In August of 2017,I was invited to join a panel at the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson that honored the life and work of the Oxford writer Larry Brown. I quickly realized I’d be the only one on the panel who hadn’t known Larry, as he had passed before I broke through. There would be Ron Rash, another of my heroes. Mark Richard, who had been one of Larry’s best friends. And Richard Howorth, the owner of Square Books, would be the moderator, his own story of the discovery and then friendship with Larry the thing literary dreams are made of.
I had never been so anxious about an event, somehow feeling that I didn’t belong, or that I would sound stupid, or that I wouldn’t be able to give Larry the kind of sentiment he deserved. I saw the packed house, the standing-room-only crowd around the fringes. I recognized a horde of Oxfordians who had made the trip for this event, people who were close with Larry and had been heartbroken when he had unexpectedly died. I seriously considered ducking out the back door.
Richard broke down giving the intros, as he recalled Larry walking into Square Books, this blue-collar guy with a thick Mississippi accent, hungry for what to read, then later sharing his own short stories with Richard, and how special it was for a bookseller and a new writer to embark on such a true relationship. And then Mark broke, and I damn near reached down and cracked it open and swigged.
