STARKVILLE — While most novels aim to be interesting, not all involve eight real historical southern murders.
“Our story starts in a cemetery and ends in a cemetery, with some other things in between,” Anne Hart Preus told the Friends of the Starkville Public Library on Thursday afternoon, discussing the novel “Out of Texas,” which she co-wrote with her cousin Joseph Townsend, who was not present at the event.
Preus said Townsend originally came up with the idea for the book before bringing it to her when he first heard of the Brantley-Baltzell feud, a historic feud that spilled from Gonzales, Texas and into Winona, Mississippi in the mid-1800s.
In a phone interview with The Dispatch, Townsend said he originally heard of the Brantley-Baltzell feud, which inspired “Out of Texas,” from his hometown newspaper.
“I still get the Winona Times newspaper, and several years ago a writer that does a column for the newspaper did a three week series on the Brantley-Baltzell feud,” Townsend said.
After reading the series printed in the newspaper, Townsend believed that the feud would make for a “pretty good historical novel.”
In 2021, Townsend said he started researching for the project, learning a lot about the feud from an article published by the East Texas Historical Journal, along with other resources to supplement his understanding of Mississippi in the 1800s.
According to the historical journal, the feud that intrigued Townsend spanned from 1859 until 1870, starting when William Baltzell whipped a slave belonging to John Brantley in Gonzales, Texas. When Brantley sought justice for the assault, he wound up dead.
When Brantley’s wife, Rebecca, returned to Choctaw County, Mississippi, and extended family members learned about the deaths in the family, the feud only intensified. More murders followed over the course of eleven years.
Eventually, Townsend said, he reached the limits of his writing skills, as he had no previous novel writing experience, working as a Certified Public Accountant full time. He also said he reached the limits of what history alone could tell him.
“The history would only take you so far,” Townsend said. “The final murders themselves took place… in and around Winona in 1870, and the truth is those murders were never solved.”
In November 2021, Townsend decided to involve his cousin, Anne Hart Preus, due to her previous experience publishing her memoir “Stories from the Hart” in 2011, along with her experience as a public school teacher, education director for an after school program and working as a reporter for the Bolivar Commercial in Cleveland.
“Joe did a tremendous amount of research,” Preus said. “I really appreciate him asking me to work on this project. It was a different experience for sure, to try to take something and make it come to life.”
Preus, who had retired from the newspaper business and moved to Starkville in 2017, took up the challenge of helping to flesh out the history into a novel. After reading Townsend’s initial research and writings, she began filling out the story to bring the characters to life.
“He said ‘it’s just a tale too good not to be told,’” Preus said. “And I’m like, ‘tale, ok, tale. I’m kind of interested.’ And he said ‘I’ve got the facts, but I need some imagination.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’”
For about seven months, Preus said, the pair worked together over the phone, sharing documents with each other and pushing the book forward. Preus said when the book was finished, it was 60% fact and 40% imagination.
At one point, during the writing of the book, Preus said, the number of murders in the book had reached eight and counting.
The final product, Townsend said, focuses on the Brantley family, along with protagonist Buford Hobbs, who was formerly enslaved by the family. Eventually, Hobbs becomes a member of Governor James Alcorn’s secret police force and the “hero of the story,” he said.
After the book was written, Preus and Townsend debated what the title of the book would be, when Preus said, “You know, it seems like nothing good comes out of Texas.” That sentence led to the title of the book.
Preus and Townsend self-published their book by the summer of 2022, pushing the book out in any way possible. Since then, Preus said, she has been sharing the story however she can with books and clubs around the state, with the dream of taking it farther and possibly onto the silver screen.
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