Speaker 1: Let's depart for one podcast and get away from the
Speaker 1: monster stories and the bigfoot stories and the werewolf stories
Speaker 1: and ghost stories and read something that's just normal. What
Speaker 1: you're about to hear are the first few scenes from
Speaker 1: a novel titled Salvaged this World by the author Michael
Speaker 1: Ferris Smith. When I'm done reading this, I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you a little more about what you're about to hear.
Speaker 1: So here we go. She stood bathed in twilight, the
Speaker 1: dust in her hair and a kid on her hip.
Speaker 1: She stared at the approaching storm as if trying to
Speaker 1: figure how to wrangle the thunderheads and steer them to
Speaker 1: a distant and parched land where desperate souls would pay
Speaker 1: whatever ransom she demanded. The acres of sugar cane cutting
Speaker 1: up surrounding the house. A dry autumn turned to an
Speaker 1: unpredictable winter, and then, eleven days ago, he left, and
Speaker 1: she'd seen no one since it was a mile walk
Speaker 1: along the dirt road that separated the acreage. Another eight
Speaker 1: miles to walk to the nearest telephone, but even if
Speaker 1: she wanted to bundle up and make it, she wouldn't
Speaker 1: know who to call. He was gone, and he had
Speaker 1: taken the car and the cigarettes and every dollar except
Speaker 1: the stash she kept hidden beneath the floorplank in the closet.
Speaker 1: She had finished the last of the whiskey three nights
Speaker 1: before the milk had run out. Yesterday, Jesse stared at
Speaker 1: the storm, and the wind began to blow, and dust
Speaker 1: clouds rose like souls awakened, and she listened to the
Speaker 1: wind and welcomed the sound of something else. She shifted
Speaker 1: the child from one hip to the other and pointed
Speaker 1: out at the lightning, and said, look at the light.
Speaker 1: Can you see the light? One side of the sky
Speaker 1: was thick with storm clouds, and the other side of
Speaker 1: the sky was wrapped in a rusted belt that bled
Speaker 1: into the horizon like an open wound. And the child
Speaker 1: lifted his small hand and pointed at the light. But
Speaker 1: it was not the lightning he saw, but a gathering
Speaker 1: of headlights approaching in the distance. The thunder roared and
Speaker 1: the engines roared, and she turned and ran for the house,
Speaker 1: setting the child down on the porch and hurrying for
Speaker 1: the bedroom. Her footfalls hard against the floorboards, and her
Speaker 1: breath in quick sucks as she took the pistol from
Speaker 1: beneath the mattress and grabbed the set of keys from
Speaker 1: the dresser drawer that he had always told her to
Speaker 1: grab if she had to make a run for it,
Speaker 1: And then she hustled out and scooped up the child,
Speaker 1: the headlights growing closer and splitting the dusk as she
Speaker 1: hurried around the house and along the beaten trail through
Speaker 1: the high grass that led into the woods. And she ran,
Speaker 1: and the child bounced in her arms, and she had
Speaker 1: just reached the edge of the woods when she looked
Speaker 1: back to see the vehicles skid to a stop in
Speaker 1: front of the house, a pale and powdery cloud rising
Speaker 1: around them. She heard the engines cut and the door
Speaker 1: slam behind her, and then she heard the shouts coming
Speaker 1: in her direction as the last of twilight seeped into
Speaker 1: the earth. They called out as they chased her into
Speaker 1: the woods, and the child squeezed her neck and held
Speaker 1: on but did not cry as she ran. She had
Speaker 1: gone far into these woods before, but never far enough
Speaker 1: to know if there was anything on the other side.
Speaker 1: She was seized by the thought that she may run
Speaker 1: over the edge of the earth, and that she and
Speaker 1: the child would plummet soundlessly into nothing. That thought was
Speaker 1: interrupted when a shotgun fired into the night, its echo
Speaker 1: ringing through the trees. She pushed harder, squeezing the child
Speaker 1: close to her chest, praying not to run over the edge,
Speaker 1: or if there was such a thing, praying that her
Speaker 1: fall would be brief and painless. Another shotgun blast, and
Speaker 1: then in another, and she knew they were looking for him.
Speaker 1: She knew there was a fine damn reason he had
Speaker 1: never returned. She knew she and the child could never
Speaker 1: go back to the house, and she knew she would
Speaker 1: have to keep running. They shivered through the night. Jesse
Speaker 1: unbuttoned her flannel shirt and held Jase against her skin
Speaker 1: and wrapped the shirt around them both, but it did
Speaker 1: not stop the shaking. He cried some little whimpers of discomfort,
Speaker 1: little whimpers of hunger. She sat on a pile of leaves,
Speaker 1: with her back against a white oak and held him tight.
Speaker 1: She rocked a little, hummed, and sometimes sang, and she
Speaker 1: kept promising that everything was going to be all right.
Speaker 1: The boy slept in increments, the ragged sleep of distress
Speaker 1: and discomfort, and an owl hooted, and nightbirds sang. The
Speaker 1: deer moved in the dark, and their creeping sounded like
Speaker 1: monsters and wait. She nodded in and out of sleep,
Speaker 1: and when her eyes fell heavy, she imagined strong arms
Speaker 1: and strong hands reaching for her through the dark, prying
Speaker 1: the child from her grasp. She would wake with a
Speaker 1: jerk to find herself squeezing the child so tightly that
Speaker 1: he was struggling for freedom. She would stroke the back
Speaker 1: of his head and coax him back to sleep, and
Speaker 1: her eyes stayed open, wide, watching the woods and watching
Speaker 1: for the arms and hands that approached in her dreams,
Speaker 1: but then closing them again. Finally there was light. She
Speaker 1: rubbed her eyes and felt the warmth of the child's
Speaker 1: skin against her own. She did not want to wake him,
Speaker 1: so she sat there and watched the morning come, listen
Speaker 1: to the chirps and whistles and the movement of the
Speaker 1: early creatures. The child lifted its head and coughed, opened
Speaker 1: his eyes and looked with question at his mother. She
Speaker 1: kissed the boy on top of his ear and said,
Speaker 1: it's all right, it's all right. She then tucked the
Speaker 1: empty pistol into the back of her pants, and she
Speaker 1: started them walking south, believing if she kept walking south
Speaker 1: that she would run into de Cambre. Amidst the trees.
Speaker 1: She would stop and listen for the hum of the highway,
Speaker 1: and set the boy down and rest him in it
Speaker 1: and listen. Then he would cry to be carried again,
Speaker 1: and she would tell him to hold on, hush a second,
Speaker 1: but he was not concerned, and he cried harder and
Speaker 1: made little mad fists, and she would pick him up
Speaker 1: and start again. In an hour, she came to a clearing,
Speaker 1: and the earth grew soft and heavy. The damp ground
Speaker 1: sucked at her feet, and she set the child down
Speaker 1: and retied the laces on her boots. He wabbled and
Speaker 1: plopped down on his behind a smack as his ass
Speaker 1: hit the wet ground. He screamed something different now from
Speaker 1: toddler whimpers. And he screamed and shook and slapped at
Speaker 1: his own legs, red faced and releasing as much anger
Speaker 1: as his little body could muster. And she propped her
Speaker 1: hands on her hips and looked down at him and said,
Speaker 1: let it out, Let it all out, boy, And when
Speaker 1: he was done, she reached down and helped him to
Speaker 1: his feet. In the back of his pants muddy, he
Speaker 1: stood next to her and they both looked out across
Speaker 1: the marshland cranes stood on stumps. A flock of blackbirds
Speaker 1: rose from a cluster of young cypress and scattered across
Speaker 1: the low sky, and the sun sat on the horizon
Speaker 1: and lathered the Martian gold, and it seemed beautiful to
Speaker 1: her in a way she had not expected. But there
Speaker 1: was no time to admire. The child was now wet
Speaker 1: and hungry and cold, and she was hungry and cold,
Speaker 1: and she didn't know where they were, but she knew
Speaker 1: there was a highway somewhere. They circled around the edge
Speaker 1: of the marsh for at least an hour, and crossed
Speaker 1: into another wood, where the trees thinned. The sun rose
Speaker 1: higher into a blue and cloudless sky, and their pace
Speaker 1: had slowed, and the child slept with his head on
Speaker 1: his mother's shoulder. The pistol was cold and hard against
Speaker 1: the small of her back, and every now and then
Speaker 1: she touched the pocket of her jeans, feeling the keys
Speaker 1: and making sure she had grabbed them, and it was
Speaker 1: not part of some hurried dream. First she saw the smoke,
Speaker 1: and she followed it until she was close enough to
Speaker 1: smell it. She came to the edge of the woods
Speaker 1: and stopped hid herself behind a tree. Saw a small
Speaker 1: cabin with smoke rising from its chimney and a trailer
Speaker 1: next to it. A truck sat unavidly propped up by
Speaker 1: a jack, a front tier missing the hood raised behind
Speaker 1: a truck, a hatchback sat running and the driver's door
Speaker 1: was open, a cloud of exhaust from the tailpipe as
Speaker 1: the heat met the coal. A woman stood on the
Speaker 1: cabin porch with a lit cigarette, and then another woman
Speaker 1: joined her. She held a shovel and she leaned it
Speaker 1: against the doorframe. They both wore denim jackets with collars
Speaker 1: pushed up around their necks, and both stood with their
Speaker 1: hips propped while they smoked. They talked between inhales and
Speaker 1: exhales and one and two word sentences, and when they
Speaker 1: were done smoking, they flicked the butts into the dirt,
Speaker 1: and one of them yelled out toward the trailer, come on,
Speaker 1: we got shit to do. The women then stepped back
Speaker 1: inside the cabin, leaving the door open, and Jesse sprinted
Speaker 1: from the woods, the child waking with a sudden jolt,
Speaker 1: and he let out a cry that she didn't acknowledge
Speaker 1: as she darted between old tires and a pile of
Speaker 1: firewood and a smoldering heap of trash, and then she
Speaker 1: heard the growl as a wolf on a chain rose
Speaker 1: from slumber and lurched at her backside with its bone
Speaker 1: white fangs, only to be held fast by a chain.
Speaker 1: She screamed, and the wolf yet, but she didn't slow down,
Speaker 1: making it to the hatchback and hopping in, just as
Speaker 1: a man in coveralls emerged from the trailer holding a
Speaker 1: coffee mug. He sipped and watched dumb eyed, before realizing
Speaker 1: that it was a stranger in the car, a stranger
Speaker 1: holding a child. He hollered, and two women came from
Speaker 1: the cabin, and the three of them came down the
Speaker 1: steps and ran for the hatchback. As Jesse shifted into reverse,
Speaker 1: the car door opened and flapping like a wing, and
Speaker 1: then slamming shut when she hit the brakes, shifted into
Speaker 1: drive and stamped the gas, the tires spinning and the
Speaker 1: three of them trying to corral the hatchback like some
Speaker 1: untamed animal. And as the car raced away from their cries,
Speaker 1: a coffee mug crashed on the hood as if dropped
Speaker 1: from heaven, just as the tires caught firm on the
Speaker 1: gravel road. She drove along the back roads away from
Speaker 1: De Cambre and toward Lake Penure, finding a solitary gas
Speaker 1: station where she stopped and bought a small bottle of
Speaker 1: milk and honey, buns and powdered doughnuts, cigarettes and a lighter,
Speaker 1: and a pack of diapers. Then she left the store
Speaker 1: and drove east a long highway fourteen, the landscape shifting
Speaker 1: from swamp to crops and back to swamp. She turned
Speaker 1: off down a dirt road, and she and the child
Speaker 1: ate and drank until there was nothing left but to
Speaker 1: lift the sugar from their fingertips. She changed the boy's diaper,
Speaker 1: leaned back the passenger seat, let him lie down while
Speaker 1: she sat on the hood, smoked a cigarette and tried
Speaker 1: to figure out what the hell to do. She would
Speaker 1: need to get rid of the hatchback, and she was
Speaker 1: ready for that. The upholstery was stained and poked with
Speaker 1: cigarette burns, and smelled sour and sick. The back seat
Speaker 1: was piled with wadded clothes and fast food bags. And
Speaker 1: as foul as the hatchback looked and smelled, she knew
Speaker 1: it had been called in. They were not far from
Speaker 1: New Iberia, and there was probably a bus station there,
Speaker 1: and she could leave the hatchback with a nice note
Speaker 1: that said I was only borrowing it, but also a
Speaker 1: new Iberia. There would be real police made aware of
Speaker 1: the license plate and given a description of both them
Speaker 1: and the shitty little car. And where the hell do
Speaker 1: you think you're taking a bus to? Anyway, She made
Speaker 1: a lap around the car, smoking and thinking, and looking
Speaker 1: in at Jace, who was turned on his side and sleeping,
Speaker 1: small hands tuck beneath a small cheek powdered sugar on
Speaker 1: the corners of his mouth. She flicked away the cigarette
Speaker 1: and looked at the heap and the back seat, and
Speaker 1: it didn't matter if she was going another mile or
Speaker 1: another one hundred miles. She couldn't do it with the smell.
Speaker 1: So she quietly opened the door, pulled the lever on
Speaker 1: the driver's seat and it came forward, and she reached
Speaker 1: into the back seat and grabbed a mess of clothes
Speaker 1: and trash. She made three before she had it all
Speaker 1: lying in a pile at the rear of the car,
Speaker 1: and then she took the keys from the ignition and
Speaker 1: she unlocked the hatch to shove it all into the back,
Speaker 1: but there was no room. It was covered in garbage
Speaker 1: bags and bound with duct tape, and it was big
Speaker 1: and lumpy, and she knew what it was. She stepped back,
Speaker 1: tripping through the clothes and trash and falling to the ground,
Speaker 1: up quickly and hand over her mouth as she moved
Speaker 1: back toward the hatch and stared at it, wondering if
Speaker 1: it would jerk if she poked it. And she watched
Speaker 1: carefully for a moment, any rise and fall of breathing,
Speaker 1: any possibility of it being something other than dead as hell.
Speaker 1: But it was still, and the world hell still around her,
Speaker 1: as her mind could only find one thought, Is it him?
Speaker 1: She walked back and forth along the side of the car,
Speaker 1: mumbling to herself, rubbing at her face and neck, wanting
Speaker 1: to look and to keep away. And she picked up
Speaker 1: a rock and threw it, and then another and another,
Speaker 1: finally crying out in disgust with not just today and yesterday,
Speaker 1: but crying out against the years that had led her
Speaker 1: to now all the steps she had taken to arrive
Speaker 1: on this empty road in the middle of nowhere, with
Speaker 1: her small son asleep in a stolen car and a
Speaker 1: dead thing wrapped in a garbage bag and the hatch,
Speaker 1: and she screamed out into the void. And when she
Speaker 1: had screamed herself out of breath, she turned and saw
Speaker 1: Jason's face in the window, awakened by his mother, his
Speaker 1: nose and palms pressed against the glass. She slammed the
Speaker 1: hatch before opening the car door and lifting him out,
Speaker 1: talking to him in a flurry of motherly voice, did
Speaker 1: you sleep okay? I didn't mean to wake you up.
Speaker 1: Do you feel better with your tummy full? Ready to
Speaker 1: ride some more? The child shook his head at her questions,
Speaker 1: rubbed at his eyes, and then he put his hands
Speaker 1: on her cheeks, as if to hold her still and
Speaker 1: gain her full attention. Their eyes were close, and the
Speaker 1: boy pushed at her cheeks. Home. He said, but I
Speaker 1: don't know where that is. She thought, I don't know
Speaker 1: which direction. I don't know what to do, And then
Speaker 1: he said it again and pressed her cheeks harder with
Speaker 1: his little hands. Home. She squeezed him, walked down the
Speaker 1: road holding him, singing bits and pieces of songs, fragments
Speaker 1: of lullabies and a half of a verse of amazing Grace,
Speaker 1: and ending with both of them quacking like ducks. They
Speaker 1: sang and walked, and she kept looking back at the hatchback,
Speaker 1: as if hoping it had sunk into the earth, or
Speaker 1: maybe never existed at all. They returned to the car.
Speaker 1: Nobody would have called it in. She could drive it
Speaker 1: to the end of the world if she wanted to,
Speaker 1: but she didn't want to. She opened the milk bottle
Speaker 1: and Jase took a swallow, and then she took a swallow.
Speaker 1: She settled him in the passenger seat, and then she
Speaker 1: returned to the back. You have to look, she thought,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to look and see if it's him.
Speaker 1: She opened the hatch again and felt around and found
Speaker 1: the head pulled at the plastic bags and tore a hole,
Speaker 1: and she saw matted hair and crusted blood on the forehead.
Speaker 1: And she turned the face toward her, and two bruised,
Speaker 1: pulpy and half open eyes looked at her, and she gasped,
Speaker 1: taken quickly by the stair of the dead, and she
Speaker 1: stepped back and put her hands on her knees and
Speaker 1: bent over, drawing deep breaths, settling herself because it was
Speaker 1: not him, and she had been ready for it to
Speaker 1: be so. But she took a breath and pulled at
Speaker 1: the body and tried to rustle it out of the hatchback.
Speaker 1: It was heavy and awkward and kept flopping back down,
Speaker 1: but she finally got the legs over the side and
Speaker 1: she lifted the torso and the weight carried forward and
Speaker 1: the body tumbled out. It lay on its back, the
Speaker 1: hole and the plastic, allowing its swollen eyes one last
Speaker 1: glimpse of sunlight before she turned it on its stomach
Speaker 1: and grabbed the legs and pulled it into the ditch.
Speaker 1: When she was done, she turned around and Jace was
Speaker 1: standing there watching her, holding the bottle of milk and
Speaker 1: pointing at the thing in the ditch as if pointing
Speaker 1: at an animal in the zoo. The wrestling and the
Speaker 1: anxiety had given her a sweat, and she wiped her
Speaker 1: forehead and mouth, and then she scooped up the child
Speaker 1: and began telling the story of the Three Little Bears
Speaker 1: as she returned him to the car and buckled his
Speaker 1: seat belt. And she kept telling it as she cranked
Speaker 1: the car, and as they turned back onto the highway,
Speaker 1: Jay set silently and Jesse drove with both hands gripping
Speaker 1: the steering wheel. Her forearms clenched and her shoulders clenched
Speaker 1: as she deepened her voice for Papa Bear and lightened
Speaker 1: it for Mama Bear and the rough road thump beneath
Speaker 1: them as she told the story and tried to figure
Speaker 1: out how many years it had been since she had
Speaker 1: last spoken to her father. I've been doing this podcast
Speaker 1: for six years. It'll be six years this October, I think.
Speaker 1: And I've done some I've done several audio books. I've
Speaker 1: done hundreds and thousands of stories that you guys have
Speaker 1: sent me. I've done several stories that I've written myself.
Speaker 1: We've done the Steve Lily series, which if you don't
Speaker 1: know who Steve Lily is, it's another podcast. Just look
Speaker 1: up the Steve Lily Journals. I was able to write
Speaker 1: those and share them with you. But of all the
Speaker 1: all these all the time that I've been doing this,
Speaker 1: that what I just read you to me is the
Speaker 1: greatest honor that I've and greatest pleasure that I've had
Speaker 1: to share something with you. I'm not saying I did
Speaker 1: the story any justice, and it's just the beginning of
Speaker 1: the novel. But here's how this came about. You all
Speaker 1: know that I'm a I'm not a voracious reader. I'm
Speaker 1: a picky reader. I like to read good quality stuff
Speaker 1: and sometimes I like to read just you know, fun
Speaker 1: stuff that may not be written well. But I love
Speaker 1: Southern writers. You all know I live in Mississippi. I
Speaker 1: actually lived just about an hour north of this author.
Speaker 1: I came across his books. My wife and I went
Speaker 1: to a movie probably last year. The title of the
Speaker 1: movie is Desperation Road, and we thought it was a
Speaker 1: great story. We were enthralled with the movie. And when
Speaker 1: I see a movie that a film that I really like,
Speaker 1: I will sit through the credits to see if it's
Speaker 1: based on a novel, so that if it's a good story,
Speaker 1: I can look up the author and see what they
Speaker 1: have out and maybe read their stuff. And I did
Speaker 1: on this one, and it it's very and it said
Speaker 1: it is based on a novel by Michael Ferris Smith,
Speaker 1: who is a Mississippi writer who's written a novel and
Speaker 1: it was turned into a really popular film. He has
Speaker 1: several books out. I've read them all. He has another
Speaker 1: novel out called The Fighter, which is an excellent, excellent
Speaker 1: story which was also made into a film called I Believe.
Speaker 1: The title is Rumble in the Dark. It's about a
Speaker 1: prize fighter, a bare knuckle fighter in the Delta in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and it's just a saga of his last few days.
Speaker 1: But Michael Ferris Smith, so let me just you know,
Speaker 1: you guys, I ramble a lot. So here's how this
Speaker 1: came about. I've read all his books, and when I
Speaker 1: read good stuff, and since I do narrate some of
Speaker 1: this stuff for this podcast, as I'm reading these novels,
Speaker 1: I can I can hear it in my mind, and
Speaker 1: I can see the story with my mind's eye. Everybody's
Speaker 1: vision of what they read is different, but mine is.
Speaker 1: I pay attention to it. I pay attention to the
Speaker 1: voice as I read. And every time I read a
Speaker 1: really good book, I think, oh my gosh, I would
Speaker 1: love to just be able to just share with this
Speaker 1: audience one chapter to show you how well these Southern
Speaker 1: writers are able to tell a story in a succinct,
Speaker 1: compact way, yet move a story from point A to
Speaker 1: point B, which could be one hundred miles in two weeks,
Speaker 1: and they can do it in three chapters. And it
Speaker 1: is and the adjectives and the way they describe the scenery,
Speaker 1: and all that is not over flowery. That's the best
Speaker 1: word I can think of, but it is so to
Speaker 1: the point and so beautiful. Anyway, I started reading Michael
Speaker 1: Faris Smith, and I love uh. This was the first
Speaker 1: book I read that he's written, is called Rivers, excellent book.
Speaker 1: I think Salvage this World, which is the first few
Speaker 1: scenes you just heard, was a second book I read.
Speaker 1: Then I read Blackwood, which is an excellent, very good novel,
Speaker 1: and then I went to Desperation Road because I had
Speaker 1: already seen the movie, so I kind of had an
Speaker 1: idea of the story. By the way, Desperation Road I
Speaker 1: believe was produced by Mel Gibson, he's actually in the movie. Anyway.
Speaker 1: So I read these books and I think, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I kind of do that, And you know, I'm into
Speaker 1: this stuff. I love fiction, especially Southern fiction, and I
Speaker 1: think it would be so great if I could just
Speaker 1: read one or two chapters to show you all what
Speaker 1: really good writing sounds like and encourage you to maybe,
Speaker 1: if you are a reader, to go buy these books
Speaker 1: and try these authors out. And so I got on
Speaker 1: Michael Ferrissmith's website just to read more about him. I'm
Speaker 1: interested in writers, and you know how they do their thing,
Speaker 1: where they live, where there, what are their influences. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm interested in that. I just am
Speaker 1: and there was a contact information a contact link which
Speaker 1: gave me his email address. So I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to fire him off an email, and I
Speaker 1: sent him an email and I said, look, you staid
Speaker 1: nothing to gain from this, because I'm just a small
Speaker 1: podcast narrator, you know, who narrates audio book style stories.
Speaker 1: But I would love permission from you to share a
Speaker 1: few chapters from some of your books with my audience.
Speaker 1: And a couple of days later he responded and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, sure, that sounds great, go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1: And thanks for asking. What an I mean? This guy
Speaker 1: is a best selling author. He knows and associates with
Speaker 1: people who make films and produce films. He's really done well,
Speaker 1: and for him to give me permission to do this
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite things I've ever done with
Speaker 1: this podcast. And I don't know if he'll ever hear
Speaker 1: this or not, but Michael, if you're listening, thank you
Speaker 1: for giving me permission. So that's all I wanted to say.
Speaker 1: You can find all of his books. I'll put his
Speaker 1: name in a list of two or three of the
Speaker 1: books that I can remember off the top of my
Speaker 1: head in the description. You can look him up on Amazon.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to put a link to any of
Speaker 1: his books because I don't think YouTube likes Amazon. I
Speaker 1: don't think they like the Amazon links. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I say that, but it seems like a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago I had a video taken down because
Speaker 1: I was promoting an indie author, and it seems like
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure YouTube took the video down, they demonetized it,
Speaker 1: and then took the video down, mainly because that link
Speaker 1: was in the description. So I'll put Michael Ferris Smith's website,
Speaker 1: his name and a list of a few of the
Speaker 1: novels he has out. Please look him up and buy
Speaker 1: his books. If you enjoy good storytelling and good writing,
Speaker 1: exceptional writing, read him. Here are some other authors that
Speaker 1: I read. These are Southern. These are Southern authors who
Speaker 1: that I kind of follow. I haven't read all of
Speaker 1: their stuff, but I'm getting through it. One is Larry Brown.
Speaker 1: I've just told you about Michael Ferris Smith. There's an
Speaker 1: author named Barry Hannah. There's Brad Watson, Harry Crews. He
Speaker 1: writes some kind of weird stuff, but it's really good.
Speaker 1: It's good stuff. And then there's Pat Conroy. Larry Brown
Speaker 1: and Pat Conroy have died since I began reading their stuff.
Speaker 1: Pat Conroy is a wonderful Southern writer. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite novels of all time is The Prince of Tides.
Speaker 1: It's the most beautiful, one of the most beautifully written
Speaker 1: books think I've ever read. I've actually that's one of
Speaker 1: the few novels I've actually reread. And Prince of Ties.
Speaker 1: Pat Conroy has several novels out. You can read them.
Speaker 1: So that's all I wanted to do for this podcast.
Speaker 1: I know it's unusual, and I know it's short, but
Speaker 1: sometimes you just want to do something different. And I'm
Speaker 1: as long as Michael Ferris Smith's permission stands, I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick up over the next few months a couple
Speaker 1: of his other books and read three or four chapters
Speaker 1: from it to try to give you get you interested
Speaker 1: in it. Because if you enjoy good writing, you will
Speaker 1: enjoy all these writers. So that's it. This is I'm
Speaker 1: gonna upload this on Sunday. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: date is. The first, maybe September first, as Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 1: Hope you guys are having a good Labor Day weekend
Speaker 1: and we'll be back to monster stories on the next podcast.
Speaker 1: Love you all, see you on the next one. Thanks
Speaker 1: the was amashim my computer