Paul Hemphill 1936-2009

For those of you who may not know, Paul Hemphill lost his battle with cancer Saturday. Though I understand a bit about what he has meant to our Southern culture, I never had the pleasure of meeting Hemphill, so I think writing about him is best left to one who knew him well and admired him greatly. Frank Reiss posted this reflection on Hemphill’s passing over at his bookstore blog, and I’ve re-posted here for our readers:

I have written one fan letter in my life, and it was to Paul Hemphill, who died this morning at age 73 after battling cancer for the last couple of years.

It was 1989, and I had just moved back to my hometown of Atlanta with plans of opening a bookstore after years of managing one in San Francisco. Right before leaving the Bay Area, I stumbled upon a copy of Hemphill's first novel, Long Gone, and being an avid baseball fan, I was drawn to its subject -- the lowest of the low minor leagues, and going through a somewhat turbulent departure from San Francisco, I was comforted by the book's great humor.

Reading the author bio on the book's jacket, I immediately recognized Hemphill's first title, The Nashville Sound, and also being a fan of country music, I grabbed the first copy of that one I could find, too.

Before packing up my truck and heading home, though, I discovered Too Old to Cry, a collection of Hemphill's newspaper columns and other journalism--including some during his own ill-fated stint in San Francisco, and at that point, I knew I had found a writer who spoke to me as few others ever had or ever would.

Hemphill was a native Southerner who loved so much about his culture that he was secure in pointing out its obvious defects. He was a natural journalist, whose writing embodied all the economy and simplicity of that world, but whose desire was to be more than that, to be a "real" writer, of books, at a time when those seemed to be things of permanence.

One of the first things I did when I got back to Atlanta, before buying inventory, before leasing a storefront, before coming up with a name, before writing a business plan (come to think of it, I still haven't written a business plan), was to write a fan letter to Paul Hemphill.

I can't remember exactly what I told him in that letter, other than to say how much his work had inspired me at a time in my life when I was dealing with my essential identity as a Southerner despite most of the previous decade on the West Coast seeing if I could perhaps be something else.

Not long after I opened A Cappella in the cold of that winter, a skinny man in a fur-lined coat stepped inside my door and said, a la Johnny Cash, "I'm Paul Hemphill."

I tingled with excitement and with a shaky voice showed him around my tiny new store, paying special attention to the first editions of all of his books that I showcased near the front.

I remained too in awe of Hemphill to ever even feel comfortable calling him "Paul," but over the years, we spent a good deal of time together, and in one of the career moves I take most pride in, I republished that first book, The Nashville Sound , to coincide with the publication of his great Hank Williams biography, Lovesick Blues, in 2005.

I have saved the email from when he agreed to let me do it, both because, like I say, it was a proud moment for me but also because its subject line is such a perfect example of Hemphill concision. It reads simply: "Let's Do Nashville."

Like most of my business endeavors--and most of his--the Nashville reprint was only a modest success. But, in our world, where Hank Williams always works as a soundtrack and failing to get a hit 7 out of 10 times at bat is as good as it gets--we were inspired enough by its performance to reprint the only remaining of his titles to, at that point, be out of print: Mayor: Notes on the Sixties, which he authored with Ivan Allen, Jr.

Soon, however, I received another classic Hemphill email:

"My life's on hold these days. Docs found cancer in my throat. Seems curable, and without too much pain. Excellent people on the case at Piedmont and Emory. No need to fret. Might be clear in couple of months."

That was two and a half years ago. By early this year, it was clear that he wouldn't be clear, and that Mayor would have to wait. Like everyone who knew the man, I've been prepared for this day for a while. I doesn't make the loss any less great.

It is possible to make too great a claim for Paul Hemphill's writing. It had its limits. It could be repetitious. But for anyone who ever fell under the sway of his words and his work, it was pure inspiration. Here was a man who did what he did, and did it damn well. It didn't make his life easy. But it made his city and his world a better place.

I am so grateful for the life and the example of Paul Hemphill.

-Frank Reiss, Owner, A Capella Books; Co-Host of Cover to Cover
July 11, 2009

LISTEN TO PAUL HEMPHILL'S FINAL INTERVIEW, RECORDED IN AUGUST, 2008, THIS SUNDAY AT 8 P.M. ON GPB

A Life Filled With Loss

By Frank Reiss

Jessica Handler's memoir, Invisible Sisters, was compared by Atlanta Magazine's Teresa Weaver to The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. It is an apt comparison, for Handler's work, like Didion's, finds surprising uplift in the most heartbreaking of stories.

Handler grew up in Atlanta's Morningside neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s, the oldest of three daughters. Both of her sisters died of rare blood diseases, leaving Handler with the legacy of a decimated family, memories of a fleetingly idyllic youth and imaginings of what life might have been like had such tragedy not befallen them.

One of her coping mechanisms has been keeping detailed journals throughout her life, and these have enabled Handler to capture her family's experience in rich and intimate detail. The memoir also serves as a portrait of the Atlanta during some of its most volatile years (she attended Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral) and her present life: married, childless by choice, and an instructor of creative writing.

In its graceful handling of such emotionally raw material, Invisible Sisters stands as terrific instruction itself on the art of writing. And in conversation Handler reveals herself to be good-humored and wizened by her act of rendering her life into art.

Listen to Jessica Handler on Cover to Cover this Sunday night at 8 p.m. on GPB.

For Independence Day - The American Dream Run Wild

Nearly a year after the triumphant release of his lauded fourth novel we are excited to present an in-depth interview with Ron Rash. Serena (Ecco/Harper Collins) is Rash’s period piece that is just as much a place piece, this period and place being Appalachia during the Great Depression. Rash is the Pariss Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, and if that moniker doesn’t signal his grasp of the region strongly enough the first few pages of Serena will.

Serena is the bride of George Pemberton, a young lumber baron from New England, and this is the story of her Machiavellian pursuit for power. As austere as Pemberton can be, he is the softie in the relationship as Serena lies, cheats, murders and mutilates her way along a course that would make Lady MacBeth blush. Rash plays up parallels to the Scottish Play throughout the novel to the point that when a clairvoyant portends of Pemberton’s death you may as well go ahead and begin thinking of creative ways by which the vision might be fulfilled.

Not that this book isn’t gripping—quite the contrary. This is a rare novel that manages to be a literary feat while also playing out as a bona fide page turner. Rash talks about this duality on this week’s show. He also talks a good deal about the disappearing wilderness in Appalachia, a central aspect of this novel. He notes the irony inherent in locals that participate in industries such as timber and mining: “The very thing that makes them special is the thing they’re destroying.”

Despite ample success with this and earlier works, Ron Rash isn’t a very public figure. He is soft-spoken and deferential. But this week he opens up a bit as he chats about the region that is not less a part of him than he is of it.

As you’re traveling home from holiday destinations we hope you’ll tune in the Cover to Cover on GPB Radio. Catch us at 8 PM in most parts of the state and at 6 PM on WUGA 91.7FM in the Athens area. Enjoy!

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Valeria's Last Stand

Marc Fitten has been a well-known figure on the the Atlanta literary scene for years. As the editor of The Chattahoochee Review, Fitten has infused the venerable periodical with a more international flavor and has been a force behind bringing a number of literary authors from around the world to Atlanta.

Now, the literary gadfly takes center stage with his debut novel, Valeria's Last Stand. The book is the lead fiction title in this season's catalogue from the esteemed literary publisher Bloomsbury. Set in post-Soviet Hungary, where Fitten spent several years in the 1990s, it is at once a love triangle (featuring characters of very advanced age) and a meditation on the changes wrought by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Early reviews of Valeria's Last Stand have dubbed it "subtle and brilliant" and "a beautiful debut" and the lead character "every bit as sensual and irrepressible as Chaucer's Wife of Bath."

Before embarking on an international book tour, Fitten discussed with Cover to Cover his literary inspirations and aspirations. You can hear the interview with Frank Reiss and Marc Fitten this Sunday night at 8 on GPB.

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Going Green with Melaver

On this week's Cover to Cover Orlando Montoya sits down with Martin Melaver to discuss his book "Living Above the Store: Building a Business That Creates Value, Inspires Change and Restores Land and Community"... Orlando Montoya sends us this short history of Melaver's many green endeavors...

I've been reporting on Martin Melaver's career since shortly after I came to Savannah in 1998. A developer, Melaver made news by undertaking one of the nation's first historic renovations to LEED standards. And if you don't know what those standards are, they basically govern everything about the building process for properties that want to be certified as "environmentally friendly." I interviewed him again when he developed a pioneering suburban strip mall to LEED standards.
Now he's involved in an "environmentally friendly" public housing project and has written a book about his journey in business. "Living Above the Store: Building a Business That Creates Value, Inspires Change and Restores Land and Community" is really a management handbook. In this interview, he also touches on hard questions that go to the core of two of our biggest global problems -- the recession and climate change -- and proves why he is considered a leading thinker in Savannah's sustainability movement.

You can hear the interview this Sunday night at 8 on GPB.
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Letters to a Young Sister

Valarie Edwards recently sat down with award winning author/actor Hill Harper to talk about his new book, Letters to a Young Sister. She has this preview:

Following on the heels of his award winning New York Times bestseller, Letters to a Young Brother, actor and author Hill Harper delivers life-affirming messages to young women in his latest book, Letters to a Young Sister.

In 2006, Letters to a Young Brother won two NAACP awards and, in 2007 was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association. The award winning actor currently stars in CSI: NY. In 2008, People Magazine named Harper one of the Sexiest Men Alive.

Hill Harper graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brown University and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He also holds a masters degree from the Kennedy School of Government.

Learn more at www.manifestyourdestiny.org.

You can listen to the interview this Sunday night at 8pm on GPB.


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Winston Groom's Vicksburg, 1863

Stan Deaton spoke with Winston Groom about his latest novel Vicksburg, 1863. He gives us this preview:

Winston Groom is a masterful storyteller, as one would expect from the man who wrote the novel Forrest Gump. Now the author of fourteen previous books of both fiction and non-fiction has brought his considerable skills to bear on retelling the story of one of the most important battle of America's most crucial war. Vicksburg, 1863 is Groom's latest offering, and it's a good one. One reviewer wrote that Groom's approach to the Civil War follows that of Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote, and that's pretty good company to be in.

Groom's got a great cast of characters to work with, and they're all here in vivid detail: Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Jefferson Davis, Joseph E. Johnston, John Pemberton, Earl Van Dorn, along with other Americans, black and white, northern and southern, who have been lost to history. His conclusion, that the loss of Vicksburg was a turning point in the war and the Confederacy's greatest setback, is not a surprise. But Groom takes it one step further: he argues that after Vicksburg fell in early July 1863, the Confederate high command should have realized that there was no possible way to win the war militarily, and they should have stopped fighting and sued for peace at that point, nearly two years before the war actually ended. It's an intriguing argument, and one of history's great "what if?" moments.

In this interview, he talks about all of this plus his years at the University of Alabama, his time in Vietnam, and the challenges of writing fiction and non-fiction."

You can listen to Stan Deaton’s interview with Winston Groom this Sunday night at 8 on GPB.

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