New Title: Barbara Stanwyck

Out this month from UPM is the latest addition to our Hollywood Legends Series, Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman by Dan Callahan. Callahan gives readers a long-range view of Stanwyck’s life and her art including her seminal collaborations with Capra in great films such Ladies of Leisure, The Miracle Woman, and The Bitter Tea of General Yen; her Pre-Code movies Night Nurse and Baby Face; and her classic roles in Stella Dallas, Remember the Night, The Lady Eve, and Double Indemnity.

Scott Eyman, writing for the Wall Street Journal called it...

...a serious book about a serious woman, less a biography of an actress than a biography of her career

and also,

If Mr. Callahan's book is not the last word on this great actress, it will certainly stand as an invaluable critical guide.

The book positions Stanwyck where she belongs—at the very top of her profession—and offers a close, sympathetic reading of her performances in all their range and complexity. The book also features twenty-four illustrations, a filmography, and a bibliography.

Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman is now available from UPM. The book is also featured this month at Turner Classic Movies Book Corner. Enter the sweepstakes to win a free copy of the book.

Praise for The Gorilla Man

Randy Fertel’s The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir has been chosen as a 2011 Sharp Writ Book Award winner in the Autobiography/Memoirs category. 

The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak is the story of two larger-than-life characters and the son whom their lives helped to shape. Ruth Fertel was a petite, smart, tough-as-nails blonde with a weakness for rogues, who founded the Ruth's Chris Steak House empire almost by accident. Rodney Fertel was a gold-plated, one-of-a-kind personality, a railbird-heir to wealth from a pawnshop of dubious repute just around the corner from where the teenage Louis Armstrong and his trumpet were discovered. When Fertel ran for mayor of New Orleans on a single campaign promise--buying a pair of gorillas for the zoo-- he garnered a paltry 308 votes. Then he purchased the gorillas anyway!

The memoir offers a poignant and bittersweet portrait of one of New Orleans’ most legendary families, featuring the distinctive characters, color, food, and history of that city--before Hurricane Katrina and after.

Randy Fertel is president of both the Fertel Foundation and the Ruth U. Fertel Foundation, and co-founded the Ridenhour Prizes for Courageous Truth-Telling. He has taught English at Harvard University, Tulane University, Lemoyne College, the University of New Orleans, and the New School for Social Research. His work has appeared on NPR and in the Huffington Post, Kenyon Review, Creative Nonfiction, Smithsonian, New Orleans Magazine, and Gastronomica. He lives in New Orleans and New York.

Sharp Writ Book Awards are organized by Smart Book Lovers, a High IQ Society. Smart Book Lovers is a non-profit independent organization whose membership is open to people with high intellects and a passion for books

Praise for That's Got 'Em

That's Got 'Em!: The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman by Mark Berresford was the given the 2011 ARSC award for Best Historical Research in Recorded Jazz.

Wilbur C. Sweatman (1882–1961) is one of the most important, yet unheralded, African American musicians involved in the transition of ragtime into jazz in the early twentieth century. That’s Got ‘Em! is the first full-length Sweatman biography and follows the performer over a seven-decade career.

Sweatman toured the vaudeville circuit for over twenty years and presented African American music to white music lovers without resorting to “plantation” costumes and blackface makeup. His bands were a fertile breeding ground of young jazz talent, featuring such future stars as Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford.

The book also examines in depth the hitherto-unexplored relationship between black minstrelsy, circus sideshow bands, vaudeville, and the early black musical theatre and the pivotal roles they played in the development and dissemination of jazz and blues music. That’s Got ‘Em! is the most thorough account of Sweatman’s life and times

Begun in 1991, the awards are presented to authors and publishers of books, articles, liner notes, and monographs, to recognize outstanding published research in the field of recorded sound. In giving these awards, ARSC recognizes outstanding contributions, encourages high standards, and promotes awareness of superior works. Certificates of Merit are presented to runners-up for works of exceptionally high quality.

Roben Jones’ Memphis Boys: The Story of American Studios (now available in paperback!)was a finalist in the category for Best Research in Record Labels.

Richard Spottswood and Stephen Wade’s Banjo on the Mountain: Wade Mainer’s First Hundred Years was a finalist in the category for Best Historical Research in Recorded Folk, Ethnic, or Country Music.

Knowing Tennessee Williams

Peter Monaghan has a nice piece up on the Chronicle of Higher Education blog. Bearing Witness to a Young Tennessee Williams profiles UPM author William Jay Smith and his new book, My Friend Tom: ThePoet-Playwright Tennessee Williams. 

My Friend Tom presents a biographical portrait of Tennessee Williams, as told by fellow writer William Jay Smith, a poet who befriended Williams during his early years. The book offers eyewitness accounts of Williams' early productions and surroundings during his younger days.

Monaghan does a good job of pulling out some really interesting facts from his interview with Smith and the book. A few examples: 

On their college years:

At college, however, Williams was a self-consciously short young man struggling to come to terms with his homoerotic desires. His confusion was all the greater due to what Smith calls Williams’s “strong sensual response to girls, who were constantly in his company.” They were, Smith recalls, almost all “bright and pretty” and “spoke quickly and knowledgeably of many modern writers I had never heard of.”

Outstanding Academic Titles

Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture by Jeffrey A. Brown has been named an Outstanding Academic Title list by CHOICE.

Dangerous Curves adresses the conflicted meanings associated with the figure of the action heroine as she has evolved in various media forms since the late 1980s. Brown interprets the action heroine as a representation of changing gender dynamics that balances the sexual objectification of women with progressive models of female strength.

Several popular media representations are discussed in the book including female charters in the films G.I. Jane, Point of No Return, Kill Bill, Tomb Raider and television shows Alias, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Charlie’s Angels Xena: Warrior Princess and many others.

Books chosen to this list have been selected for their excellence in scholarship and presentation, the significance of their contribution to the field, and their value as important--often the first--treatment of their subject. Choice Outstanding Academic Titles are truly the "best of the best.

One Writer's Garden featured on Martha Stewart

Ann Patchett, novelist and bookstore owner, was a guest on The Martha Stewart Show on Friday. Patchett discussed her favorite books of the holiday season which included One Writer's Garden: Eudora Welty's Home Place. See the video below of Stewart and Patchett discussing the book.

UPM Fall BOOKFRIENDS Party

On Sunday, November 20 from 3 – 5 p.m. the University Press of Mississippi will be holding its annual BOOKFRIENDS fall membership party at the Historic Fairview Inn. This year’s party will celebrate the new book One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place.

One Writer’s Garden is an exploration of the garden Welty tended with her mother and how that work affected her writing. Speaking and signing copies of the book will be coauthor Susan Haltom and noted Delta photographer Langdon Clay. The book is lavishly illustrated and includes over 250 black and white historic photographs (many taken by Welty herself) and color photographs of the newly restored Welty garden, archival materials, as well as previously unpublished writings form Welty that speak to the writer’s deep connection to the earth and the plants she and her mother tended.

The reception will also include a silent auction. Among the items included in the auction will be paintings and prints from Mississippi artists as well as Langdon Clay’s photograph of the restored Welty garden. Attendees are welcome to tour the garden at the Eudora Welty House at 1119 Pinehurst Street from 2 – 3 p.m. prior to the reception.

The UPM BOOKFRIENDS are invaluable to the local success of the Press. “This book is a project the University Press is so proud to have published. It brings together the world of Mississippi’s most beloved writer with the wider movements in gardening and the social history of the time in which she lived. This is a part of the Welty story that has not been told, and through Susan Haltom, Jane Roy Brown, and Langdon Clay’s fine work, this aspect of the writer’s world comes to life on the page.”

“Further, it is a perfect book the BOOKFRIENDS to celebrate, as they have a long history of putting together fascinating programs to celebrate authors and the world of letters in Mississippi and beyond,” says Leila Salisbury, director of University Press of Mississippi.

“Though much of the news we hear about the publishing world today is about electronic books, this group does the invaluable job of helping the University Press of Mississippi connect with passionate readers and those who love the well-printed book. This type of beautiful color volume is a perfect illustration of what we as a Press strive to do to document and celebrate Mississippi culture.”

This event is open to the public. The ticket cost is $50 per person or $35 per person ages 35 and under. Tickets are available at the door and includes a 2012 BOOKFRIENDS membership.