The Statue and the Fury - Hardcover

Jim Dees

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1936946807 ISBN 13: 9781936946808

Publisher: Nautilus, 2016

Synopsis

In The Statue and the Fury, Jim Dees, host of the public radio program Thacker Mountain Radio, chronicles a tumultuous year in the life of a small Southern town, complete with down-home eccentrics, famous figures, and explosive events. In 1997, Oxford, Mississippi, sought to erect a statue to honor the one hundredth birthday of native Nobel laureate, William Faulkner. After a magnolia tree at City Hall was cut down to make room for the sculpture, all Faulkner broke loose. Fiery city board meetings erupted, angry threats came from the feisty Faulkner family, and civic tension ensued, leaving a bewildered artist, sculptor Bill Beckwith, caught in the middle. Dees covered the city beat as a reporter for the local daily, the Oxford Eagle. At age forty, he was the newbie, a cub reporter at 'the first job I'd ever had where I was older than my boss.' Dees brings the small-town newsroom to life, including the vile coffee, deadline duress, cubicle psychosis, and drudging daily obituary duty. Dees brings the wit and insight his radio listeners enjoy to the page in writing about his town's wacky and pivotal events. The book includes interviews with civil rights pioneers James Meredith and Myrlie Evers; late authors Shelby Foote and Willie Morris; a foggy encounter with legendary singer Willie Nelson; and a sweaty face-off with the late James Brown, the Godfather of Soul. All of this, and much more, made 1997 a wild year in Oxford, Mississippi, and now it's a wild, insightful, and hilarious book.

About this title

About the Author

Jim Dees is the author of Lies and Other Truths: Rants, Raves, Low-Lifes and Highballs and the editor of They Write Among Us: New Stories and Essays From the Best of Oxford Writers. Since 2000, he has been the host of The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, a music and literature program heard weekly on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Review

The Statue and the Fury reads like a fever-dream. The writing of Jim Dees turns out to be just as gonzo as his shirts, and that's saying a lot. For those of us who wish we could live year-round in Oxford, this wild book is as close as you can get without having to pay property taxes. --Harrison Scott Key, Author of The World's Largest Man and winner of the Thurber Prize in American Humor

At times profound, at times deeply insightful and often hilarious, Jim Dees' The Statue and the Fury is a loving look at small-town life, journalism and politics. I've been a fan of Dees' writing for years, and this is the book I've been waiting for. --Tom Franklin, Edgar Award-winning author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

This book may be the best thing I've read out of Mississippi in a long while. Dees knows where the bodies are buried and takes great glee in exhuming them. Throw in his deadpan humor, and you have a rollicking, informed and erudite read about everything from James Brown to the Hale-Bopp comet. --Rheta Grimsley Johnson, syndicated columnist and Pulitzer Prize finalist

About this edition

• Publisher: Nautilus
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1936946807
• ISBN 13: 9781936946808
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360