Music of the Swamp (Front Porch Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Lewis Nordan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 1992 | Series: Front Porch Paperbacks

ALA Notable Book; Mississippi Arts and Letters Fiction Award. Nordan's fiction invents its own world, a world populated by madly heroic misfits. In MUSIC OF THE SWAMP, he focuses his magic and imagination on a single theme--a boy's utterly helpless love for his utterly hopeless father. "Lordy, Lordy, can Lewis Nordan write!"--Los Angeles Times Book Review; "It is absolute ballad put to page."--Southern Living.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nordan's engaging, wise, delightfully wry stories sound a melodious, bittersweet yawp, pulsating with love, grief, rage and a thirst for redemption. These 10 interrelated tales focus on Sugar Mecklin, a boy growing up in a Mississippi Delta town, and his pained, adoring love for his hopeless, hard-drinking father, Gilbert. Sugar, the narrator in all but one of the stories, tells of his parents' "strange destructive love for each other"; of their comical second honeymoon in a deserted coastal town where they attempt sexual fantasy games; and of his mother's forbearance for her husband, who attracts bad luck like a magnet. Nordan's ( The All-Girl Football Team ) Delta, a hothouse environment where personal interaction is stifled and hopes dashed, is peopled with memorable eccentrics and "white trash" on whom he confers a forlorn dignity. Occurring while Sugar is on leave from the army, Gilbert's bizarre death under a blanket of fish in a tornado-battered house is a rueful finale to a magical collection, an exorcism of childhood.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

YA-- The events here center around Sugar Mecklin, an adolescent living in Mississippi in the 1950s. His world is filled with misfits: his alcoholic father; an overweight soprano who sings among cabbages; an eccentric grandfather who pretends to be blind; and many others. Sugar's love for his father is the unifying element in ten interrelated yet separate stories. Nordan's writing is powerful. The heat of the summers, the failure of Sugar to escape his world, the quiet desperation of some of Mississippi's inhabitants, and the pervasiveness of death are so strongly delineated that although humor runs throughout, a sense of hopelessness prevails. This is hard-hitting stuff, not for everyone, but those who do read Nordan's book will come away richer for the experience. It deserves a place on any library shelf.
- Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (January 9, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565120167
• ISBN-13: 978-1565120167
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, disturbing, funny, redeeming., November 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Music of the Swamp (Front Porch Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Powerful, disturbing, funny, redeeming. Those are four words to describe this, Nordan's finest work. It's a back-and-forth foray into the past of Sugar Mecklin, one of the most likeable Southern boys since Huckleberry Finn. Sugar tries to come to grips with love, life and geography by returning to the stories of his late childhood in Mississippi with his lovelorn mother and drunken, Elvis-jacket-wearing daddy. It's painful at times, but so beautiful that it's the kind of book you wish you wrote.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and hilarious, August 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Music of the Swamp (Front Porch Paperbacks) (Paperback)

I suppose I am now some sort of Lewis Nordan "groupie." I first loved "The Sharpshooter Blues" and went on to enjoy all the rest including "Lightning Song." But, tonight I think that "Music of the Swamp" is my favorite. (Or, is it just that I read it today and so it is Nordan's work most fresh on my mind?) Sugar Mecklin is a very special character - but only as special as his family and friends. Sugar has a dad who has worn yellow plastic shoes and lived to talk about it. Read this book and read Lewis Nordan.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Southern magic realism at its best!, August 26, 2001

By 

deltablues (the South, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Music of the Swamp (Front Porch Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's hilarious! The reason (as one reviewer noted) that all those thoughts are strung together with comma making long sentences is because that's the way Southerners talk, and Lewis Nordan has captured the sing-song music of Southern language beautifully! Faulkner did the same thing, but Nordan is more fun to read and easier to understand. If you don't like Southern literature, pass this one by. But if you do like Southern writers, it's a must!