Lewis Nordan (August 23, 1939 – April 13, 2012) was an American writer. Nordan was born to Lemuel and Sara Bayles in

Forest, Mississippi Forest is a city and the county seat of Scott County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 5,684 at the 2010 census and the population is a minority-majority. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total a ...

and grew up in

Itta Bena, Mississippi Itta Bena is a city in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 2,049 at the 2010 census. The town's name is derived from the Choctaw phrase ''iti bina'', meaning "forest camp". Itta Bena is part of the Greenwood, Mississipp ...

. He received his B.A. at

Millsaps College Millsaps College is a private liberal arts college in Jackson, Mississippi. It was founded in 1890 and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. History The college was founded in 1889–90 by a Confederate veteran, Major Reuben Webster M ...

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

, his M.A. in 1966 from

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

, and his PhD in 1973 from

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...

in Alabama. After holding faculty positions at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

and the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

, he became in 1983 an assistant professor at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

. In 1983, at age forty-five, Nordan published his first collection of stories, ''Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair''. The collection established him as a writer in the Southern tradition of

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 ...

Erskine Caldwell Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as '' Tobacco Road'' (1 ...

, and

Flannery O'Connor Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often ...

. It also established a place for Nordan's fiction, the fictional Arrow Catcher, Mississippi, a small town in the

Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo ...

based loosely on Nordan's hometown of

Itta Bena Itta Bena is a city in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 2,049 at the 2010 census. The town's name is derived from the Choctaw phrase ''iti bina'', meaning "forest camp". Itta Bena is part of the Greenwood, Mississipp ...

. After the short-story collection ''The All-Girl Football Team'' (1986) followed ''Music of the Swamp'' (1991), a novel/short-story cycle featuring Nordan's spiritual alter ego, the young Sugar Mecklin, as the protagonist. The book features aspects of magic realism that would become one of Nordan's trademarks, along with a peculiar mix of the tragic and the hilarious. ''Wolf Whistle'' (1993), Nordan's second novel, was both a critical and public success. It won the Southern Book Award and gained him a wider audience. The book deals with one of the most notorious racial incidents in recent Southern history: the murder of

Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery ...

. The novel ''The Sharpshooter Blues'' (1995) is a lyrical meditation on America's gun culture, as well a depiction of grotesque lives in Itta Bena. With the

coming-of-age novel In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is imp ...

''Lightning Song'' (1997), Nordan moved from Itta Bena to the hill country of Mississippi. The novel still features Nordan's magic Mississippi realism, complete with singing llamas and poetic lightning strikes. In 2000, Nordan published a "fictional memoir," ''Boy With Loaded Gun''. Before retiring in 2005, Lewis Nordan lived in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, where he taught Creative Writing at the

. He lived in Hudson, Ohio until his death.

Works

*''Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair'' (1983) – short stories *''The All-Girl Football Team'' (1986) – short stories *''Music of the Swamp'' (1991) – novel/short story cycle *''Wolf Whistle'' (1993) – novel *''The Sharpshooter Blues'' (1995) – novel *''Sugar Among the Freaks: Selected Stories'' (1996) – short stories (nothing new all reprints from first two books) *''Lightning Song'' (1997) – novel *''Boy With Loaded Gun'' (2000) – memoir *''Would You Shut Up, Please'' (2014) - posthumous single short story e-book

Other media

Boston-based alternative rock band Twinemen wrote and recorded a song entitled Harper & the Midget. This song contains a significant portion of a story, albeit slightly modified, from Music of the Swam

as well as religious music from a church supposedly located in Cambridge, MA. In the song, Harper cuts off the Midget's hand with a chainsaw. In the book, Harper cuts off his own hand with the chainsaw.

References

External links

Lewis Nordan at The Mississippi Writer's PageInterview with Lewis Nordan by Dory Adams
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nordan, Lewis 20th-century American novelists American male novelists Novelists from Mississippi People from Forest, Mississippi People from Itta Bena, Mississippi University of Pittsburgh faculty 1939 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Pennsylvania