Norman German, author of "A Savage Wisdom"

“A Savage Wisdom” is inspired by the life, crimes and legends of Annie Beatrice McQuiston, aka Toni Jo Henry, the only woman executed in Louisiana’s electric chair. ShelfLife@Texas asked author and University of Texas at Austin graduate alumnus (English ’79) Norman German about his new book.

How did you first become familiar with McQuiston’s story?
Toni Jo’s story has intrigued me since childhood, when I would read about her in special features in the Lake Charles American Press, which tantalized readers with reproductions of her leggy portrait as a coddled death-row inmate.

What compelled you to write her story?
Annie Beatrice McQuiston, mis-carved as “Anna” on her tombstone, adopted the name “Toni Jo” as a prostitute and became Toni Jo Henry upon marrying Claude “Cowboy” Henry, himself a murderer on the lam when he met Toni Jo. This dual identity gave me the idea of treating the novel as a way to explore identity formation.

However, the real-life woman was not a sympathetic character, being a drug addict and prostitute by age 15, so I reconceived her life and wrote the novel to answer the question, “What would make an innocent woman transform into a cold-blooded murderer?” The novel, then, became a study in deception, with a fictional character who has multiple identities deceiving Toni Jo into a form of high-class prostitution. She then seeks revenge. (Actually, the opportunity almost literally falls in her lap.)

I thought it was striking, too, that Toni Jo committed the murder on Valentine’s Day, probably without even realizing what day it was.

Most compelling to me, though, was the rumor that the sheriff had an affair with and a child by Toni Jo while she was awaiting execution. The fictional possibilities were enormous, and many readers have said that the novel’s real gut-punch comes after Toni Jo is no longer alive.

What were your overall impressions of the character?
The historical Toni Jo Henry seemed to have been an uneasy mix of compassion and anger. She grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, the daughter of a hard-drinking, abusive Irishman. Her mother died of tuberculosis, compelling her to work in a macaroni factory until she was fired when the TB risk was discovered. She left home at 13, became addicted to cocaine, and resorted to prostitution to make her way in the world.

In 1939 in a brothel she called home, Annie, now going by “Toni Jo,” fell for Claude “Cowboy” Henry, an ex-prize fighter. On November 25, 1939, shortly after he isolated her in a hotel room and forced her to go “cold turkey,” they secured a marriage license in Lake Charles and married in Sulphur.

While Toni Jo’s life is compelling as a “human interest” story, I didn’t see much potential in building a novel around such a character. After Truman Capote launched the new genre of “faction” with “In Cold Blood,” turning fact into fiction has almost become a cottage industry in the publishing world, so I can’t take much credit for being original in my “imaginative reconstruction,” as I like to call it. My trick was simply to reverse many of the events in Toni Jo’s life. To cite just one example, in real life she was a hitchhiker who killed the man who picked her up. My version is a little different than that.

What is it about her crimes that led her to become the first and only woman to die in Louisiana’s electric chair?
By contemporary standards, her crime was not especially heinous, but it was “cold-blooded,” and the man she killed was merely being kind to her and a male friend she was with. In my opinion, Toni Jo’s thinking was clouded by desperation. She hatched a plan to rob an Arkansas bank for money to shorten her husband’s sentence by legal appeal or perhaps bribery. On Highway 90 just east of Orange, Texas, outside the Night Owl bar, Houston tire salesman Joseph Calloway picked up Toni Jo and Army deserter Horace Finnon Burks. Wanting his Ford V8 as their getaway car, they forced him at gunpoint to a field south of Lake Charles and led him to a rice-stalk stack, where Toni Jo plugged him once in the forehead with a .32.

At home in Houston that frosty Valentine’s night were Calloway’s wife and nine-year-old daughter. (This fact certainly didn’t help her cause in the courtroom.) Although her conviction was appealed twice, the time between the murder and the execution was only two and a half years—swift justice indeed by modern standards, when appeals often drag out for a quarter of a century.

What is it that eventually led this “love-struck southern girl” to snap on a stranger?
As mentioned above, my opinion is that she was desperately, perhaps insanely, in love with Cowboy Henry and tried to do the only thing she knew to “spring him.” In her favor, I suppose, is the fact that because of a tormented conscience, she did turn herself in and confess as the lone trigger-woman in an attempt to save the life of her accomplice, who was nevertheless executed four months after Toni Jo.

Can you describe how your approach may differ when researching and writing about true crimes?
Because this is my only “true crime” book, which in fact is about 90 percent fiction, I can’t say that my approach was much different from the research conducted for my other novels. In order to steep myself in the time period, I first read dozens of newspaper articles on the murder, capture, trial, and execution. To create the dense, “textured” world of a novel, I immersed myself in magazines and popular histories from World War I to 1963 (the novel concludes on the same day as John F. Kennedy’s assassination).

From antique stores, I bought ten copies of magazines from the period, including Life, Look, Collier’s, and Saturday Evening Post. I read every article and studied every ad in order to realistically recreate the clothing, slang, and pop-culture icons of the era.

Finally, to see how established authors approached fictionalizing the lives of murderers, I reread “In Cold Blood” and for the first time read Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Song,” about Gary Gilmore, the man who insisted he be executed by firing squad in Utah rather than languish in prison.

Where did you spend time in Louisiana & Texas to prepare?
There are three main settings for the book: southeast Texas, Lake Charles, and New Orleans. I’ve spent considerable time in all three locations, but oddly the most influential “location” was the actual gravesite of Toni Jo Henry.

For years, I had heard the rumor that Toni Jo’s grave was not marked by a headstone for fear of vandalism, so I went on my scavenger hunt in the Orange Grove-Graceland Cemetery on Broad Street, thinking to walk in concentric squares until I found her tombstone or proved the rumor valid.

I had two surprises. The first was coming upon the headstone within five minutes. The other was discovering that the name of Louisiana’s most notorious murderess had been misspelled. Annie Beatrice McQuiston, carved as “Anna,” adopted the name “Toni Jo” as a prostitute and became Toni Jo Henry upon marrying Claude “Cowboy” Henry.

Seeing the tombstone had a galvanizing effect on me by making the woman behind the name come to life as a real person. The tombstone, in fact, serves as the ghosted background to the novel’s front and back covers.

What do you want readers to take away from this book?
Of course I want readers to have a riveting reading experience. (One woman found herself hating the content but incapable of putting the book down until it was finished, even cooking the family’s supper with the novel in hand.)

Also, the novel dramatizes the fact that anyone at any time can simply CHOOSE to redefine themselves and become a better person. “A Savage Wisdom” is not only a case study in deception; it is a testament to the fact that anyone can radically transform themselves—instantly and by an act of will. Thus, one character at the end of the novel rejects Toni Jo Henry’s savage wisdom, replacing it with a “wary goodness.”

About the Author: Norman German is a professor of English at Southeastern Louisiana University, fiction editor for Louisiana Literature, and winner of the Deep South Writers’ Contest for “No Other World.” “A Savage Wisdom” is his third novel.

Author photo by E. McCourt

James Hannahan, a 2006 alumnus of The University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers’ MFA program, will read at BookPeople  from his debut novel “God Says No,” which was published this summer by McSweeney’s Books. The reading will begin at 7 p.m., September 16.

Hannaham completed his bachlor’s degree at Yale University and was a culture reporter for the Village Voice and other New York publications before joining the MFA program. Since graduation, he’s been a staff writer for Salon.com and creative writing instructor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Hannaham tackles difficult terrain for any novelist—particularly a first-time author—in telling the story of a closeted gay black man who struggles in a cycle of guilt, denial and self-loathing as he tries to live by the tenets of his Southern Christian upbringing, honor his marriage vows—to a woman he truly loves as his closest friend—and accept himself for who he is.  ”Hannaham forces us to consider how important intimacy is, and how difficult . . . .   Irrespective of sexual orientation, he demonstrates the destructive forces of silences and shame on our families and romantic partnerships,” says a review in TheDefenders.com.  Numerous scandals involving very public figures reveal the kind of double lives led by men like Hannaham’s protagonist, but the subject is one that has “hardly been touched by literary fiction,” says author Jennifer Egan, who calls Hannaham “a groundbreaking new American voice.”

BookPeople is on the corner of West 6th Street and N. Lamar.

Jessica Garratt, author of "Fire Pond"

Garratt, a native of rural Maryland who also earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from The University of Texas at Austin in 2001, is now completing her doctorate in creative writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she is editor of its acclaimed literary journal, Missouri Review.  Her book was selected by judge Medbh McGuckian, who said:  “Garratt’s philosophical curiosity and openness are counterpoints to her refreshing wit and humor.  She narrates her private heartbreaks candidly but without self pity or narcissism, while infusing her work with an Emersonian sense of place as sacred.” This relatively new prize honors University of Utah’s beloved teacher of poetry, Agha Shahid Ali, who died in 2001.

Fountain—who hails from Las Cruces and did her undergraduate work in theatre arts at New Mexico State—stayed on in Austin first as co-managing director of  Grrl Action, a writing and performance program for teenage girls, and now teaches full-time in the English Writing and Rhetoric Department at St. Edward’s University.

Poet Natasha Tretheway selected Fountain’s book manuscript for the National Poetry Series, a literary awards program began in 1978 to heighten the visibility of good poetry in American publishing.  Curiously, MCW benefactor James A. Michener was one of its earliest supporters. When the proposal to start such a program was put before the Library of Congress, Michener read of it and was immediately moved to contribute.  He released a statement to the press explaining his decision:

I thought it deplorable that…the poet was at such a disadvantage, and it occurred to me that in my education the study of poetry was of at least as much significance as the study of prose . . . . It was an essential part of my inheritance and I would feel impoverished without it . . . .  But I also suspected that while I was writing my long books of prose, there might be some gifted young woman at the University of Michigan who was saying it all in some eight-line verse, and saying it much better. There was a real chance that her verse might live a hell of lot longer than my eight hundred pages, and I deemed it deplorable that I could get published while she could not.

The Michener Center for Writers plans a joint reading in Austin as soon as Fountain’s book is available.

What is a quinceañera?  In the Hispanic culture, it’s a girl’s 15th birthday party, a coming-of-age celebration much like a sweet sixteen, but with much deeper religious and social significance.  Belinda, who was born in Nebraska to a mother from South Texas and a father from Northern Mexico, had never attended one before she signed the book contract.  She threw herself into researching the ritual, attending quinceañeras, going to trade shows, talking to other Latinas about their experiences, and reading such books as Julia Alvarez’s “Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA.”

The result is a book that smartly and deftly explores questions of family relationships as well as cultural identity.  Acosta, who regularly reviews TV and other media in her weekly column, found inspiration in such shows as the hit OC, which combines story lines of teenaged characters with those of adult characters and appeals to viewers of widely differing ages.

Set in San Antonio, Texas, the novel tells the story of Ana Ruiz, a working professional and mother of 14-year-old  Carmen. Carmen blames her mother for their father’s recent abandonment of the family, and Ana plans the party as a means to reconnect with her angry daughter, but things go terribly awry. Author Joy Castro lauds Acosta’s deft portrayal of the “psychological tensions that the quinceañera moment provokes in mothers who are forced . . . to face their own aging at exactly the moment they’re supposed to be celebrating their daughters’ beauty and maturity.”  Belinda seamlessly weaves Spanish and Spanglish into her prose, giving the novel a lively and authentic voice.

In addition to her column and freelance reviews, Acosta is also a playwright and essayist whose work has appeared in Poets and Writers and aired on Latino USA.

A book release party is planned on August 18th at Cuba Libra (409 Colorado) from 6 to 8 p.m.—complete with cocktails, cupcakes and dancing, a sort of belated quinceañera for Acosta herself.  On August 25, she will read and book sign at 7 p.m. at BookPeople, on the corner of West 6th and N. Lamar.

Authors have created a literature around summer: at the pool, by the river, in the sweltering heat or in the shade. Whether it’s swimming, camping, hiking or just relaxing on the porch with a good book, summer is the season for enjoying Texas’ natural splendor.

Professor Emeritus Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth celebrates the season with poems highlighting the Lone Star State’s vast deserts, mountains, canyons and rivers.

He has been published extensively in anthologies and magazines, including “Looking for Horse Latitudes,” (Host Publications; 2008). 

Photo credit: NPS/Eric Leonard

Desert Sequence 
(Summer in the Big Bend National Park)
by Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth 
I.
The sun descends
in layers of luminous air.
Through the Great Window of Chisos,
flanked by austere profiles,
the distance is resonant and misty.
On the other side of the river,
rises a northwest of sierra:
Undulant mountains floating night ward
with the incipient dark of evening.
An ether of silence burns in the sky, where the gaze
of distracted thoughts is lost.
The sun sets.
And something winglike flutters
amid purple music, as the turnings of vision and time are deeply sketched along the languid landscape.

II.
In its azure height
The moon cradles nascent sleep.
Behind its back, Sirius and Procyon
bay in brilliant counterpoint.
Night lulls a slender breeze
with its fragrance of sage:
An extensive night flooding the world,
but at leaden gait.
Oh how many dead things
Are perceived in the air! Echoes in the wind and transient images.
The nomad redskin, riding the horizon,
anticipates my gaze with his falcon pupils.
…O Prophecy and Destiny! Gods
go up in smoke and other moons expire…
Night is slow
-like the wisdom of Man-; the stillness
so pure, made of shadows and sand;
a bird and its song perceive it, glissando.
Rain falls suddenly, with depth,
terse weeping from passive treetops.

III.
Daybreak…!
Dawn winks behind the Rock of Casa Grande;
nebulous firelight glitters
along the burnished contours.
The sun blooms amid the clouds
and kindles distances to iridescence.
The sorrel mustang of morning
stamps upon hills, races through canyons,
sparks from his hoofs igniting
brush, cacti, sand and stone,
all in the desert silence…

Written for the general reader, Henderson guides readers through Mexico’s complicated and volatile political struggles, including the deepening divisions of race, class, culture and objectives forged during centuries of Spanish colonial rule.

Set against a sharply detailed background, Henderson describes how the wars deepened the social rifts between the white Creole aristocrats who led the rebellion and the harshly exploited mestizo (mixed-blood) and Indian masses.

The book also examines early phases of the revolt under rebel Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo, whose battle cry for independence led the movement and revolutionized the course of Mexican History. Henderson also provides in-depth portraits of other key figures involved in the movement including Ferdinand VII, José María Morelos y Pavón, Colonel Agustín de Iturbide and Francisco Javier Venegas.

Henderson is a professor of history at Auburn University, Montgomery, and the author of several books on Mexican history including “A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States,” (Hill & Wang, 2007).

Somers-Willett has earned praise not only for her poetry collections, “Roam” (2006) and “Quiver” (2009), but also as a scholar of the slam poetry phenomenon.

A veteran spoken word performer, she is the author of “The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity, and the Performance of Popular Verse in America” (University of Michigan Press, 2009), a groundbreaking critical examination of slam and its impact on the academy.

A poetry slam is a competitive event where poets perform their work and are judged by members of the audience. Learn more about slam poetry events in Austin at www.austinslam.com.

Twin poets Matthew and Michael Dickman beat long odds to both earn admission to the Michener Center’s graduate program in 2002, and they have gone on to curiously parallel successes.

Both landed first book deals at Copper Canyon Press. Matthew’s “All American Poem” released last September won the American Poetry Review Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry. While Michael’s “The End of the West” is due out this spring. Between them, five of their poems have been published by The New Yorker during the past nine months, an incredible track record for any writer.

The Dickmans met fellow poet Michael McGriff as undergraduates at the University of Oregon, and McGriff followed the Dickmans to the Michener Center in 2003. In his final year at Texas, McGriff received a distinguished Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, and after graduation, a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford, where he currently is a Jones Lecturer.

MCGriff’s debut collection “Dismantling the Hills” won the Agnes Starrett Lynch Prize and was published by University of Pittsburgh Press last fall. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant for 2009.

She opens the memoir by describing an epiphany spurred by an encounter with a group of border crossers sprinting across Interstate 10 in the middle of a scorching desert. “As I look off into the desert hills from which they descended, a surprising thought flashes through my mind: I want to go to Mexico,” she writes.

Prompted by the experience, Griest decided to pull up stakes and move south of the border to fully immerse herself in her mother’s native country. Plagued by conflicted feelings about her mixed identity, the self-proclaimed “bad Mexican” set out on a quest to finally learn to speak Spanish and explore her ancestral roots.

Griest chronicles her pilgrimage from the border town of Nuevo Laredo to the highlands of Chiapas, detailing her myriad misadventures along the way. In the midst of the nation’s burgeoning social revolution, she rallies with rebels in Oaxaca, investigates the murder of a gay political activist and interviews family members of undocumented migrant workers.

From living in a house of gay roommates to attending a luchalibre (wrestling) match to dancing to hip-swiveling music in Mexico City’s thriving Zona Rosa district, she uses her journalist’s eye for detail to describe many bizarre, outrageous and touching experiences on her journey to self discovery.

Griest is the award-winning author of “Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing and Havana” and “100 Places Every Woman Should Go.” Listen to her read a few chapters from “Mexican Enough” on MySpace, or meet her in person at one of her spring tour dates.

Texas Ex Karen Steele (Ph.D. English, ’96) is the author of “Women, Press and Politics During the Irish Revival” (Syracuse University Press, 2007), a study of female voices who helped launch the 1916 Easter Rising, which ultimately led to Ireland’s independence from Great Britain. Steele is now an associate professor of English and director of the Women’s Studies Program at Texas Christian University.

Ellen Crowell (Ph.D. English, ’04) is the author of “The Dandy in Irish and American Southern Fiction” (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), an interdisciplinary study of two literary traditions that have remarkable similarities. Crowell is now an assistant professor of English at Saint Louis University.

Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, chair of the English department and a scholar of Irish literature, directed both Steele and Crowell during their doctoral studies at the university.

For further reading from the field of Irish studies, check out Cullingford’s books which include “Ireland’s Others: Gender and Ethnicity in Irish Literature and Popular Culture,” “Gender and History in Yeats’s Love Poetry” and “Yeats, Ireland and Fascism.”