My new novel "Ragland” falls under the broad category of contemporary southern fiction.

In "Ragland," The reluctant patriarch of one of Mississippi’s “best” families, Billy Peeler, gets into serious trouble in Memphis, Tennessee. He shoots and kills a black youth in a violent confrontation that most reasonable people would consider self-defense.  Because of the persistent protests of a local black clergyman, the story does not end there but spirals toward even more violence and suffering that threatens to destroy a one hundred and sixty year old dynasty. The story is told by Billy's longtime friend and ghostwriter of his memoir, Richie Hardin. Is Billy Peeler’s predicament a sign of the times we live in, or retribution for the misdeeds of his forebearers? The tale ends on a somewhat positive note as the reader learns that a new society has been formed literally from the ruins of the old one.

I grew up in a small town in the Mississippi Delta during the Civil Rights Movement. I was a townie. The people at the top of the food chain were the Planters, the landed gentry. I came up in a blue-collar household. My father climbed light poles. Years before, the family fortune on my mother’s side had been lost, regained, and lost again. I spent most of my adult life working in Media at executive levels, starting in television and ending up in print and digital media. I have self published six titles, including "Journey Motel Court," and most recently "Tell." I have also published poetry in “Rolling Stone” and the “The Berkeley Monthly.”

The novel has similarities to The Great Gatsby, Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy, and the works of Flannery O’Connor.