Wolf Whistle (1993) by Lewis Nordam

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Wolf Whistle (1993)

by Lewis Nordam

Arrow Catcher, Mississippi

Mississippi: 18/19

     The end of each state is a cause for reflection on my part- what I've learned, any avenues I am interested in pursuing further, etc.  Mississippi is a dead end- I think I'll always be interested in Faulkner because of his interesting canonical history, but the more books I read set in Mississippi, the less interesting Faulkner becomes.  Here at the tail end of the chapter, Wolf Whistle has been kicking around my Kindle for six months.  This is an example of the "post-Faulkner" genre of southern lit, where authors with literary ambition are compared to one or all of the handful of authors from here with any literary cache.  Wolf Whistle is a surprisingly "even handed" recounting of the Emmett Till murder, mostly from the point of view of the murderer.     Considering how many of the books in this chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America deal with the murder of an African American male at the hands of local white people, I'm not sure Wolf Whistle was a necessary pick, but no doubt my viewpoint of this book was largely informed by it's second-to-last place in the random reading order.