Comments on: Summer Reading: Cynthia Shearer, The Celestial Jukebox

By: Cynthia Shearer

Cynthia Shearer — Tue, 30 May 2006 19:15:33 +0000

Glad you like the book; thanks for the comments. I wrote it out of the same dissatisfaction that you describe yourself feeling, a feeling that nobody was going after the big picture, and I was wondering if it was possible to do a book w/out a “Big Daddy” figure dominating everything. A lot of the novel issued from my missing Mississippi once we moved to Texas….please give my regards to the Lemuria folk and Johnny Evans next time you’re in there….

C. Shearer

By: bulb

bulb — Sat, 27 May 2006 07:13:50 +0000

A beachy take on an alternative with scenes at a mythical Tunica casino (Tishomingo Lodge and Casino, and yes its being on the “wrong” side of the state is a plot point), the Dixie mafia, and a murder hidden during a Civil War reenactment:

Elmore Leonard’s Tishomingo Blues, soon to be a major motion pictured diretced by Don Cheadle starring Cheadle and Matthew McConaughey from producers Soderbergh and Clooney.

On the serious side, for a book which does a great job of explaining the various immigrant populations of the Delta, how and why Herbert Hoover became president, the wider significance of the entire Percy clan in the Delta, and where the issues that lead to Katrinagate first really came from (the flooding of Acadia to save NOLA in 1927) read John Barry’s magisterial Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

By: neola

neola — Fri, 26 May 2006 15:39:04 +0000

my job and academic pursuits have exposed me to a lot of issues in delta history of which i would have otherwise, as a native mississippian, remained ignorant.

my sister (a DSU grad) once told me about the Chinese Baptist Church in Cleveland. it was that bit of information that began my search for the “truth” of the delta. now i have things like photos of sidewalk tiles of jewish merchants’ names or memories of obscure cemeteries.

thanks for the review of ‘the celestial jukebox.’ it’s going to the top of my to-read list.

By: gorjus

gorjus — Fri, 26 May 2006 14:17:02 +0000

That’s a great, meaty phrase, and it jumped out at me. I’d heard of this book but you’ve intrigued me—I knew a woman of Chinese descent who was from the Delta, and I wonder if she’s read this. As a Jacksonian and as a Mississippian, I have to note officially that the Delta is still flat-out impenatrable to me. It’s wonderful, but crazy.

By: sally

sally — Fri, 26 May 2006 14:07:24 +0000

This sounds sort of fantastic, although large opuses (opi?) sort of intimidate me.

Also, I cannot believe you used “warp and woof,” as I was reading a library-related publication from 1897 and came across that phrase and had to look it up and then I emailed everyone I know and no one believed it was a real expression. Redemption!

By: brd

brd — Fri, 26 May 2006 14:06:02 +0000

Sounds like another book for my list of to be read. (Should I wait for it to come out on audio tape?) But I still am waiting for your novel of the delta. It will start out in Jackson in the mid-70’s. I think there should be a hiatus in it with the protagonist trying to document the “North” but finds the North instead and then flees in horror back to the Delta. Include comicbook references and I think you’ve got it.

There’s more than one of us fans out here waiting to get a first edition “Fury”!