by Lewis Nordan
Additional Books by Lewis Nordan
Available from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Lightning Song
“Portnoy’s Complaint set on a llama farm in Mississippi.” —Self magazine
When twelve-year-old Leroy Dearman’s Uncle Harris arrives, life on the family llama farm takes on an entirely different flavor. Equilibrium tilts, lightning strikes, and Leroy finds himself kissing his innocence good-bye.
Fiction • Paperback edition: ISBN 978-1-56512-220-8
The Sharpshooter Blues
“This is not just a good book, this is a marvelous book.” —Voice Literary Supplement
One fateful day in the Delta town of Arrow Catcher, an orphaned teen, known as The Sharpshooter, shows off his fancy moves at the William Tell grocery, but when Hydro Raney, the sweet, simple hero of the book, tries his hand, the results are cataclysmic.
Fiction • Paperback edition: 978-1-56512-182-9
Music of the Swamp
“Lordy, Lordy, can Lewis Nordan write!”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
The summers Sugar Mecklin turns ten, eleven, and twelve are a time “in which magic might prove once and for all to be true.” It’s a time when he discovers singing mice in his mattress, hears Elvis on the Philco, and dreams of mermaids in the swamp.
Fiction • Paperback edition: ISBN 978-1-61620-257-6
Sugar Among the Freaks
“Mr. Nordaris stories are splendid.” —The New York Times Book Review
Fifteen stories for which the incomparable Lewis Nordan has plundered his own prodigiously rich stores of imagination and memory to give birth to his magnificent—and ongoing—creation, the mythical town of Arrow Catcher, Mississippi.
Stories • Paperback edition: 978-1-61620-258-3
Boy with Loaded Gun
“The Huck Finn-like tale of an irresistible oddball turns into a heartrending account… A must for fans of Nordan’s quirky fiction.” —Entertainment Weekly
“The best thing Nordan’s ever written. It’s also the most honest, painful, unexpected and powerful sharing of a life.” —The Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger
“Tracking a wild youth to a redeemed adulthood via a hilarious, tragic path, Boy with Loaded Gun is a spiritual autobiography about a determined kid forging an identity in a confusing world … Your own life may seem more incredible after you read it, your vision of what it means to be alive never quite the same.”—Men’s Journal
Memoir • Paperback edition: ISBN 978-1-61620-259-0
LEWIS NORDAN grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi, and was fifteen when Emmett Till was murdered. A professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh for many years, he was the author of seven books of fiction and a memoir. His many awards include three American Library Association Notable Book citations, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for fiction, the Mississippi Authors Award for fiction, and the Souther Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 1993 by Lewis Nordan.
All rights reserved.
First paperback edition, March 1995. Originally published in hardcover by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 1993.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Story magazine, where Chapter 1 of this novel appeared as “Get Well Soon.”
“I Just Want to Make Love to You,” written by Willie Dixon, © 1959, 1987 Hoochie Coochie Music. Administered by Bug. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN 978-1-56512-913-9
Praise for Lewis Nordan and WOLF WHISTLE
“Nordan bathes his characters with an ornery love, made all the more remarkable since his aim is high comedy. By ‘high comedy,’ I mean to imply Shakespeare and Zora Neale Hurston, Calderon and Eudora Welty … for his goal is to get us to laugh at the whole of human existence — the pity, the horror, the vanity, the courage — and leave us with a more profound sense of it all.”
— Randall Kenan, The Nation
“A stunning and translucent novel, a gem. Nordan’s take uncannily transforms the Till murder into universal experience.”
—Willie Morris, author of North Towards Home and New York Days
“Lewis Nordan has come as near as any writer yet—maybe nearer—to displaying the naked heart of this country’s embedded racism.”
—Reynolds Price, author of Kate Vaiden and Blue Calhoun
“Approaches the beauty and emotional reverberations of a cantata.”
—Alan Cheuse, Dallas Morning News
“Wolf Whistle is flat-out wonderful.”
— Leon Rooke, Washington Post Book World
“Races down the track like the Dixie Flyer.”
— Newsweek
“A high-wire act — of surprising tenderness — that can only enhance Nordan’s reputation.”
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Why does Wolf Whistle succeed against all odds? Nordan has an exceptional ear, a tightrope walker’s balance and, most important, a decency so certain it disarms us.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Sad, violent, funny, fascinating, most of all compassionate—Nordan has written true history, he has tracked the emotional interior of his homeland.”
— Men’s Journal
“Nordan displays some of Faulkner’s lyricism and Flannery O’Connor’s surreal humor but emerges as a unique and powerful Southern storyteller in his own right.”
—Library Journal starred review
“A masterful, penetrating retelling of an American tragedy.”
— The Boston Globe
“Lewis Nordan has turned notorious fact into scorching fiction.”
—The Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star
“An unforgettable story by a writer of great talent.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Nordan never condescends, never even blinks… You will believe every word.”
— Chicago Tribune
“Proves that Lewis Nordan belongs in the first rank of American fiction writers. That’s just how wonderful this novel is.”
—Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“The book Nordan was born to write.”
— The Cleveland Free Times
“Stylistic and storytelling genius.”
— The Seattle Times
“I have been saying for a long time now that Lewis Nordan is the best prose writer in the United States, and maybe the galaxy.… He can break your heart and make you break down laughing at the same time, with the very same line.… American fiction will never be the same. And after you’ve read Wolf Whistle, you’ll never be the same again either.”
— Jack Butler, author of Jujitsu for Christ
“Miracle of miracles, there’s something like greatness in our midst.”
—Independent Weekly
“Nothing is sacred, off-limits, for Lewis Nordan.”
—Nashville Banner
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