the ’50s. Just a few. But then after Faulkner’s death, more
and more people came. That’s why Dr. Webb said, “Please help!” So that led to the
conference. Then as 1 said Willie Morris and Barry Hannah came here to teach. And
other writers wanted to come because of Faulkner. They would come and they wouldn t
go home! They made this a home. Then the English Department really started
developing its creative writing program after—^well Willie Morris brought people in, but
Barry Hannah helped develop the writing programs that brought more wnters. And so
we have a lot of writers who want to live here. And then of course while the Faulkner
Conference w as important, the bookstore was also important. Squai'e Booics let people
buy books. When I first came to Oxford in 1960, the bookstore on campus was probably
about the size of this room. It was unbelievably bad.
JF: I’ve heard it was small, and that there were only afew shelves ofreading
literature.
AA: Yeah. Then if you went to town, what did you find? Rebel Press. Rebel Press
had Bibles and some Modem Library Books, but except for that you couldn t buy a book
m town. So when Richard Howorth started Square Books it made a big difference
because not only were there books available, but then he would bring wnters in and they
would read and it was really just a wonderful addition to the community. Now that had
85 JF: Has your role been primary in the Faulkner conference? You \e been here and
with it since the beginning.
AA: I worked as the coordinator for the conference for many years, but Fm not going
to be here forever. So it’s time for other people to do it. The English department is doing
it, which I advise and I help get the poster together and raise money for it. But the people
in the English department are doing it now so you have to pass on the torch. I care for it,
but Fm not primarily involved anymore.
JF: Is your role now more in the book conference?
AA: Oh yes. Yes it is.
JF: Was the book conference always such a collaboration ofefforts, or is that kind of
a practical thing?
AA: It started out when Richard Howorth came to me because he knew my interest in
the Faulkner Conference and my role there. And because I work for the Center, and he
knows that Fm a big book lover and reader. So it started out being a collaborative effort
and it’s been that all along. We charged a little fee at first, but we both wanted it to be
open without charge. The Faulkner Conference has a pretty hefty fee. So we’ve been
able to beg money from here and there. We get a little bit from the Arts Council, we get
87 ii some from Mississippi Humanities Council and occasionally, we have our second grant
now from the National Endowment for the Arts. We also have some private donors and
that’s a big help. And then we sell t-shirts and posters and you know whatever we can.
But people like to come. They like this conference.
JF: Do you think the hook conference has the same kind ofrole as the Faulkner
Conference has had in bringing people to see Oxford as more than just a Faulkner town?
AA: Yes, absolutely yes. I think we’ve really taught people that we are a many wnter
town. Based on Faulkner; we couldn’t have done it without him. We would still be
Water Valley or something. Of course we have the University and it makes a big
diiTcrcncc loo. But to involve the lown and eown in something so closely welded, I think
that’s good.
JF: Yeah, I noticed how many authors have come to the book conference over the
years. Do you get a lot ofrepeat authors? Do they really enjoy what s going on here?
Is it unique in any way? Or similar to other literary conferences?
AA: They do enjoy it. And, we’ve been so successful that the other people have things
like this. But if you go, say, to the Virginia Festival of Books, which started after ours or
the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, or the Texas, oh God forbid Texas to have
such a big book festival, there are mobs of people, hundreds of thousands of people go.
And we don’t want to do that. It’s small you know, we have two to three hundred people.
88 but we can have more for certain sessions. For instance this year we reserved the Ford
Center because of Mildred D. Taylor. Do you know about her?
JF: No, not really.
AA: She wrote Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Land.
She’s African American, and was bom in Jackson. And her father’s family had been
slaves in this state. And her mother’s family had been here a long time. And but when
she was young her parents moved to Toledo, Ohio, and she grew up there, but her family,
her big family was still from Mississippi so summers and holidays she would come back
to Mississippi and she heard her father tell stories and met her grandfather and uncles and
aimts and everybody toki her ahoui life in Mississippi and she was growing up during the
civil rights movement. And she saw all this going on and that inspired her to wnte her
books and I think they are all, or almost all of them are based in Mississippi. So I have
been trying to get her to come. She joined the Peace Corps for a while and then she got a
job in journalism and lives in Colorado now.
So I wrote her publisher and they said,“No Mildred Taylor never makes
appearances. She won’t come.” Well I got her address and wrote her. In fact she’s on
the center mailing list—that’s how I got it. I accidentally discovered it because you
know I don’t know all the thirty thousand names on the mailing list. But I found it and I
wrote her a letter and said, “Please come.” She wrote me back and sent two of her books
and a sweet letter but she just couldn’t. So I wrote her again and said, “Please don’t think
I am stalking you. Don’t have the police arrest me or an)diing, but you really need to
89 come to Mississippi and do this. And she said,“OK, I’m going to do it, but I have horrible stage fright.” That's why she doesn’t make presentations. She doesn’t like to do that. But she said,“My friends have said that I owe it to come back so I’m going to try to come.”
Ethel Young-Minor teaches African American literature and her specialty is
African American preaching. She is a preacher herself. So I talked to Ethel about this.
And she said, “Well look, we can help her overcome her stage fright and 111 talk to her and help.” So she’s coming. Each year the book conference works with the Junior
Auxiliary of Oxford, which does the young authors fair for fifth-graders every year.
They bring a children’s author or illustrator and have the person come to the book
conference, but also have them go to the school and meet with the fifth-graders. They ve
read the author's books :!!id the author talks to them and answers questions and it s just
wonderful to do that. The children also make their own books and put them on display at
the local library. So that’s what we’ve been doing for a few years. Well, Mildred Taylor
couldn’t see everybody that way, she’d just get to see a few of them so we re having this
year’s Friday program in the Ford Center for the Performing Arts. So all the fifth-graders
64 in the county will be there.
We have also worked with the state to let them know about it. And the Governor
has proclaimed April 2"^^ this year to be Mildred D. Taylor day in Mississippi. Someone
from his staff is going to come up and read a proclamation.
JF: I also wanted to ask about the Centerfor the Study ofSouthern Culture. What is
its role in the Oxford community? I know it promotes the study ofSouthern culture, do
64 C-SPAN School Bus attended this event on April 2, 2004.
90 you think it also promotes southern w riting and storytelling? And what element does
literature play in Southern culture?
AA: Well, it’s central, I think. And to go back to the Faulkner Conference for just a
minute, the Center really sort of evolved from the success of the Faulkner Conference.
Bob Haws teaches in the History Department and Michael Harrington teaches in
Philosophy, and they were talking and went to tlie Vice-Chancellor who was Arthur
DeRosier, an American historian who was here then. They went to him and said. You we know, so many people on this campus are interested in studying the South, why don t
put it together and look at the South as a region from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Not just people in literature talking to each other, or historians talking to each other and
so on. Whai did Art DeRosier do? He said."Ifs a great idea. Let’s appoint a
committee.” And I was one of the people on that committee. And we met, and met, and
met.
We would meet and the first time we met we had forty things to do. The next
time we met we had a hundred things to do. And we just kept going like that. And about
the time we were doing these endless meetings and getting nowhere except having a good
time and thinking of things to do, the National Endowment for the Humanities started its
consultant program. They would bring somebody to various areas to see how you might
organize what you were planning—because sometimes it’s a good idea to have someone
from the outside. But all those professors had too much to do on the committee. And so
somehow everybody looked to me and said,“Why don’t you write this proposal? I had
never written a grant proposal in my life. But I wrote it and The National Endowment for
91 the Humanities gave us nearly four thousand dollars and brought Richard H. Brown, an
American historian who had been educated at Yale and would eventually become academic Vice-President of the Newberry Library in Chicago. NEH asked him to be our
consultant and he came down here four times and talked to us and helped us get things
organized and figure out what we should do and how we should do it and so on.
JF: Wasn V the Encyclopedia one ofthe first goals or projects ofthe Center? Is that
kind ofan expanded mission statement?
AA: It was not part of the planning, but one of the things that Dick Brown said right
away is that we needed to get a director because we had so much potential and so many
thi going on. And so I ciiaired a search committee to find a full-time director thinking
that I would then just go back to working the Faulkner Conference and doing my editing
that I was doing. We brought a lot of people in, and hired Bill Ferris to be the first
director. He was at Yale then and one of his friends had done an encyclopedia ofthe
American West. So that was his idea that we needed to do an encyclopedia of Southern
culture. It was a wonderful idea because people in history, and political science and
literature and all know the bibliography in their field, but if you’re going to be teaching
across disciplines you need something that will help you. And so that was one of the
objectives of the Encyclopedia. Another was to have a book that brings together all the
scholarship and interest in the region. And so we got the money to do that.
JF: / think the center is definitely part ofthe literary culture ofOxford. Obviously
92 with the hook conferences and the Faulkner Conference it has been a significant player. would you agree?
AA: Yes, absolutely, and not only with those but with the annual history symposium on Southern history, and now starting this new academic field, the study offoodways.
And we’ve been leading the way there. So yes.
JF: It 5 really a unique thing. It s hard to really define exactly what you do.
AA: Well in a way it’s sort of like an American studies program focusing on a region, but it’s livelier than a lot of American studies programs, because we are really interested in not just staying in ib.e ^;cademic tower, but getting out and involving people.
JF: How would you describe the Center’s relationship with the town?
AA: I think things like this do bring the town and gown together. So I think that’s important, so that I think the people in town who have not had a University affiliation feel much more comfortable about the University. And the University is more inclined to think more about the people in the town and the county community too.
JF: So in a way you have a little bit ofan outreach mission.
Au\: Yeah, exactly. It sort of works that way, I don’t know that we set about to do that.
93 but it happened. And then another collaboration that came out of this was with music.
Caroline Herring, from Canton, was one of our Southern Studies students. She’s also a
very fine musician and singer. So Caroline said it’d be really great if we could have a
music program and a radio show. She went to Richard and asked him about starting it
and he wasn't sure about it, but she started it anyway in a bar up on the square. But
people in the bars were talking and not really paying attention to the music. Soon
Richard saw the value of it and that’s when they started what became Thacker Mountain.
It was a Southern Studies student and the staff at Square Books who started that. But it’s
a big effort to do something like that every week, and they were having some problems
with time and money. So the Center, because our student had been involved and other
students became involved and everybody loved going, and so we said,“OK, we 11 help
how we c So we helped form “Friends oTrhacker Mountain. So we do the
“Friend’s of Thacker Mountain” and we also write grants. We’ve gotten grants from the
Mississippi Arts Commission, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, Mississippi Humanities
Council, and now we have a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts this year.
It’s been so successful here that now it’s, this is the second or third year that it s been
statewide on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. We’ve had the program down at Millsaps
in Jackson, so we’re reaching out. Now we’re trying with this NEA grant to figure out
how to extend “Friends of Thacker Mountain” throughout the state and get sponsors so and it’s that we can keep it going. So, I think we have helped with Thacker Mountain,
been a good collaboration.
JF: / did want to ask you about the magazine that you did, “Reckon .
94 AA: Exactly, yes. So, maybe you’ll come edit it for us sometime and get it going.
JF: Well, maybe so.
AA: That would be good.
JF: Yeah, maybe so. But itjust wasn't going to work at that time?
AA: Well, I didn’t know you were going to talk about that, but I’ll tell you about it. If
you look at “Southern Living,” it’s nice, but there’s not much to read in there and on and
on. “The Oxford American” started but it just didn’t have the depth. I think it was kind
of quirky in a lot of wavs. .A.nd then there have been all kinds of Southern magazines
started. So I think there is a place for one, but it takes a lot of money and commitment to
do that.
JF: Well I apologize ifI made you uncomfortable.
AA: Oh, you don’t need to apologize. Well, Bill Ferris decided that that was not what
should be done, because the Chancellor said we shouldn’t be doing it. So it’s kind of, but
we had gotten a lot of money to start it and we had a lot of interest. But he said to shut it
down so, you know, you just have to keep doing your -1 couldn’t exactly go throw rotten
apples at the Lyceum. But I’m glad about your interest. And of course it really was a
great project and I really hope, I think there’s a place for it to be revived.
96 JF: Do you agree, and I think that you would, that Oxford has an identifiable literary culture and quality.
AA: Yes, yes, I agree with that.
JF: And what do you think is the most importantfactor? To me so many things run
together that it \s hard to really identifi’ one thing.
AA: Yeah, I think it is the interconnectedness. Just as I think the Center for the Study
of Southern Culture has been so affected because it doesn’t just get in one ditch. You
know, it really brings together, as I’ve said so many times, literature and history and
music and stc>ryicliing and politics and so on and it really looks at it as a whole. Now
there are a lot of pieces there, but it looks at it as a whole. And I think that that s what
makes this community so vibrant because there are the pieces and the wholes that work
together.
JF: Yeah, well do you think that it will stay alive? Or what do you see in thefuture of
Oxford?
AA: I do, I think it will. Now of course there is the problem of all the development.
Because people are wanting to get a piece of the pie. And it has changed the town.
Because people who live, certainly in “Old Oxford” as it is called, so many of them, you
know, have homes in Jackson or Boulder or Atlanta, and they come for the weekend and
97 they arc not here to be citizens during the week. But then they also add to the vitality of the community. It's just changed and so, you know, life is change, you know,so I think it’s going to be ok.
JF: Someone raised the point to me that he wondered if what Oxford is now was going to he a thing that stayed or ifsome day people are going to write about what it
was.
AA: Well I think that Oxford and the Faulkner Conference and the Book Conference
and the Foodways Symposium are going to remain. I think they will be here a long time.
JF: Well, I hope I get to come.
AA: I do too. I hope you are running it or helping. You know because you really have
to have a commitment and an interest and it takes people who care about it. And I think
there will be people like that. And you’re doing this. I’m so glad to see you interested.
JF: Well, it’s a pleasure. Thanks.
98 >W)5 education. In 1998, Franklin completed his formal writing development with a Master
of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arkansas. After graduating from Arkansas,
Tom began to teach at his alma mater, the University of South Alabama. Soon he was
named the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania. From there he went on to teach at Knox College in Galesburg, Dlinois,
where he remained until taking a position at the University of Mississippi in 2001.
In addition to the Grisham Writer-in-Residency, Tom Franklin has received
numerous other awards. Shortly after completing his degree at the University of
Arkansas, Franklin won the Writers at Work Literary Nonfiction Contest for 1998, and in
2001 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award. Following
his tenure as the Grisham resident writer, Franklin accepted the Tennessee Williams
Fellow ill ]● at the Universitv of the South for the 2002-2003 academic year.
During this time, Franklin commuted from Oxford to Sewanee while his wife, poet Beth
Ann Fennelly remained in Oxford as a visiting poet at the University of Mississippi.
Beth Ann, like her husband, is also considered an emerging literary talent. For her poetry
she has received a Pushcart Prize, a Breadloaf Fellowship, the Kenyon Review Prize, and
most notably a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, hi addition to
literary journals and anthologies, her poetry has appeared in her own collections Open
House (2001), and Tender Hooks (2004).
In the fall of 2003, the Franklins became permanent Oxford residents when the
Ole Miss English Department hired Beth Ann as an Assistant Professor of English and
Tom as a permanent writer-in-resident. With these additions. Ole Miss added two
signifieant talents to their pool of creative writing instmetors. Both the University and
Garreth Blackwell, “Writer in Residence Tom Franklin,” Southern Register, Summer 2002.
100 L the Franklins hope this new affiliation will continue for many years to come.
I met with Toni Franklin in his Oxford home, wanting to learn more about his experience as the Grisham Writer-in-Residence and what it has meant to his career.
Additionally, I knew Tom's perspective of Oxford as a non-Mississippian writer could speak for many others like him who develop preconceptions of the town. Finally, I wanted to know more about the reasons Tom and Beth Ann were so deliberate in their wish to remain and settle at Ole Miss. He gave generous answers to my questions about
why he and other writers appreciate Oxford as a town that is sympathetic and supportive
of their craft.
101 7 April 2004
JF: Thanksfor letting me do this. We 'll begin and I'll let you get back to work. One ofthe things 1 wanted to talk to you about today is your time here in Oxford and what it’s
meant to you as a writer. And, obviously, as someone who is not a native Mississippian
who has come and settled here. So to begin, you ve received many honors, the Edgar
Allen Poe Award, you ve been published in the Best Mystery Stories ofthe Century,
received a Guggenheim Fellow ship, and other writer-in-residence awards. How does the
John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence award you received in 2001 stack up or
compare to some of the other things you've received?
TF: That’s the best 1' x c ever gotten. 1 mean in tenns of prestige, the
Guggenheim is something everybody knows about, but in terms of the gift, the Grisham
Chair is the best thing I’ve ever gotten by a good stretch. You know, to live in that
house, to live in this town for a year. Sucked out of cold hard Illinois and brought down
to this beautiful place. It pays very well. It’s probably a record what it pays, and it was
more money than I had ever made before, for a year and just teaching one class a
semester. I had been, maybe because I was up in cold Illinois, frozen on this novel I was
trying to write. I could not get it to go anywhere. And coming down here seemed to
relax me, or something. Just being back home in the South. And I would go and walk
down around Rowan Oak, you know, and sit on the porch ofthat little, his servant
quarters in the back—whatever they call it. It was servant quarters right? I mean,just
sitting there would remind me, or, inspire is a word I hate, excite me about the idea that
102 this is where poor person would have sat. This kind of porch. This is the feel. This is how the posts feel against my back. That kind of thing. So being in the south generally
helped, but also being here helped with that, I don’t know,that mood at Rowan Oak.
And I wrote on the second floor of our house. It’s a big long office with beautiful
hardwood floors, and out the window there were trees, and you could see Faulkner’s trees
from one window. It’s pretty amazing. And just being up there and having the time to do
it allowed me to finish the novel I had been stuck on for a year.
JF: How does the writer-in-residericv at Ole Miss compare to some ofthe other
schools? / know you 'vc been at Sewanee recently.
TF: I was at Sc'.\ LiPice the year after. In fact Sewanee had asked me come tor a one-
semester residency at Sewanee. They asked me for that and I had accepted it. And Beth
Ann had gotten a semester off, so it would have worked out real well. She would have
had nothing to do and I would have had a semester just to wnte and teach one class. And
then Barry Hannah called me. I didn’t know Barry that well; I had met him a few times, so and had been intimidated by him. I had never been able to speak around him I was
afraid. You know, this southern icon I had been reading for twenty years is now on the
street on a Harley-Davidson, or drinking coffee at Square Books. It was just nuts. He
called me and it really shocked me. He said, “Hi, Tom. This is Barry.” And I know three
other Barry’s so, you know, I said now which Barry is this? And I would have never
thought it would be him. He said,“We want to offer you the Grisham Chair. And I was
more shocked. I said, “I accept.” He said, “Well, talk to Beth Ann.” And I said,“No,
103 I don't hav c to. I know." He laughed and I said, “Trust me. No matter what. Pm
Corning down there." He said,“Well, talk to her and call me back. She was in Florida
’Visiting her mother, and 1 couldn't get her on the phone all day and it drove me crazy. I
'talked around the house, I couldn't work any more, I smoked cigars and blew smoke out
chimney. I played Leonard Cohen music, which I love. I had a great day, called all
friends, “I'm goiny to Oxford." 1 finally got Beth Ann who said. Of course.” You
know, and then I called Wyatt Pninty at Sewanee and said that Barry had offered. He
said, "Well, you have to take Barry's offer, it’s better than ours.” So, he said, “Thanks
for calling me so quickly, though." Because another guy had done the same thing, had
been offered the Sewanee residency and then Barry came and offered him the Grisham.
It was Randall Kenan. He had told Wyatt at the last minute, so Wyatt had to find a
^'cpiaeciri'jr'.i in a couple otWc; or soinjrhing, and that’s realh hard on the person trying to find someone to fill a semester-long gig. But anyway, the next year Wyatt called and offered the Sewanee Fellowship after the Grisham thing. It had then gone to a
year, the Sewanee one had. So those residencies just, you know,they do wonders. But the Grisham one is still the best.
JF: Why is that?
TF: Because you get to be embraced by this community. We had been there for maybe a day when Marion Barksdale came over with the three kids and brought cookies,
David and Martha Howorth came over and brought sandwiches and beer for lunch one day as we were getting unpacked. Ganny and Granddaddy Howorth came over and
104 brought cookies, Mary Hartwell came over, all within like a day and a half, with cookies
and saying, “Welcome to the neighborhood. And I had read this Mark Richard essay
about when he was the Grisham Chair; it has Mary Hartwell in it. He mentions her in
this essay he wrote about it, published in Oxford American!^ So I thought,“Wow. Here
is this woman that 1 read about." And you know, it felt really warm immediately.
JF: You mentioned Faulkner. When I was reading ‘'Hell at the Breech"I noticed it
was similar to some Faulkner stories. Maybe not structurally, maybejust in thefact that
it was about reconstruction era American South. And,I guess it made me wonder ifyou
were a Faulknerfan. That may be obvious though, you said earlier you were greatly
affected by being near his property'.
TF: Of course, Tm a giant Faulkner fan.
JF: But did you feel any pressure, or encouragement living here. I know Barry
Hannah has said that the biggest thing Faulkner allows writers to do is to experiment
and writefreely. In his mind, it takes the pressure offin some ways and is more ofa
inspiration than a shadow.
TF: That’s quite an interesting question. I’ve never thought about it before. I think to
be a young writer in Oxford, an unpublished writer, would be a tough thing, especially if
( 66 Mark Richard, “Home for the Holidays,” The Oxford American (December 1995 / January 1996), 78- 79. [Richard recalls a Christmas when he made and hung a nine-foot wreath fromtlie front of the writer-in residence home in Oxford. The story prompts him to recall the words of Mary Harwell Howorth,“We tolerate eccentrics but not fools.”]
105 I you grew up around here. And I know four or five young men and women who are doing
this. Who arc trying to be writers and they’ve lived here for a long time. I think that
would be extremely hard. \'ou know, Barry Hannah came here. He’s not from Oxford,
he’s from Clinton, which probably has its own literary history. So many little towns in
Mississippi (Jo. But he came here fully fomied. And I guess Willie Morris came here,
was he from Yazoo? He came to Oxford fully formed. You know. And I guess I’m not
as formed as they were obviously, but coming here with a book out and another one
under contract relaxed me in a certain way. I had alreadyjumped the biggest hurdle. So
I didn’t feel that kind of pressure. I think your question isn’t about that though. I think,
obviously, it helped me. Whatever the feel was about the place helped me, because I
wrote well here. I have so far. I’m writing stories left and right now, which I haven’t
done in Idur vears .i;v 1 stories that 1 like. Some things I do, they’re bad for a long time,
like years. And then I finally keep tinkering with them and get it right. That’s happened
a lot. Less often is what’s happening now when I’ll do a story and it s done and I know
it.
JF: Did you have any preconceptions about Oxford before you moved here? You said
you immediately took the chance to come. Clearly, you knew some things about the
place.
TF: I had visited here a lot. Ajid every time I came I found more friends. And I met
Jim Dees and Ron Shapiro, and Lyn and others at Square Books. Curiously though,
almost none of the Howorths. I didn’t meet them until I became ensconced in Oxford
106 JF: you fuid already had a kind ofliterary conception ofthe place.
TF: Oh absolutely. Yeah. And I had a good idea what it was like. I had been here and stayed two or three nights several times. And I had met John T. Edge in New
b7 Orleans, so I knew they were there, Just immediately it felt like home. And we were their friends immediately since we moved. It was waiting to happen.
JF: What are some ofthe reasons you came back and settled hereafter the Grisham
Chair? / know you went on to Sewanee. but commuted and kept home here in Oxford.
TE: VVe !i:;d had this grcai je’n .:t Knox College. They treated us just beautifully. We
had no complaints. And they had a lot of money to send you to things. You could go out
and have fancy dinners with the school. The department, the English department would
just say, “Well, let’s go have dinner, It would be at the fanciest restaurant and the
school would pay for it. Here you’ve got to have important guests, and you can’t go to
68 City Grocery, or anything like that, you know, It’s much different, there’s a lot less
money here for faculty, which we didn’t know at the time. But we had always told Knox
College that if we get a chance, we’re going south. We always knew that and wanted to
wind up here sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. Arkansas, where we had gotten our
MFAs, was a real chance. We knew they wanted Beth Ann, and they could use me in
some way. So we were just kinda waiting. And we’d stay in Illinois, we thought, until
67 John T. Edge is a journalist who has written numerous essays and books about the food and culture of the So^th. He lives in Oxford with his wife, Blair Hobbs. City Grocery is a fine dining restaurant and bar located on Oxford’s downtown square.
107 we can get out of here.
Then the Grisham thing came, and Knox thought it was for a year and they said,
No, problem. Go for a year.” Beth Ann even had two-thirds pay that year, they treated
us so well. And that year Mairead Byrne, the poet Ole Miss had hired only the year
before I think, left for family reasons, which left a vacant spot for a poet. And they knew
Beth Ann. She had given readings here and had the book out and everyone knew her.
And they called her and said, “Would you consider being our visiting poet ’til we fill the
position?” She said, “Sure.” Well, we talked about it a lot. She didn’t say,“Sure.” So
the question was,“Do we go to Sewanee, both of us, and get a lot ofwnting done, or do
we stay in Oxford, let you show them what a great job you can do and you apply for the
position and have a better chance at getting it than if you are at Sewanee not working,
So vve decided we’d spiU time. ! would take the Sewanee, she would stay here in Oxford,
and I would travel back and forth. So I would be at Sewanee one or two nights a week.
And she got the job. She did a great job. Applied for the full time job, and got it
against some stiff competition too. And they had given us another year off at Knox, this
time with no pay understandably. But they were just very patient. And we hated not to
go back there. The only thing that gave me solace was that we had always said to them,
given the choice, we were going south. So at least we weren’t dishonest.
JF: Do you think that you ’ll stay here as long as you can?
TF: Yes. We don’t ever want to go an)where. We’ve had offers, in fact. Other jobs.
And we just said, “No thanks.”
108 JF: Another question: what role does the bookstore have? Iknow you Ve traveled across the country ami been in bookstores everywhere. But how does Square Books compare, both in w hat it offers to readers, and to you, as an author?
TF: That’s a good question. You know, it’s helped in ways. It’s helped literature in the way that Square Books helped form Larry Brown as a writer. He would go and talk to Richard and Riehard would recommend books to him, you know. I mean I’ve heard that. And the same thing happened at Lemuria down in Jackson with Rick Bass. He would go and say what should I read, and ih^y would S2LyxQ2A Legends ofthe Fall. Ijust love that; 1 mean what a great service that a bookstore provides its community to nurture
young wi-IT’ .s. A p.lI i'.ave a staff knowledgeable enough to look at a person, talk to a
person; find out what they might like. You know, because if a fireman comes in there
and wants to read a book, and he’s given Proust, he might say,“F— this!” You know,
and never come back. But they might say,“Now why don’t you try this Faulkner here.”
And give him As I Lay Dying. You know. And he would immediately recogmze
everything true in there. So that’s not even part of your question, but that’s a service the
store does for the community, and history even. It’s that important of a store in my
opinion.
And then, for readers, again the knowledgeable staff, the great atmosphere. I love
the fact that it’s on that comer and it’s that old drug store building. It just seems so
weighted with history. I mean not weighted, that implies something negative. It’s just so
buoyed by history, you know. For a writer, it’s a great place to read. It’s great to go up
109 there and sec slacks of your books for sale, you know, and kinda watch the stack go down, and then back up. And you realize that they’re taking care ofit That’s really nice. And then to go sec all the readings that they offer. Because my friends are always
coming through here to read at Square Books, and I always get to see them. And also.
I’m proud that this is our town. You know, for the book conference, we had about eight
or nine friends in. All of whom, 1 think, would give much of almost an)^ng to be
here to be part of Oxford. It's so famous, in literary terms. People who haven’t, you
know, don’t like the South or haven’t been here, know of it.
JF: Here s another question you've answered in so many ways already. ButIII just
ask a^ain. Like / said earlier, your wife has referred to the town as paradise. And
van, in so words have ilonc ihc satr.c.
TF: Well, I’ve left out a lot. I can give you more answers about why it s paradise.
JF: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. What are some ofyourfavorite things?
Maybe something you haven V mentioned.
TF: Well, for both Beth Ann and me, again it’s the people. You know the Howorth
family, it’s just, I mean, this great southern family. Great southern democrats. It s like
watching history, I mean, you know. But beyond that, beyond the people ^Thacker
Mountain. Every week, during its season, we have this amazing Prairie Home
Companion, southern style radio show. It’s great. We have, you know, apart from all the
110 readings - sometimes the readings, there are too many, and youjusthaveto stay away, which I feel bad about, I should go to all of them, but I can’t. The bars—City Grocery is
my favorite bar in the world. 1 love Ajax, Murfs, all these places. Taylor Grocery out
there, about seven miles away. Yocona, what, about twelve miles away.^^ And the
restaurants here, 1 lo\ e the restaurants.
And then, beyond all that, beyond the people and the bookstore and the bars and
the restaurants, there's the music. Just this past weekend, the obvious example: Elvis
Costello. Willie Nelson was going to come, but he had to cancel. He got sick. But he
would have come. I've seen Vic Chesnutt here. I’ve seen Hank Williams El here. And
the North Mississippi All-Stars, Los Lobos, Kim Richey, it goes on and on. Great music.
And now we’ve got Hot Dog Records. You know, we needed a record store.
Ur.cic Buck’s closed, bi.: we go: :iot Dog, and I think it's lioing well, I always go in
there as much as I can, you know, to help, because we need a record store on the square.
I think everybody has the same idea of, you know, preserving this thing. The only
problem is a bunch of these doctors and lawyers come in and buy up the things, because
they have all the money. Don’t let them buy a part of the square. Say,“No, no. Go off
the square if you want to practice here.” Let everything be saved the way it is.
JF: Or buy it and open a record store.
TF: Do that. Open an Indian restaurant. That’s one missing thing.
69 Taylor Grocery is a catfish and blue-plate eatery in Taylor, Mississippi. Yocona River Inn is a popular restaurant in Yocona, Mississippi.
Ill JF: Really/
TF: Ycah. I he BP station across from Kroger has Indian food, curiously enough. It’s my favorite kind of food, Indian food. We have a Thai restaurant, which is pretty good.
But otherwise, Indian food, and one bigger theater. Our theater sucks.
JF: I think they ‘vc been trying to get onefor years.
TF: Well Richard told me, or told Beth Ann, they were about to start construction in
six months, and that w as a few months ago. And so hopefully, and they’re going to have
an art theater, and I guess Ron Shapiro—these are nunors, these are good rumors ^Ron
Shapiro will run liie uri riicater, like he used lo run tltc Moka. Which would have been a
great thing to name about Oxford, the Hoka, but it closed a while back. It closed before
we got here.
JF: Yeah I've heard so many stories about it, and Iguess you weren tfortunate
enough to be ther’e. Me neither.
TF: No. The first time I came to Oxford was with an old girlfriend from Mobile. I
had heard Barry Hannah—who I had been reading. I almost couldn’t read him, they were
so strong. It’s like it was like moonshine or something. It was so strong. I would read
these stories and put them down feeling really strange. And I later identified that as the
shock of recognition of something great. This is literature; this is what I want to try to
112 do. Will nc\ cr attain, but, you know, have to try. This is really great. This is way beyond Stephen King. This is somebody who’s, you know,it’s like he’s writing in cement or something. It's so solid and incredible—so I’d heard this guy taught at Ole
Miss, which is only six hours from Mobile. And then, you know,“He taught there?!
So on the first \\ eek of their classes I drove up, and found the building, found the class, and just went in there like I was one of the students, you know. There was always a couple of kids who leave, so I'd be that kid. I wanted to see him; I had a stack of books for him to sign. He came in, and I don't know if he was drunk, he was drinking. I don’t know if he was drunk, hut he was loud and funny immediately. Heard his voice all the way down the hall. I was shaking I was so nervous. And he just came in and was just funny and all. He signed books for me. This girlfriend and I spent the night over on
Jackson Avenue. We never e\en to the square. I think we ate in the hotel restaurant and I just can’t believe that now. It would have been 1984. Square Books had been here, what is it like six years old, five years old at that time. I don t even know
what else would have been here, but I would have loved to have seen the square then.
And, you know, I wish 1 could take a time thing back. Anyway.
JF: Well, thank you. Is there any last thing you wanted to add?
TF: Not that I can think of. If you want somebody to gush about Oxford, here he is,
you know. Beth Ann too.
JF: What are herfavorite things? I guess much ofthe same.
113 TF: Yeah, but I mean, there are more for her. She loves the climate down here. Fm used to it; she loves it. She's from Chicago. She loves the heat. She loves tojog and she loves the flowers, ^'oll know, 1 can see white flowers out the window right now. All that
makes her happy. Slie lias a great group of girlfriends here. We haven’t mentioned our little girl Claire at all. Claire has good friends here. She has, in fact, a fiance. We’ve all
made a pact that they ha\ e to get married. See, that’s why I want an Indian restaurant.
We can begin to import the food, and then the customs so that we can arrange this
marriage. There’s one more thing 1 want to tell you about Beth Ann. She has apoetry
group. Another group of friends, and they talk about each other’s work, and she loves
that. I hale doing that stuff, but she loves it.
JF: ^o yoN enjoy friendships with other writers here?
TF: ^ell, another thing 1 haven’t mentioned are the students. The students are a big
part of the writing community here. I was with my students last night, up at City
Grocery, talking to them. Most of them are good writers, and some are quite good. And
they love talking about it. It’s their life’s aim right now and so they are really keyed up
about it. always fun to let them generate excitement, because they get
sentimental when they drink. And they’re four new friends. And I’m watching this
hub/core friendship form, and I’ll be able to keep track of it for years. It’s a nice idea that in ten years I can call those guys, and we can meet somewhere, you know, and hang out.
● hope that will happen. So, they’re a different aspect of writing life that no one
114 thinks about here. Ihe\ are an untapped, kind of an unknown part of the writing world.
But it is fun to see Larr\ Brow n at a bar on occasion, or at a party, and just talk to him about what he's tloing. And it's almost always a shock to see Barry Hannah walk into a
place, with sunglasses on. I'm a fan, can you tell.
JF: / can. I fed the same way. Well, we 'll let that he the last word. Thanks a lot.
TF: You bet.
115 Ill
I I Literary Grounds
The development of Oxford’s literary identity has been more than just a byproduct of blossoming college-town culture. It has also been more than a simple trail of writers gravitating to Faulkner’s hometown. Instead, coincidence of geography and contributions of many individuals have created a literary legacy in Oxford that is likely to be passed on for many years.
Oxford is situated at a crossroads of region and culture. To its east lie the foothills of the Appalachians, and to its west the sprawling Mississippi River delta. The old oach road that ran ihron.gli Oxford brought more than just travelers to this small pioneer town. It brought a varied culture complete with influences from across the state and region. Doyle writes that Lafayette County replicated the diversity ofthe Deep
«70 South with a “range of wealth and social classes, To Oxford came the subsistence farmers of the hill regions of the state, the plantation owners ofthe delta, and all the
yeoman class in between. By the 1850s, the stagecoach road had become a railroad and
Oxford an economic hub for the region. The addition of the University established
71 Oxford’s identity as a “cultural outpost” as well.
Over one hundred and fifty years after its founding, Oxford has retained an
eclectic makeup. The social divisions are no longer defined as plantation owners or
yeomen, yet in many ways these classes still exist. In Oxford one can find million-dollar
70 Doyle, 3. 71 Doyle, 4.
117 estates, and impo\ erished neighborhoods all within a small radius. The town, like much of the state, remains racially divided in some respects. Often blacks and whites simply exist alongside another, each within their own spheres. Additionally, only a short drive separates the downtown square, a beacon of sophistication, from the most rural of the
Mississippi hills, or the vast plains of the delta. This range of lifestyle and atmosphere
creates the type of artistic capital where writers flourish. Oxford has also retained an
organic sense of community, which encourages curiosity leading to artistic expression.
In addition to Oxford’s innate geographic qualities, the town, along with the University
attracts many valuable cultural resources from beyond its borders.
Although relatively remote, much of the world passes through Oxford in the form
of musical, artistic and literary figures from across the country and around the world.
This exposure is w i.ii iiv.urv w riters appreciate most about Oxford. This wealth of
restaurants, music, and art is simply a modem incarnation of Oxford’s crossroads appeal.
Yet these cultural resources enjoyed today have not always been so replete. In spite of
being considered Oxford’s most troubling period since the Civil War,the 1962
desegregation of Ole Miss, and the national disapproval and notoriety that came with it,
have proved critical for much of Oxford’s literary identity. Following the riots, residents
of Oxford longed to improve their town’s public image, and many did so using its most
abundantly evident resource, its literary history.
Beginning with the preservation of Rowan Oak and the Stark Young home,
Oxford began to embrace its literary past. The Faulkner Conference and the Center for
the Study of Southern Culture disseminated the town’s literary heritage throughout
academia, and the opening of Square Books gave residents an avenue by which they
118 could celebrate a literary identity. In these ways the culture of contemporary Oxford was built upon a literary foundation. The raw materials were plenty, but without the work of dedicated individuals Oxford would not be the literary hub it is today. The institutions they established will continue to sustain Oxford as a cultural center and the home of a literary legacy passed along through generations of writers.
Today Oxford is home for dozens of authors, both published and aspiring, each part of this legacy of writing. But how long will it last? Much speculation has been
made about the future of Oxford and its accompanying literary aura. Long representative
of small-town America, Oxford has slowly begun to commercialize and expand.
However, even if this threatens much of Oxford’s lazy ways, its literary commumty
appears immune. Alongside Oxford’s growth, its literary base has grown as well. The
incrca.sing presence of corporate America has not stopped the establishment of an MFA
program in creative writing or the expansion of Square Books. In fact, this most recent
cultural encroachment will likely only create more fodder for authors to digest. While its
bohemian days may have given way to contemporary charm,the fact that writers
continue to thrive in Oxford proves that writing is much more than a trend, but is now an
established part of Oxford’s cultural identity.
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122