Tula Springs, Louisiana
Tula Springs is a fictional town in the Florida Parishes of Louisiana, and the setting of a series of novels by the American novelist James Wilcox. Starting with Wilcox's acclaimed debut novel ''Modern Baptists'' (1983), Tula Springs has served as the setting for five subsequent novels: ''North Gladiola'' (1985), ''Miss Undine's Living Room'' (1987), ''Sort of Rich'' (1989), ''Heavenly Days'' (2003), and ''Hunk City'' (2007). Wilcox's other novels (set in New York) include brief mentions of Tula Springs or characters with ties to the town. Michiko Kakutani wrote in her ''New York Times'' review of ''Sort of Rich'': "Tula Springs is one of those peculiar outposts of the New South - half suburb, half small town, poised between a quickly receding pastoral past and a greedy, consumerist future. It's the kind of place where people are ignorant about the details of the Civil War, but up on the latest kinds of sunlamps and Jacuzzis; the kind of place where long-haired ex-hippies cheerf ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Florida Parishes
The Florida Parishes ( es, Parroquias de Florida, french: Paroisses de Floride), on the east side of the Mississippi River—an area also known as the Northshore or Northlake region—are eight parishes in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana; the Florida Parishes were part of West Florida in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike most of the state, this region was not part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase; it had been under British and then Spanish control since 1763. History The area that became the Florida Parishes was at one time part of French Louisiana. Following the French and Indian War, however, the region—like most of the rest of French Louisiana east of the Mississippi River (excluding New Orleans)—was transferred to Great Britain. This region became part of the British colonial province of West Florida. Following the American Revolutionary War, West Florida was the subject of a border dispute between the newly formed United States and Spain, whi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs). The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans, with a population of roughly 383,000 people. Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by a mixture of 18th century Louisiana French, Dominican Creole, Spanish, French Canadian, Acadi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Wilcox (novelist)
James Wilcox (born April 4, 1949 in Hammond, Louisiana) is an American novelist and a professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. James Wilcox worked at Random House and Doubleday in New York after graduating from Yale. Wilcox was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986. Wilcox is the author of nine comic novels mostly set in, or featuring characters from, the fictional town of Tula Springs, Louisiana: * ''Modern Baptists'' (1983) * ''North Gladiola'' (1985) * ''Miss Undine's Living Room'' (1987) * ''Sort of Rich'' (1989) * ''Polite Sex'' (1991) * ''Guest of a Sinner'' (1993) * ''Plain and Normal'' (1998) * ''Heavenly Days'' (2003) * ''Hunk City'' (2007) Wilcox's first book ''Modern Baptists'' remains his best known work. ''Guest of a Sinner'' is set in New York City with characters from Tallahassee. ''Polite Sex'' and ''Plain and Normal'' are set mainly in New York City, but they do have a few characters who come from Tula Springs.Email from author July 28 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modern Baptists
''Modern Baptists'' is the debut novel by American author James Wilcox, and his best known work. It was published in 1983. Plot introduction Set in the fictional town of Tula Springs, Louisiana, the novel concerns middle-aged bachelor Bobby Pickens, the assistant manager of Sunny Boy Bargain Store and his half-brother F.X. A former actor and cocaine dealer, F.X. has just been released from Angola Prison and moves in with Bobby, his presence throwing all Bobby's foibles into sharp relief, leading to mistaken identity, romantic entanglement and a nervous breakdown, climaxing in a Christmas Eve party in a cabin on a poisoned swamp. Reception Robert Penn Warren commented, "...James Wilcox has made a tale that is realistic and fantastic, painfully comic, and, in a strange way, psychologically penetrating….There is no writer exactly like him. He is an original." On the front page of ''The New York Times Book Review'' Anne Tyler wrote, "Every reviewer, no doubt, has methods for mar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life and family Kakutani, a Japanese American, was born on January 9, 1955, in New Haven, Connecticut. She is the only child of Yale mathematician Shizuo Kakutani and his wife Keiko ("Kay") Uchida. Her father was born in Japan, her mother was a second-generation Japanese-American who was raised in Berkeley, California. Kakutani's aunt, Yoshiko Uchida, was an author of children's books. Kakutani received her bachelor's degree in English literature from Yale University in 1976, where she studied under author and Yale writing professor John Hersey, among others.. Career Kakutani initially worked as a reporter for ''The Washington Post'', and then from 1977 to 1979 for ''Time'' magazine, where Hersey had worked. In 1979, she joined ''The New York ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital media, digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as ''The Daily (podcast), The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones (publisher), George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won List of Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times, 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print it is ranked List of newspapers by circulation, 18th in the world by circulation and List of newspapers in the United States, 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is Public company, publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 189 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New South
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a slogan in the history of the American South first used after the American Civil War. Reformers used it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the United States as a whole, reject the economy and traditions of the Old South, and the slavery-based plantation system of the antebellum period. The term was coined by its leading spokesman and Atlanta editor Henry W. Grady in 1874. Etymology and philosophy The original use of the term "New South" was an attempt to prescribe an attractive future based on a growing economy. The industrial revolution of the Northern U.S. was the model. The antebellum South was heavily agrarian. Following the American Civil War, the South was impoverished and heavily rural; it was mainly reliant on cotton and a few other crops with low market prices. Economically, it was in great need of industrialization. With slavery now abolished, African Americans were pl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jacuzzis
Jacuzzi Brands LLC (; ), through its subsidiaries, is a global manufacturer and distributor of branded baths, hot tubs, pools, saunas and, formerly, aircraft. Founded in 1915 by the Italian family of the same name, Jacuzzi is a federally registered trademark of Jacuzzi Inc. as of September 5, 1978. History Jacuzzi Brothers was founded in 1915 by seven Italian brothers from Casarsa della Delizia, Friuli, in Northern Italy, led by Rachele, who had worked for James Smith McDonnell, and invented the first wood laminate propeller. The company made wooden propellers under military contracts, based at 2043 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, California. In 1920, the brothers also dabbled briefly with aircraft design and manufacture, with a single-seat monoplane and a seven-seat cabin monoplane. Both aircraft were noted for their use of laminated wood products for fuselage manufacture, but were essentially unsuccessful, with only one of each type being built. In 1921, Giocondo Jacuzzi, the p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975, after having a career in entertainment. Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and began to work as a sports announcer in Iowa. In 1937, Reagan moved to California, where he found Ronald Reagan filmography, work as a film actor. From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, working to Hollywood blacklist, root out alleged communist influence within it. In the 1950s, he moved to a career in television and became a spokesman for General Electric. From 1959 to 1960, he again served as the guild's president. In 1964, his speech "A Time for Choosing" earned him national attention as a new conservative figure. Building a network of supporters, Reagan was 1966 Califo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. A Nobel Prize laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner's family moved to Oxford, Mississippi when he was a young child. With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel '' Soldiers' Pay'' (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote '' Sartoris'' (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published ''The Sound and the Fury''. The following year, he ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |