The Books of the States: Mississippi (6 electoral votes)
Okay, we're back on the march. I'm not sure that anyone even noticed our absence (I think it was more like if Bob Barr, not John McCain, had suspended his campaign) but we're tanned, rested, and ready, and we're starting with one of the easiest--or hardest--states, depending on how you look at it. The idea of picking just six books to represent Mississippi is absurd: the state may usually finish near the bottom in education stats, but per capita I think the only ones that can match it for literary firepower are Massachusetts, New York, and neighboring Louisiana (having to limit Washington, D.C., to just three books will be a challenge too). As I mentioned in introducing Pete Melman's Louisiana list, with a state like this you either have to go straight canonical and stick with the icons, or mix it up with some surprises and leave some folks howling (justifiably!) at the ones you left off.
My inclination for these lists is toward the canonical, but I'll throw in a little curveball below (and my honorable mention list would do many other states proud as their first string):
- Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner: All right, if you're going to do it, let's do it right: the Faulkneriest Faulkner, the doomful Southern past rising up in a swirl of consciousness and at least one thousand-word sentence. By the way, I ran across a piece on the web about fellow Mississippian Shelby Foote's 1936 review of Absalom, apparently one of the few at the time that recognized its greatness. I mention it because the review begins with one of the best sentences I've read in some time: "The characters of a William Faulkner novel seem to be struggling like monsters seen through a distorting glass, subsisting on some inward reserve of undefeat without air or food." Foote, I should mention, wrote it for a student journal while he was a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina. Geez.
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner: Only six spots, and Bill gets two? Yes. And this weird charmer is a nice appetizer for the great meal of Absalom. I "hated" Faulkner as a youngish reader until this one held my hand and showed me along...
- The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty: Forty-one tales to put up against anybody's.
- Black Boy by Richard Wright: Ralph Ellison famously wrote about the hero of Native Son that Richard Wright "could imagine Bigger, but Bigger could not possibly imagine Richard Wright." But in Wright's memoir of self-education against all obstructions, you can see how a young man, hemmed in, could still imagine becoming Richard Wright.
- Airships by Barry Hannah: The most-admired collection from Welty's successor as the Mississippian master of the short story.
- Oil Notes by Rick Bass: It's hard to remember, now that Bass has settled so definitively into the Montana wilderness, that he first came on the scene with the stories of Mississippi and Texas in The Watch and this one-of-a-kind memoir of working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson. It's a young book, and, as you can tell from the copy I just pulled out of my shelf for the first time in years, I carried it around a lot with me when I was young. Here's a bit from close to the end:
They're not alike at all, really: writing and geology. There's a deceit in writing; you're trying to pull all the clever elements together and toss out the dull and round-edged ones. Basically, it's building a lie and then swinging the lie's massiveness into the path of the reader and hiding behind it. Curiously, however, in geology, when I pour a cup of coffee and sit down and begin to map, I'm not hiding behind anything; there's no pretense, no deceit, just an inquisitive hunger and innocence where I am neither superior nor inferior to the reader, but am the reader. There's truly an amount of trust. The earth lies there, still, and obeys certain rules. I have faith that I am not going to let myself believe something that is not true. It is perhaps the purest thing I've ever done.
And that personal pick at the end bumps out any number of deserved claimants, which I am embarrassed to be leaving off: Larry Brown, Margaret Walker, Willie Morris, Donna Tartt, Anne Moody, Frederick Barthelme (how I'd love to include Double Down, the bizarre Biloxi gambling memoir written with his brother Steve), Lewis Nordan, Ellen Gilchrist, the aforementioned Mr. Foote, and Last Train from Memphis, that first volume of Guralnick's Elvis bio that I may have to find a way to shoehorn into Tennessee after all. --Tom
- See all of our state posts
- Read our introduction to The Books of the States: 50 States, 538 Books
- Read our interview with State by State editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey
Aging lit major on October 21, 2008 at 08:11 AM
Count me as one reader who missed the states line-up during the well-deserved intermission. You done good with Mississippi. I'm glad you kept Buddy Nordan in mind. I think I've read all Faulkner EXCEPT Absalom, Absalom, the current darling of the oeuvre. One of these days . . . .
KristiC on October 21, 2008 at 09:18 AM
I've been missing the states series too, Tom! Just haven't been commenting much because, frankly, the selections have been so well-chosen and the commentary so insightful and entertaining that I haven't had much to add beyond 'Yay, good list!'
Seth Davidson on October 21, 2008 at 12:03 PM
I couldn't agree more with any list that mentions Faulkner and Wright in the same column.
Carl on October 22, 2008 at 07:28 AM
If I were John Grisham I would be sore at your list selection.
Tom on October 24, 2008 at 01:41 AM
Ah, shoot Carl. I hadn't meant to include Grisham in the top six, but I certainly meant to list him in the honorable mention below. Thanks for the reminder!
Holly on October 24, 2008 at 11:20 AM
You've convinced me to read "Last Train to Memphis", and this is from a person with an unapolegetic need to keep Elvis on a pedestal. So, I've resisted reading any books about him, unless they are enraptured accounts of his greatness! But the fact that you've included this biography has changed my mind. These states lists are pretty impressive.
Tom on October 24, 2008 at 11:32 AM
Thanks, Holly--I'd love to hear what you think. I think Guralnick does take him off the pedestal, not to knock him down, though, but to make him human.
Ames on November 10, 2008 at 01:13 PM
Golly, I can't believe you didn't list Borden Deal. wow!
Tom on November 10, 2008 at 01:50 PM
Tell me about Borden Deal. Mississippi's a tough lineup to crack!
Marcia on April 03, 2009 at 06:08 AM
I am currently reading and enjoying very much: "The Southern Woman" by Elizabeth Spencer
louisiana maritime attorneys on September 27, 2011 at 03:11 PM
these states lists are pretty impressive.