My Grandpa and the Haint

My Grandpa and the Haint
Author: Ernest J. Gaines
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2015-05-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101969903

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection The fish are nearly jumping in the bayous of Louisiana, but hoodoo magic is just as easy to find. And one day, Bobby’s grandfather catches a haint. With his characteristically rich sense of place and deep understanding of the human psyche, Ernest Gaines, National Book Critics Circle Award winner and author of the classic novel A Lesson Before Dying, presents a raconteur’s tale of rustic Southern living, A selection from Gaines’s collection of prose, Mozart and Leadbelly. An eBook short.

Voices from the Quarters

Voices from the Quarters
Author: Mary Ellen Doyle
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2003-08-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780807129104

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title “Who will write about the way my people talk, the way my people sing?” Mary Ellen Doyle gathers and makes audible the voices arising from all of Ernest J. Gaines’s fiction to date—the indelible characters who inhabit the author’s lifelong inspirational territory: the bayous, cane fields, and plantation homes of Louisiana’s Pointe Coupee Parish. Beginning with the author’s upbringing and influences on River Lake plantation—amid the pecan trees and live oaks, the big house and the tenant quarters — this penetrating study offers close readings of Gaines’s uncollected short fiction, the early collection Bloodline, and all of his novels, including The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and the acclaimed A Lesson Before Dying. Highlighting Gaines’s skill at translating oral tales into meaningful fictional forms, Doyle advances an original theory of first-person narration (“camcorder”) and traces its use throughout his work. Gaines’s unwavering focus on the utterances of “his people” continually strengthens his artistic development—the voices of the early stories fusing with those of the later novels—until Gaines earns a unique magisterial “voice,” an implied author who is black but speaks to universals. Using critical methods as eclectic as the book’s intended audience, and drawing from on-site research and interviews with Gaines’s relatives and friends, Doyle offers a variety of perspectives on Gaines’s fiction and its world that resonates so powerfully. Those who recognize Gaines as one of the finest southern writers of the last forty years will find here an accessible instrument to hear his voices more clearly than ever.

Say it Haint So

Say it Haint So
Author: Maureen Hardegree
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2012-10-31
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1611942241

BOOK 3 of The Ghost Handler Series Heather's got a hunky new guy and a grumpy old ghost. First it was Jack, the hot teenage ghost. Now it's Zac, an all-too-alive bad boy. Not to mention trouble with Drew, Audrey and the usual BFF dramas. The last thing Heather needs is a new haint on the scene, especially not the ghost of her cantankerous grandfather. * Four weeks were all that was left of summer vacation, if you counted Thursday registration the first week of August, and I did. I had made some progress on the summer goal front. 1) My older sister Audrey tolerated my existence more than at the beginning of summer, as long as her friends weren't around and my geeky friend Xavier kept his distance. 2) Drew and I chatted. So at least I was on his radar. But he had a clingy girlfriend I wanted to unwrap from his frame. Then trouble arrived in a muscle car--our neighbors' bad boy grandson Zac. Audrey called dibs on him, which was fine with me. Drew made no bones about disliking him, also fine with me. But for some reason I may never understand, Zac liked freaky me. So you know what that meant--my progress with my sister and the lifeguard of my dreams reached yet another stumbling block. My problems multiplied exponentially at the arrival of another visitor and his sweet pipe tobacco scent--my ghostly grandfather. Just what I needed--a crabby octogenarian haint to complicate everything. Biography Although Georgia author Maureen Hardegree concedes to having all the usual baggage of a middle child, she is NOT a ghost handler. She does, however, believe in connecting with her inner teenager and in feeding her active imagination--it likes Italian food and chocolate. When she's not writing, she's working on costumes for the Northeast Atlanta Ballet . . . or doing the bidding of her husband, daughter, and cats Pixie and Turnip Ann. Visit her at www.maureenhardegree.com

The Frost Haint of 'Possum Hollow and Other Ozark Tales

The Frost Haint of 'Possum Hollow and Other Ozark Tales
Author: Alan Lance Andersen
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2008-11
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 141163912X

This collection of dialect stories from the Ozark Mountains includes tales of lost silver mines, whimsical Ozark monsters, Jesse James, Mark Twain, Yankee and Rebel soldiers, and other traditional legends along with a few original stories. The title story from the collection features a MOST remarkable ghost and an even more unusual ending. Alan Lance Andersen has been a professional story since 1970. This anthology includes many of his best tales -- which he tells with a Mark Twain style dialect.

Ernest J. Gaines

Ernest J. Gaines
Author: Marcia Gaudet
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2019-04-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496822196

As the acclaimed author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines (b. 1933) has been publishing stories and novels for more than sixty years. His brilliant portrayals of race, community, and culture in rural south Louisiana have made him one of the most respected and beloved living American writers. Ernest J. Gaines: Conversations brings together the author’s own thoughts and words in interviews that range from 1994 to 2017, discussing his life, his work, and his literary legacy. The interviews cover all of Gaines’s works, including his two latest books, Mozart and Leadbelly: Stories and Essays (2005) and The Tragedy of Brady Sims (2017). The book provides a retrospective of his work from the viewpoint of a senior writer, now eighty-five years old, and gives an important international perspective on Gaines and his work. Among the many things Gaines discusses in his interviews are the recurrent themes in his works: the search for manhood, the importance of personal responsibility and standing with dignity, the problems of fathers and sons, and the challenges of race and racism in America. He examines his fictional world and his strong sense of place, his role as teacher and mentor, the importance of strong women in his life, and the influence of spirituality, religion, and music on his work. He also talks about storytelling, the nature of narrative, writing as a journey, and how he sees himself as a storyteller.

Mozart and Leadbelly

Mozart and Leadbelly
Author: Ernest J. Gaines
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0307426955

The beloved author of the classic, best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying shares the inspirations behind his books and his reasons for becoming a writer in this collection of stories and essays. Told in the simple and powerful prose that is a hallmark of his craft, these writings by Ernest J. Gaines faithfully evoke the sorrows and joys of rustic Southern life. From his depiction of his childhood move to California — a move that propelled him to find books that conjured the sights, smells, and locution of his native Louisiana home — to his description of the real-life murder case that gave him the idea for his masterpiece; this wonderful collection is a revelation of both man and writer.

Approaches to Teaching Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Other Works

Approaches to Teaching Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Other Works
Author: John Wharton Lowe
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2019-08-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1603294228

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman tells the story of a woman, a community, and the African American experience from the Civil War through Jim Crow to the civil rights movement. This narrative and Gaines's other novels and short stories explore the life of blacks in the South, their religious traditions and folkways, and their struggles under oppression. The southern communities described are diverse: blacks, creoles of color, poor whites, and wealthy landowners. Part 1 of this volume provides biographical information about Ernest Gaines and a discussion of critical and background studies of his narrative. The essays in part 2 will help teachers of African American literature, American literature, and southern literature convey to their students various aspects of Gaines's work and the adaptations of it in relation to southern literature, history, music, folk culture, and vernaculars of English.

Haint Country

Haint Country
Author: Matthew R. Sparks
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2024-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 198590098X

The hills of the Appalachia region hold secrets—dark, deep, varied, and mysterious. These secrets are often told in the form of eerie, thrilling, and creepy folk tales that reveal strange sightings, curious oddities, and commonly serve as cautionary tales for eager and curious ears. These spine-tingling stories have been told and retold by family members, neighbors, and "hillfolk" for generations. Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers is a collection of weird, otherworldly, and supernatural phenomenon in Eastern Kentucky—tales that have been recorded and documented for the first time. Collected and adapted by Matthew Sparks and Olivia Sizemore, the anthology explores stories of ghosts or "haints," strange creatures or "boogers," haunted locations or "stained earth," uncanny happenings or "high strangeness," and humorous Appalachian ghost stories. Contemporary yarns of black panthers, demons, and sightings of ghostly coal miners are narrated in the first person, reflecting the style and dialect of the collected oral history. Though comprised of a mixture of claimed accounts and fabricated lore, the locations and people woven throughout are very real. Complemented with evocative watercolor illustrations by Olivia Sizemore (who was inspired by the work of Stephen Gammell) and a compendium that provides additional context, Haint Country is a thrilling and bone-chilling excursion to the spooky corner of Appalachia.

A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English

A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English
Author: Erin Fallon
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2013-10-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1135976295

Although the short story has existed in various forms for centuries, it has particularly flourished during the last hundred years. Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English includes alphabetically-arranged entries for 50 English-language short story writers from around the world. Most of these writers have been active since 1960, and they reflect a wide range of experiences and perspectives in their works. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes biography, a review of existing criticism, a lengthier analysis of specific works, and a selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The volume begins with a detailed introduction to the short story genre and concludes with an annotated bibliography of major works on short story theory.

Navigating the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines

Navigating the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines
Author: Keith Clark
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2020-03-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0807173398

One of the South’s most revered writers, Ernest J. Gaines attracts both popular and academic audiences. Gaines’s unique literary style, depiction of the African American experience, and celebration of the rural South’s oral tradition have brought him critical praise and numerous accolades, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Humanities Medal, and a National Book Critics Circle Award for his novel A Lesson before Dying. In this welcome guide to Gaines’s fiction, Keith Clark offers insightful analyses of his novels and short stories. Clark’s close readings elucidate Gaines’s more acclaimed works—including The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Gathering of Old Men—while also introducing lesser-known but masterfully crafted pieces, such as the story “Three Men” and the civil rights novel In My Father’s House. Gaines’s most recent work, The Tragedy of Brady Sims, receives here one of its first critical examinations. Clark shows how the themes of Gaines’s literary oeuvre, produced over the past fifty years, dovetail with issues reverberating in twenty-first-century America: race and the criminal justice system; black masculinity; the environment; the enduring impact of slavery; black southern women’s voices; and blacks’ and whites’ interpretation of history. In addition to textual discussions, the book includes an interview Clark conducted with Gaines at the writer’s home in New Roads, Louisiana, in 2014, further illuminating the inner workings and personality of this eminent literary artist.