Bøger af James D McCallister

Where were you in '78? Edgewater County favorite son Ray DeKalb, a nineteen-year old child of Southern privilege and enrolled at Southeastern University, thinks he's nowhere. Ray chafes at his family's expectations, and the life they've prepackaged for him like a supermarket TV dinner: college, law school, a career in politics or jurisprudence. He's willing to follow either his heart or his head, but neither has any idea what it wants.What's a randy, stoned and rebellious romantic to do? In the spring of 1978, Ray's answer is to escape from encroaching adult reality by twisting up a joint, dropping out of college and pointing those headlights toward the nearest beach town. Besides nabbing a gig in "show business" at the venerable Myrtle Beach Pavilion, Ray becomes entangled in relationships with an attractive, willing hotelier and a wild child closer to his own age. When he discovers that his new girl Jamie comes accompanied by a pair of gangster boyfriends, however, Ray finds his journey of discovery transformed into a frightening brush with criminality, danger, and death.With chapters named for the tracks on Warren Zevon's seminal 1978 album Excitable Boy, King's Highway comes complete with its own nostalgic soundtrack, if only in the ears of its protagonist "Ray-Ray" and the lovers, friends, and dangerous enemies he makes during this nostalgic coming-of-age adventure on the "redneck riviera" by the South Carolina seashore. Originally published in 2007 by Red Letter Press, this updated edition features a new afterword.

A bereaved mother seeking solace in the rural Carolina countryside instead finds herself embroiled in a depraved, backwoods fever dream, an animal lover's nightmare: Finding a beautiful, secluded home far from Randi Margrave's troubled life in the city seems like a step in the right direction--away from ruinous grief over her sweet son Denny, killed in a tragic accident. Until, that is, she discovers her creampuff of a house sits uphill from a mysterious, camouflaged compound by the river, and from which she begins to hear a haunting chorus--dogs in distress. The sound of suffering.And once Randi learns the shocking truth about her new neighbors and their dogs, she'll decide to risk all she has left--including her own life--to stop Esau and Julius Macon from ever abusing another innocent animal.

In this middle book of the epic DIXIANA trilogy, Southern-fried prodigal son Roy Earl Pettus adjusts to life back home in tumultuous Edgewater County: break-ins at his granddaddy's honkytonk The Dixiana, police shootings, a caning, and worst of all, more grief over a marriage the redneck renaissance man can't quite put back in good order. Add in political tension coupled with threats from local gangsters over his brash disposition of the Confederate flag mural problem, and his re-entry into local society proceeds on a bumpy path. Wait until they find out what all Roy has planned for the town, now that the smartest guy in the room--with the biggest checkbook--has arrived. Then folks will really get their knickers in a snit, particularly in case the activist preacher gets his referendum passed about changing the name of the town.Add in eldercare problems, the drool from a giant white dog, and the disposition of a honkytonk he alternates between hating and loathing, and beleaguered Roy will find solace only in metaphysical mentoring by his cousin Button Sykes--will she discourage his megalomania in favor of a meditation routine? To build instead of destroy? When a confrontation with increasingly unhinged Christy Beaudock, coupled with shoot-out between cops and a nutcase, threatens to change their lives forever on an otherwise ordinary day on the town green, the twin protagonists will find themselves with more immediate problems DOWN IN DIXIANA than those of managing ego or what to do with an old honkytonk: they'll fear for their lives.

When cuckolded 'fruitshake' millionaire Roy Earl Pettus inherits his grandfather's fabled honkytonk, The Dixiana, he hurtles into full-prodigal-son mode: once the Bossman arrives back home in Edgewater County, South Carolina, he's set to fix all that's wrong with his hometown and its citizens. Whether they want his leadership, however, is another matter.Roy's hippy-dippy cousin Button Sykes, on a higher consciousness trip fraught with the urge to serve, and with a little added magicking, spellcraft and telepathy to goose matters along, seems the only one able to stave off the full destructive power of Roy's tremendous, wounded ego. He fancies himself a fixer, but guess who's the one most in need of spiritual repair? If only Button weren't so preoccupied with her own broken heart, she'd give Roy's problems more of her attention.Through the eyes of a dozen major characters, we track the progress not only of Roy's existential journey and Button's quest to reconnect with her lost love Heather, but examine a few risky sexual affairs among the powerful; controversial and divisive political machinations; conflict over a Confederate monument both reviled and revered; Southern-fried organized crime figures who don't take well to Roy's fresh ideas; the disposal of a dead body or two; and even a pyromaniac of a ghost who occasionally burns down the town.A finalist for the 2015 Faulkner-Wisdom Literary Competition award, the Dixiana series represents a Neo-Southern Gothic 'great American novel' for the mid-to-late 2010s, one filled with humor, tragedy, appeals to a higher power, and a troubled character crashing a plane into a building. Dixiana holds its many characters in states teetering on the edge of either grace or ruin, and by the end, readers may not believe how far the story takes them-all the way to one possible 'other side' of reality.

A matched pair of married music festival vendors scratching out a hardworking living on the road. Oblivious, trippy-dippy collegiate acid dealers looking for a quick score. A comedian-worshipping veterinarian on a sacred pilgrimage. A media star and Presidential candidate for whom elections represent but another bit of show business. A shamefaced mother exposed to her daughter's most salacious secrets. And a great-grandmother, dying alone in a nursing home at Christmastime. These characters and more receive their quirky, humorous, and heart-tugging due in Southern novelist James D. McCallister's first collection of award-winning short stories.

Gather here with us before the flickering screen, the grainy flash-frames whizzing by in the mind of [REDACTED], a protagonist and narrator as reliable as they come. He has to be reliable-not only is he a journalist, but this time it''s his own story he''s telling, for once, instead of someone else''s.Make that former journalist. Now that our humble narrator has been downsized from his career perch at the biggest birdcage liner in town-and far too young for retirement-he is frozen in his tracks. To where will his words turn now?Where else but the past, which as Faulkner said isn''t even past, especially for a man whose youthful dreams still reside right around the corner from the newspaper office in the university media arts classrooms where he learned narrative filmmaking, not reporting the news?If only he could consult with his old college friend Kunk, long dead of suicide, his old mentor might have insight. Or perhaps Camille, a forever-friend for whom the protagonist still pines after thirty years, a different breed of pain.Alas, [REDACTED] must rely only upon his own memories as he reconstructs the truth about Kunk, Camille for whom our melancholy narrator remains unrequited, and most of all himself, their time together in the mid-1980s growing so hazy that his college days have begun to seem, almost, like some sort of long-ago, twice-told fable....

Oh, happy day! It''s awesome here in the doldrums of the post-9/11, pre-smart phone naughty-aughties in crappy Edgewater County, South Carolina as a trio of aging Gen-X malcontents-Devin Rucker, his sister Creedence and their rich friend Billy Steeple-all descend further into fiery dissolution courtesy a crucible of unresolved guilt, neuroses and deception:Movie-obsessed Billy''s written the screenplay of his dreams all the way to the ceiling, has a faithful girlfriend, lives well, and, Oh, for kicks also harbors a deadly secret. He''s no Ted Bundy, however-all the murders were imaginary. Or were they...?Creedence, hoping for rescue, grapples with a conundrum: someone''s knocked her up, either her doofus husband or else her doofus lover. Solution? Seduce rich Billy, with whom she missed her chance years ago... and tell him the baby''s his! What''s the harm in a little fib about paternity to make her dream of escape come true? No problem-o.And then tragic Devin: an end-stage alcoholic grappling with confabulated memories of a dark past involving his lost love Libby Meade, their beloved cat or possibly both, he''s also still pissed over Billy''s betrayal, in the worst way a best friend could. One of these days ''Ruck'' will return wielding biblical-scale retribution. Sure. But only after he has his fill; only after he drinks one more for the road.Reader be warned: enter ye the MANSION OF HIGH GHOSTS praying these Edgewater County folk at last grow out of their stunted adolescent selves. For now it''s enough to say, let''s hope it isn''t too late; here''s hoping no one else ends up dead like Libby.A prequel to award-winning South Carolina author James D. McCallister''s DIXIANA saga, join us one final time in Edgewater County as we draw the literary curtain on this fifteen-year series of Neo-Southern gothic novels and stories.