Rhythm and Books

The Carnality of an Ordinary Boor

Let us now tell you what happened after attending our first official meeting of the Secret Book Club, a disaster in the woods that degenerated into highly unliterary screaming and ranting, punching and kicking and ideas unraveling into bitter chaos.

We came back to town and everyone lived their lives a little more, and then we got our next assignment from the girls in the club: read a novel called Pornografia by a Polish writer, Witold Gombrowicz. Okay. They didn't have to twist our arms on this one. We'd just read it and show up like they asked … to Webster's Food and Drink, an old house in Greenwood that had been converted years ago into a bar and grill and was a kind of local institution, a place where many of the young people in town hung out in the evenings and talked and drank cheap domestic beer, sometimes listened to music and tried to pick up one another, like you'll find in any small-town bar frequented by youths in any town in America. It was probably safe to assume that Webster's hadn't played host to many book club meetings, but that was okay. We could sip and smoke and banter about any old sweet damn thing we cared to mention. We were young and smart and well-read. It was still America after all.

We, the bookstore division, new initiates to the Secret Book Club, made a controversial decision by inviting a new guy to come with us, a fellow we'll call Ricardo, a sliver of a man, tall, lean, a straight arrow in only the most physical sense, wearing his white shirt and suspenders and twill slacks like a man from a bygone age. He wore his hair in a military style, and angry green eyes belied his constant grin. He had originated somewhere up east and was in town for a few days, indefinitely, unable to commit to staying or going, unwilling to confirm or deny that he had someplace worse or better to be … and he'd been hanging out in the bookstore, slurping espresso like water, asking questions, always provoking us into conversations about books and buying a whole bunch of them, anything we told him … so we felt obliged to bring him along, to be nice, of course, and to redistribute the discomfort we felt sitting with this group to whom we'd so longed to belong and now dreaded seeing again. Also, he was a real character, reliably strange, always saying strange things, always telling stories that we didn't believe but were entertaining for their novelty. He hadn't read Pornografia, said he couldn't be bothered to read Polish fiction, but maybe he had read it and wouldn't fess up to it, maybe he actually loved Polish fiction … he was strange that way.

"There are plenty of topical books out there right now," said Ricardo, "so why this one? Why settle on this little piece of obscure scrit? What's there to say about it that hasn't been said about a hundred other books a hundred thousand times already?"

The girls had chosen this book to get back at us, that's how we figured it. Let's make the men think they're going to read a pornographic novel, critically acclaimed, 1960s Europe by way of Argentina, oo-la-la, a work that maintains the dignity of classic literature with a heaping of eroticism, and while we're at it, let's stick it to that high-minded professor, the German, the de facto leader of this secret club, who may not really be the leader, for how could you lead a club from halfway around the world, where mutiny was only a hang-up away, and let's see what that nationalist bastard thinks of the novel's anti-German overtones … let's make them read this and watch when they come back scratching their heads, unsure of what happened, unsure of what didn't happen, unsure about who did what to whom, and why there was no pornography, not in the usual trashy sense anyway, not the slightest hump, bump or rump, and let them tell us what any of it had to do with these ridiculous issues of art and gender that were hampering the club, clouding judgments, making friends enemies, making mad the like-minded.

But the joke was on them! We all read it and enjoyed it famously … at least those of us who leaped astride the beast and buried our hooks deep into it and would not be tossed off by the tumble of words … the "verbal burlesque," as John Updike described Gombrowicz' prose style … that ultimately gave way to a story, a genuine romp, in which two sudden friends travel from the hubbub of wartime Warsaw to relax with a friend at his farmhouse in the country. Once on holiday, their attentions are diverted by their host's nubile young daughter, who is engaged to an older, more practical man but is much more suited, they decide, for a roguish young farmhand and ex-soldier hanging around the place. They attempt to create several titillating situations to help the young pair recognize their compatibility. At the same time, their host is hiding a deserter from the military resistance and has been ordered to murder him, a crime in which the entire household must become complicit. It has a theatrical appeal, as if Samuel Beckett reworked one of those comedies of manners, presenting a thoughtful if warped meditation on the aged's desperation for youth.

Ricardo quizzed us on the particulars of the novel on the ride to Webster's, cataloguing our impressions, marrying our opinions of the book with his own opinions about all books and all life and the compendium of pornography he had perused … "in my youth, friends, only in my youth," he admitted, "for simulation bears no stimulation for me now, in my maturity, when only flesh in the flesh provides pleasure" … he was quite the talker in this way, like a character out of a book almost.

We arrived at Webster's and found our contacts among the swelling melee of a Friday afternoon, all seated around a table off to the side of the bar, throwing curious glances and rays of suspicion our way as we approached, still unsure why we were part of their club or who had invited us. We ordered drinks to be sociable. "Caffeine's my poison," insisted Ricardo and entertained a mug of stale coffee while we inquired about the bar's stock of Polish beer, and after being roundly dismissed, settled on a regionally brewed Hefeweizen.

Eager for quick acceptance among the skeptical book knowers, Ricardo lent his cellphone to the cause, calling O all the way in old Germany. He activated the loudspeaker and placed the phone in the middle of the table and bowed to us ... a signal to begin the discussion! O answered furtively and after customary greetings began his usual explication, offering a brief bio on Gombrowicz and the significance of the book in the historical and cultural context of war-torn Europe, though he was decidedly more reserved in his appraisal, and the reception was in and out anyway, such a clamor in the room that scant could be made at last of the poor professor's knowledge. Finally Ricardo leaped up and clapped the phone shut. "Who needs Mr. Professor to tell us what we think of this book anyhow? What is your opinion of it then?" He pointed to Sue, only one of two women in the club, who had no doubt been responsible for selecting this crafty novel. Ricardo had her instantly on the ropes, forced at once to express her feelings on this novel she had tricked the boys into reading, and either the tables had been well turned on her or she hadn't read and made sense of it herself, and Ricardo, all the while having no idea what sort of agile social parry he had made.

After stammering Sue, shy and deflective, Ricardo wasted nary a breath, moving the conversation clockwise round the table, calling on the sandy-haired sullen Sam, who had seemed to enjoy it, especially the lively prose and translation by Danuta Borchadt ... found in the recent Grove Press edition, and really where else would you go but Grove for genuine '60s literary Euro avant garde? Sam had hoped for a little more "porno" and perhaps a little less "grafia" but referenced a great Gombrowicz quote ... "I do not believe in a non-erotic philosophy. I do not trust thought that frees itself of sex..." ... before Ricardo countered, "Bravo! Great memory" and continued working around the table, moving quickly ahead whenever someone fell short of an assured opinion, and as he made his way to the various members, roving and motioning like a conductor, he reached down and sipped from one idle beer, and then another and then another ... anyone not clutching his or her own drink was due to have it filched by this supposed teetotaler, who sipped, then swigged, then gulped his way around the table, his vociferous drinking serving only to illuminate his teetotalism.

None but our few seemed to notice what he was doing, so rapt were they in the scene he was creating, firing off provocative questions, pitting opinions against each other then recasting them in harmony … even roping disinterested third parties who had wandered out of the restroom into the discussion, tipsy and ever ready to lend some off-the-cuff remark about Polish pornography, which, taken with Ricardo's slantways perspective, inspired some pretty entertaining verbal frolickery, if we are to be honest.

The discussion ultimately came back around to the book, specifically the two main characters and their attempts to milk the eroticism out of the most innocent interactions between the two young subjects, citing a scene where the older men spy on the teenagers crushing earthworms together, or the girl rolling up the boy's pant cuffs, both of these things making the old pervs so hot and bothered, and Gombrowicz really laying into their desperation so cleverly.

"But it's so chaste!" cried Ricardo. "What does this mean to us today, after all?" he said, half-standing and half-sitting, something slightly more decent than a squat, and gesticulating wildly, strangely. "You there," he pointed to Mary Brooke, the club's other female, and snapped a quick photo of her with his phone, "what would it say to you if I confessed that the simple act of your gently stroking your sweaty beer bottle with your painted fingertips is making me intolerably excited?"

The whole time he'd been crowding against sandy Sam, nudging him closer to Sue, his arch book nemesis, as if he sensed between them a roiling sexual tension fueled by ego and intellect. As he addressed Mary Brooke, he would film Sam and Sue with his phone, moving the bar nuts close between them and hoping to catch them reaching in together and touching hands.

Meanwhile the bar crowd was coming alive like a many-headed hydra of unbookliness, and we could hardly hear each other any more, could only observe Ricardo's maniacally intentioned gesticulations and the earned responses from his marks, and it all became very clear that we had no part in any discussion of literature, that we were mere extras in some low-rent, beer-fueled drama ... though quieter than our previous alcohol-free meeting.

In our realization and subsequent embarrassment, we drew up and pouted. We came here to talk literature and not to carouse. We like our carousing, mind you, but must prepare ourselves for it. One cannot come to a former house, now a restaurant that shifts over to a bar at an indeterminable hour, and carouse when one has mentally prepared for deep book talk.

And dammit all, what fools we felt like to come here and talk books at all! At such a riotous place, at such a jovial hour! These are matters for cabins in the woods and broom closets and quiet boat ramps in the dead of night!

We were gathering our particulars in shame and preparing to dash either from the bar or toward the grill when we looked across the table at our party, and they looked at us, and for a revelatory moment, with no sign of Ricardo anywhere ... he had vanished, leaped the fence on the patio and tumbled into the ferns! ... we smiled and shook our heads and knew in our laughing hearts that we would never read together again.

The Sisters Brothers

We've been talking up the new novel by Patrick DeWitt, The Sisters Brothers, for weeks now, so much that we sold our first order on publication date this past Tuesday. That's a great feeling for booksellers, to have people coming in excited about an author they've never read, a book so new it hasn't even been reviewed yet.

We hope you'll accept, with similar enthusiasm as others who came to Tuesday to snatch up the first copies, our recommendation of this novel, which possesses just the sort of effortless readability, intelligence, humor and uniqueness that we crave in books and love to share.

The novel follows two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, hired guns for a mysterious businessman who has sent them to California to murder a gold prospector. The time is 1851, and they will encounter certain danger on the trail, trouble with the horses, ruffians in the barrooms and flophouses along the way. There is gunplay and thievery in spades. But this is no typical Western. It has a kind of modern conscience without betraying its setting and period. It's a humanist Western with sly humor, a fleet pace and conversation worth hearing.

A number of comparisons spring to mind. There is the deadpan humor and marvelous dialogue of Charles Portis' True Grit, an oft-claimed favorite here, and there is something too in the welcome strangeness of Tom Franklin's Smonk, the artful realism of David Milch's Deadwood and the post-modern existentialism of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. But these are only referential touchstones, for there is something very unique and singular about this fine novel, which is born out of the prose and certainly the character of these brothers, who are at odds as brothers will be, both needing different things out of life, and yet they are still composed of the same material. The novel -- in essence a road story -- takes interesting detours and never panders to expectations, especially when the brothers arrive at their mission, and also at the end, which is boldly subversive in its way.

But we've sold this book by simply telling readers that this is the one book out of ten or twenty you search for, a simple entertainment with brains which possesses a rare magic, a book you'll feel compelled to read in a fair rush, all for the simple pleasure of a good story told well.

Wild Board Hunting in the Mississippi Delta

Mississippi photographer and documentarian Melody Golding has compiled a fantastic new book that showcases one of the least explored areas of Mississippi culture in Panther Tract: Wild Board Hunting in the Mississippi Delta (University Press of Mississippi). We've all heard stories of hunting wild hogs, and how some johnny-come-lately had to limp out of the woods after an altercation with these mean feral critters. But we've never seen the full spectrum of the hunt captured as well as it is here.

Melody is the Vicksburg photographer who brought us stories and photos of women's experiences on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember. She's assembled a similar kind of montage for Panther Tract, weaving together photos and stories from a hunt at the Yazoo County camp for which the book is named.

The book begins with a stark photo of first light at the gates of Panther Tract and follows the path to the camp, where a mix of revealing portrait, landscape and action photos invites us to know the hunters, their dogs, and the Delta winter landscape as well as imagine the thrill of the hunt. Interspersed throughout the photos are stories from various Panther Tract hunters, people from all walks of life who candidly reveal their personal experiences of hunting wild boars and great tales from the field. There's even a section of hog recipes from Louisiana chef John Folse.

The format of the book highlights one of the biggest lures to the sport, "the camaraderie and social aspects of our hunting tradition," as one contributor describes it. Golding expounds on this in her introduction:

As a rule, hunters tend to be a lively and colorful bunch, but those at Panther Tract possess a unique verve and exuberance. Tales are woven in and out of time, as the great southern American folklore unfolds in the flesh. The sharing of these tales and experiences and knowledge can carry late into the afternoon and leaves the listener in awe and most times admiration.

Golding and some of her new-found hog-hunting friends have carried this tradition to bookstores across the state for a series of book-signing events for Panther Tract, the latest of which will occur right here at Turnrow Books this Friday, April 29, from 5 to 7 p.m. We're honored to be hosting this group, who, Melody assures us, you'll hear coming from a mile away. Come down and meet the folks, hear some stories, watch a video they've compiled on the singular hunt at Panther Tract and even hear some live music. This is a rare slice of backwoods Mississippi culture in town, so make plans to be here. If not, reserve your signed copies of Panther Tract here.

Did You Know What You Knew?

 Currently reading The Social Animal by David Brooks. Pretty interesting so far:

"...People once believed that babies were blank slates. But the more investigators look, the more impressed they have become with how much babies know at birth, and how much they learn in the first few months.

"The truth is, we inherit, starting before we are born, a great river of knowledge, a great flow of patterns coming from many ages and many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past, we call genetics. The information revealed thousands of years ago, we call religion. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago, we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago, we call family, and the information offered years, months, days or hours ago, we call education and advice.

"But it is all information, and it all flows from the dead through us and to the unborn. The brain is adapted to the river of knowledge and its many currents and tributaries, and it exists as a creature of that river the way a trout exists in a stream. Our thoughts are profoundly molded by this long historic flow, and none of us exists, self-made, in isolation from it. So even a newborn possesses this rich legacy, and is built to absorb more, and to contribute back to this long current."

Better Late Than Never ... Party Shots

Well, the lazy blogger has finally put up the photos from our wild week of great events. All the way back on Tuesday, April 12 — that's like five years in social media time — we hosted a fine soiree with Martha Foose, local chef and author of the James Beard Award-winning cookbook Screen Doors and Sweet Tea. We helped launch her new cookbook, A Southerly Course, which is just as fun and delicious and possibly even more beautiful to look at ... we have plenty of signed copies you can order through our website.

We also posted photos from the book launch party, so please check them out.

We also have photos from our event the next day, April 13, with Alex Beard, the wonderful New Orleans artist who came to sign copies of his children's picture book, Monkey See, Monkey Draw. There are some signed copies left, each one featuring a custom illustration by the artist, each unique in its own right.

 

Sara Foster ... in Our Southern Kitchen

Thanks to Sara Foster for dropping in on Turnrow's Sunday brunch this weekend. The Chapel Hill chef was in town to promote her new cookbook, Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen, and to teach a class at the Viking Cooking School. Before leaving town Sunday afternoon, she stopped in to observe our Sunday crew's preparation of dishes from the new cookbook.

This new book is Sara's fourth and the first time she has turned exclusively to her Southern roots. She marries traditional Southern fare with her philosophy of fresh, seasonal, simple preparation, resulting in a wonderful and resourceful collection that bursts with eye-catching photography and great side notes. We had no trouble pulling a few of these simple and lovely recipes to prepare. The gang served up tasty renditions of Roasted Tomato Grits with Country Ham & Cracklings, Watermelon-Tomato Salad with Shaved Feta and Fresh Mint, Deviled Ham Salad, and Pimiento Cheese Burgers.

Sara stayed and visited with the line of diners who bustled in after church to grab a plate, and she even shared several bottles of very fine Blanc du Rhône from Edward Sellers' artisan winery.

The weekend events were such a success, and guests were so enthralled by Sara's lovely cookbook, that we actually sold out of copies, which rarely happens. Unfortunately we cannot offer signed copies but encourage home chefs to order a copy here anyway. It will come in handy this summer when the season's bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables comes rolling in.

Every Day by the Sun

Our highlight of the week came at the beginning. It was an especially stormy Monday. The crowd expected to stop in and meet Dean Faulkner Wells was not as promised, no doubt because folks were still taking cover from the violent storm that had been lashing the state all afternoon and was only just beginning to dissipate.

Dean, with her husband Larry Wells, made it in from Oxford somehow, driving against 40-50 mph gusts, to sign copies of her new book, Every Day by the Sun. A nice crowd assembled despite the weather and were treated to a slide show by Larry, giving some background on the Faulkner family.

Dean's father, her namesake, was killed in a plane crash while she was still in the womb. Her father's family stepped in to help raise her, especially her famous uncle, William Faulkner, whom she called Pappy. Every Day by the Sun is a deeply personal account of her life among one of the first families of Oxford, painting a historic view of the town as well as how her uncle's fame shaped the lives of his loved ones.

Larry also explained their precious Greenwood ties. It was here, at a backyard party with Delta artistes, that they first met Willie Morris, who would become a lifelong friend. The Wells' publishing venture, Yoknapatawpha Press, would go on to keep several of Willie's most popular books in print, including Good Old Boy and Terrains of the Heart.

In a surprise turn, Dean, who confesses to suffering stage fright, read a wonderful excerpt from the book's prologue, which Kelly hailed as one of her favorite pieces of writing ever. By the time Dean finished her reading, the ladies in the audience were misty-eyed.

Dean proves to be a great observer, candid and eloquent, in Every Day by the Sun. You don't have to be a Faulkner fanatic to enjoy this book, but certainly anyone searching for insight into the writer's genius will not be disappointed. Ultimately, it is Dean's story that captivates the reader as she describes her struggle to find her place in a family of  "thieves, adulterers, sociopaths, killers, racists, liars, and folks suffering from panic attacks and real bad tempers."

Among the lucky crowd were many old friends and family members ... no killers or thieves, as near as we could tell. And since the signing, all week long, those who attended have been coming back and telling us how they went home Monday night and read half the book, so enthralled were they by the story and Dean's lovely prose.

Many more, stopping in to pick up their copies, have told us how much they regretted not braving the elements. We still have signed copies left, so drop by or order online, but don't overlook this most generous and gracious of Mississippi memoirs.