Stark Summer: A Novel of Correlated Incidents (James Robert Peery, 1938)

Over the next couple of days I’m going to post enough content to make up for lack of same so far this summer. Hope you enjoy and I’d appreciate feedback. Also, I need $200 to buy Peery’s second book, God Rides a Gale, so hit the tip jar if you are inclined. Thanks!

Back story

I recently submitted a short story, “The Crumpled Yellow Paper,” to the literary journal, Thema. (Pleased to report, if I haven’t already, that the last one I submitted will be published in the Autumn issue.) The story is about a little old man named Roy and his family. Leading up to the dénouement– the last chapter where everything gets tied up and we figure out what’s been going on– we see Roy taking from the front pocket of his overhauls a piece of crumpled yellow paper and writing some words. In the last section of the story we learn from Roy’s great-grandson that

When Mom told Papa Roy she was going to have a baby he started writing down all the lessons he thought a Southern kid should learn, so he could pass them down to me. [Roy eventually transfers these lessons from the paper to a copybook.]

One of those lessons was, “Respect the dead, even liars and cheats.”

An early draft left it at that. Roy the Younger and his wife read through the lessons that we’ve earlier seen Roy writing on the paper, they read this one, and remark that the inclusion of “liars and cheats” was interesting.

Two of my readers, you know them as daughters Kat and Miss M, were having none of that. Kat sent me a longish email which basically said, “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! WHY LIARS AND CHEATS?” followed by a couple of paragraphs of possibilities. For reasons having to do with page limit, not wanting to get sidetracked, and (cough) not having a clue why Roy included “liars and cheats,” I simply added a few words and smoothed over the mystery.

But then I wanted to know why “liars and cheats,” too. This is how I handled the issue in the story I just submitted. It is also the epigraph to the next story (maybe paraphrased a little to be more clear):

Which moves us closer and closer to Stark Summer.

The Obligatory Rabbit Hole

One cannot write a short story– or even think one up in one’s head– about life in Mississippi in the 1930s if one knows next to nothing about the Depression in the Deep South. Fortunately, if one has spent the better part of two decades building up a library of crappy old books, one has the resources to learn.

C’mon rabbit holes!

Sorry to scare you like that. I won’t actually begin at the beginning. We’ll begin, as Missy loves to begin, in medias res with my discovery in A History of Mississippi Volume II (1981) of James Robert (Jim) Peery (1900-1954).

To be clear, ‘Name of Local Paper,’ and ‘my town’ do indeed refer to my county’s weekly newspaper published in my town. What luck! A novel set in my town at the end of the Depression. What more could I ask for?

For starters, the book. I did not have a copy of it. Bookfinder did not have a copy. Amazon has never heard of it. Gutenberg? No. Archive redirects me to a Wikipedia disambiguation page that doesn’t list Peery’s name. Time to go old school– search Tombigbee Library System, a group of real places that contain books and share catalogs.

Meanwhile, I emailed the editor of The Name of Local Paper asking if he by chance has a copy, etc. He did not. But he had a vague recollection of who Peery was, and almost immediately began doing his own line of research on Peery and Stark Summer, sending me his results.

As it turns out, the Library at State has two copies of Stark Summer, one in a non-circulating collection, and one in circulation. John and I walked over there a week or so ago. And as we are still in the obligatory rabbit hole, it was a side hole. (The copy that was in circulation was the microfiche copy and– this will be hard for you to believe– I do not have a microfiche reader!) … Interlibrary loan. John brought it home last Friday.

The Name of Local Paper

While I was waiting for the book to arrive, the newspaper editor and I corresponded a bit more. I ordered Peery’s third novel, Angels Sleep Alone, which was published posthumously (2020). And I read as much as I could find on Peery. I have held off reading any more reviews and write-ups of Stark Summer because I didn’t want my reading to be influenced. (Editor shared with me how to search old newspapers.) I suggested to the editor that when I’d finished reading, I’d write my own review and re-introduce Peery and his work to My Town. He said he’d publish anything I wrote.

Which brings us to today. I need to get my thoughts in order. What better place to ramble on and on about the book, the times, the characters, and the setting than here?

To be continued.