The Mississippi Delta is both a real and a mythical place. This story of a boy’s childhood is set in that strange and remarkable part of the world that is home to some of the richest farmland and some of the poorest people in America. A disproportionately large share of America’s art, literature and music has come from the Mississippi Delta. Those who have never been there cannot imagine the place, and those who have lived there cannot forget it.
From the Foreword
The Mississippi Delta is profoundly and defiantly flat. It conforms to the curvature of the Earth because it must, but it does so sullenly and with some resentment.
In 1948 David L. Cohn wrote that the Mississippi Delta is “…a strange and detached fragment thrown off by the whirling comet that is America.” No one has improved on that description. The Delta is strange and detached, a place of contradictions and inconsistencies that are neither contradictory nor inconsistent to those who have made their lives there.
“The Delta” is not the Mississippi River delta where the Father of Waters pours into the Gulf of Mexico, but rather an alluvial fan some 300 miles to the north created by centuries of annual flooding. It is home to some of the richest farmland and some of the poorest people in America.
In space, it occupies the combined flood planes of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, but it resides also in time and in the minds of the people who live there, have lived there, passed through there or stopped there. It is both a real and a mythical place.
…The Delta forms itself in the consciousness of those who experience it. It blends reality and imagination into memory and it alters perception the way gravitational fields bend light. It continues to do that long after you leave.
…The Mississippi Delta does exist, or did, and there are, or were, people like these who lived there. I am almost sure of that.
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From Chapter 1, WAR
It is well known to boys over the age of seven that soft Rs can suffocate a child. By some process unknown to science, they suck all of the oxygen out of the air. They just hang there and absorb it all until there is nothing left but nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
In that part of the American South known simply as “The Delta,” there is a unique and distinctive accent. Delta women of a certain age use soft Rs at the end of words in spoken language. Whether or not they do this with malice is unknown, but in ordinary conversation, a small group of Delta women will produce enough soft Rs (that’s pronounced “soft Ahs”) to imperil any child in the vicinity. in a confined space soft Rs are deadly.
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His mother’s garden club met at their house about once a month. The event always sneaked up on him. Suddenly they would all just arrive and within a matter of minutes the house was bereft of oxygen and infused with the smells of Jungle Gardenia perfume, teacakes and tea. Once they were gathered in the living room, escape was impossible. The best plan was to be gone before they arrived.
Glen assumed that most of the garden club ladies were in their forties. Forty seemed to be the standard age for grown people. People were kids, or they were grownups or they were old. The garden club ladies over the grownup age were called old ladies, but never to their faces. The ladies enjoyed the meetings. They laughed a lot and talked about all sorts of things besides gardening. On the surface they were all genteel pillars of the community and prime movers in their respective churches. He knew them for what they were — assassins.
Praise for A Strange Detached Fragment
“This book may be fiction, but it is nothing but the true Delta! Truth about feelings between PEOPLE, not race are refreshing to read.
Some scenes are hysterical and others tug at the heart.” – echamp, Amazon
“Engaging characters and unique perspective. This book pulled me in so many directions. If you’re crying, just turn the page. You’ll be laughing by the next paragraph.” – Carolyn Lawless ⊕
Jim McMurtray Books Altazimuth Media jim-mcmurtray.com
