I’m scheduled this month to show up at a writer’s fair in Mississippi’s Jackson, a town where I’ve only ever distinguished myself by not being hired by the local newspaper, being evicted from an apartment for parking a rotten sailboat in the side yard and working briefly for United Press International after that news organization stopped issuing regular paychecks.
You might say I’ve never gee-hawed that well with Jackson, though I have several fast friends I made in a shared rental we called the Smurf House that sat mildewing in the south end of town. Four of us lived a pretty good, laid-back life across from a strip mall with a discount theater and the PoFolks Restaurant, which we frequented because it had our names on it.
Jackson was never my finest moment. And I don’t see that changing.
Right now I’m reading the most recent books of others on the same panel to intimidate myself beyond sour Jackson memories. Two books from that stellar panel are memoirs by men writing mostly about their fathers, both excellent.
The gold standard in that genre is Larry L. King’s “The Old Man and Lesser Mortals,” so good that when I read it decades ago it made me want to put the quill back in the goose. Men, it seems, can write with great ease about their “old men,” whereas if a woman tries it, she sounds like she’s writing from the back of a Harley.
Larry L. King — this is the “Best Little Whorehouse” guy, not the TV guy — had a lot to work with, his Old Man being contrary and racist and out of the 1970s loop Larry was traveling. But if you want to talk Old Men, he’s nothing compared with Chris Offutt’s father, who left his writer son 1,800 pounds of pornographic fiction. It was all stuff that Old Man Offutt had written. Talk about your literary legacies.
Chris, already an acclaimed writer, went to the keyboard and delivered “My Father the Pornographer,” a touching tale of growing up in Kentucky with a father who wrote smut and a mother who typed it up all nice and neat.
I’ve never before felt cheated by my late father, a decent and clean-shaven traveling man and good provider in the meat business for decades. But after reading Chris’ story, I couldn’t help but wonder how some writers have all the luck. “My Father the Butcher” just doesn’t have the same ring, unless, of course, he’d butchered women and small children instead of beef shanks.
Harrison Scott Key’s “The World’s Largest Man” is born of more run-of-the-mill fare, a son who doesn’t cotton to killing things and a father who insists that he try. But it’s never been done like this.
I was on page 19 before I fell out of my chair laughing. “In Memphis you went to church to hear about the dangers of premarital sex. In Mississippi, I would learn, you could go to church to have it …”
Compared to everyone from David Sedaris to Mark Twain, Key makes writing look as easy as falling from a deer stand.
At least this won’t be one of those situations where nobody shows up for a reading or a book signing. There will be a crowd. I plan on sipping from the water glasses of my fellow panelists, in case there’s something there, grinning a lot and praying that if I do get asked a question, it won’t be “What the heck are you doing here?”
Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s most recent book is “Hank Hung the Moon … And Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts.” Comments are welcomed at [email protected].
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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