- Larry Brown left an inspiring legacy and achieved his personal dream of being a “Mississippi writer” in spades.
In 1980, after years of scraping by, cobbling together a second job or two to make ends meet, Captain Larry Brown of the Oxford, Mississippi Fire Department decided he would parlay his life experience and knowledge of human nature in a concerted effort to become a writer — a serious Southern author — like William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor.
What did not seem to bother Larry at the time were two important obstacles to his dream. His high school academic record was abysmal, and he had failed English his senior year.
Beginning writers are always told to “write what you know.” At 29, Brown knew a lot about hard work, hard times, and hardscrabble people. His lined face and callused hands were as revealing as they were authentic, just like Larry.
He graduated (by the skin of his teeth) from Lafayette County High School in 1969 amid the Vietnam conflict. There was no money for college, and even if there had been, he was not interested. Despite a passion for reading, academics were not his cup of tea.
He joined the Marine Corps, serving stateside for two years before an honorable discharge and a full-time job at the Oxford Fire Department. His loyal wife, Mary Annie, recalls his coming home one afternoon lugging a cumbersome old Smith Corona typewriter, announcing his new ambition, and setting up his writing space in their bedroom. She thought to herself, “Well, okay. Here we go.”
Mary Annie had cheered him on through more than one instance of “I’m going to ___ (fill in the blanks).” Even so, she did not pour cold water on his dream as she watched him commit himself to his plan day in and day out with an impressive and relentless tenacity.
If Mary Annie had doubts about her husband’s ability to succeed, she never shared them with anyone. She gave him space to pursue his dream even though it meant many a lonely meal and an evening without his company for her and their children. As she said candidly in a 2000 documentary about Larry’s improbable rise to fame, “Larry is happiest when he’s writing. When he’s not writing, he gets depressed.”
Some of Oxford’s literary stars, who eventually became his mentors and friends, were not so kind. Barry Hannah, a successful and famous native son who headed the Fine Arts Department at Ole Miss for several years, admits that he used to duck out of bars on The Square every time he spied Larry coming toward him with a manilla envelope. Barry genuinely liked Larry. He hated to tell him how bad those first efforts were.
Larry, however, was a prominent disciple of the theory that achievement is tied to unrelenting effort and sheer desire. From his reading and research, he believed wholeheartedly that no writer is born with so much talent that the words come without effort. His was a stalwart adherence to the principles of perseverance, determination, and sacrifice.
Daily trips down the lane to the mailbox meant daily rejection letters for the hundreds of submissions he mailed to publications and publishers nationwide. He filled a large binder with short letters bearing similar messages, “We regret… Try us again.”
He refused to quit. Brown wrote doggedly for eight years before he sold his first short story. And that was to the magazine Easyriders, for Harley-Davidson aficionados, a far cry from The Atlantic, The New Yorker, or any of the top echelon of respectability for aspiring writers. Larry was as elated as though he had won a Pulitzer. It was a shot in the arm when he needed a little encouragement.
Larry’s writing career took wings. He said in a candid interview during the documentary on The Rough South of Larry Brown that it took a while to figure out what publishers were looking for. One semester of Ellen Douglas’ writing class at Ole Miss introduced him to rules he never knew. He also studied the works of many different writers with a critical eye. Larry honed his craft by creating real characters; it would be an understatement to say he “got it.” But that is precisely what happened. He got it, and he earned the awards and the respect that he had sought so diligently.
His first book, Facing the Music, was a collection of short stories published in 1988. It was followed the next year by his novel Dirty Work. He turned out a series of novels and short stories over the next decade, all to rave reviews in the tony print media. The Today Show invited him for a sit-down interview with Jane Pauley. Literary conferences requested his presence, and as gratifying as it all was, it was stressful, too. Traveling, touring, and talking to inquisitive strangers were outside his comfort zone.
Larry’s favorite place in the world was his small farm in Tula, Mississippi, just outside Oxford on Mississippi Highway 331. The same year he left the fire department to pursue his writing, he purchased the eight acres, including a rundown old farmhouse, barn, scores of tall hardwoods, and a pond. He meticulously planned and built, with his own hands, his new writing space there on the property beneath the tallest shade trees.
In August 2004, he moved a little furniture into his writing mecca, a 10 by 12-foot cabin he named “The Shack” and began work on his ninth book and sixth novel, A Miracle of Catfish. At 53, Larry died of a heart attack just three months later, leaving his work unfinished. A Miracle of Catfish was published to great acclaim posthumously in 2007.
With Larry’s death, Mississippi lost a treasure. However, Larry left an inspiring legacy and achieved his personal dream in spades. Those who knew him well say that he did not like the “self-taught writer” and “former fireman.” He desired to have just one label, “Mississippi writer.” Today, his name stands tall beside our beloved legends — Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist, Ellen Douglas, Willie Morris, Tennessee Williams, Barry Hannah, and several more.
The late Larry Brown can boast a well-deserved seat at their table.
Learn more about Larry Brown on Wednesday, when Richelle Putnam explores more about the author’s life for Magnolia Tribune.
Marilyn Tinnin
