Sam Houston Leaping Deer struggles to adjust to a new way of life when he leaves the Indian reservation and becomes a star basketball player at the University of Illinois

Indian Giver

Literature & Fiction

Duff, Gerald

United States

Indiana Univ. Pr

Novelist Gerald Duff grew up both in Polk County, in Deep East Texas, and in Nederland, near the Gulf Coast, two drastically different areas in terms of social and economic status, and the way they interact. These communities shaped the way Duff thought and lived, causing him to build up certain false personae to fit in with the crowd. These changes and more are described within the pages of Duff’s new memoir, Home Truths: A Deep East Texas Memory. From dealing with intrusive family members to judgmental classmates to marital bliss and misery, Duff’s memoir describes situations familiar to anyone who has ever lived in a small town. Experiences unfamiliar to the youths of today include growing up during World War II and the descriptions of propaganda tactics, hunting for your own meals, and dealing with the social mores of the 1950s and 1960s. Other occurrences however, such as working a summer job and the awkwardness of first dates, speak to people of every generation, young and old. Early in life Duff learned to tell lies as a survival mechanism against his meddling family and occasionally cruel classmates. He describes the ordeal of hiding both his domestic situation and his talent for the written word. Duff’s talents for lies and half-truths helped him not only to discover a hidden talent within himself, but also a future career.

Home Truths: A Deep East Texas Memory

History

Americas

TCU Press

Playing Custer is a novel narrated from varying points of view and time, illuminating personal and political events leading up to the death of General George Armstrong Custer. The historic events are framed by the story of two men from the late twentieth century—one white and one Native American—who travel together to the annual reenactment of the battle at the Little Bighorn National Monument battlefield. Chatting during their journey, the two reenactors discuss their obsessions, personal ambitions, and failures of nerve. Interwoven with their progress toward the battle are narrations, journal entries, and first-person viewpoints from many others who were actually involved in the historic events. Soldiers and scouts for the cavalry; Sioux, Crow, and Cheyenne witnesses; and wives and daughters all offer their versions of “truth,” establishing a texture and depth of irony, humor, and tragic meaning to those modern Americans driven to attempt to “play Custer.” This year—a special anniversary of the real battle—they are suddenly chosen for crucial new roles. This time, they will play Custer and Crazy Horse. All builds toward the real and reenacted final moments on the battlefield of Custer’s last stand.

Playing Custer

Nashville Burning is set in three Aprils, those of 1967, ’68, and ’69, in Music City. In the first, after an event at Vanderbilt University featuring Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Allen Ginsburg, and Strom Thurmond, riots broke out in North Nashville, and that part of town burst into flame—as did self-satisfied notions about civil order and structure in Nashville and the South. The next April, after the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis, Nashville riots took place again, and fire claimed its function. Nashville Burning presents characters caught up in those events and that time—events ranging from the thoughtful and sincerely well meaning to the truly felonious and certifiably insane. The novel is humorous, yet serious. Its fire is literal and emotional, and it is not to be stoked.

Nashville Burning

Nashville Burning is set in three Aprils, those of 1967, ’68, and ’69, in Music City. In the first, after an event at Vanderbilt University featuring Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Allen Ginsberg, and Strom Thurmond, riots broke out in North Nashville, and that part of town burst into flame—as did self-satisfied notions about civil order and structure in Nashville and the South. The next April, after the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis, Nashville riots took place again, and fire claimed its function. Nashville Burning presents characters caught up in those events and that time—events ranging from the thoughtful and sincerely well-meaning to the truly felonious and certifiably insane. The novel is humorous, yet serious. Its fire is literal and emotional, and it is not to be stoked.

Memphis, the Bluff City, is at the heart of Gerald Duff's hilariously violent story about lies, crimes, and those who must dig down to the ugly truths hiding beneath false claims made by movers, shakers, and criminals high and low. Memphis cops J. W. Ragsdale and Tyrone Walker spend their days and long into their nights peeling back the counterfeit claims of old wealth, gang lords, and the brutal truths of thievery, murder, and deceit. J. W., a one-time cotton farmer, now chops away in the weeds, brambles, and lies of Memphis, high and low. His African American partner, Tyrone Walker, steers a straight path whenever he's able. He believes little of what he sees, and he trusts only part of what he senses. Together in Duff's third book about the partners, J. W. and Tyrone tackle the Ku Klux Klan, crooked aristocrats, black gangs, and the many bluffs, real and imagined, proclaimed in Memphis on the Mississippi. It gets darker each day in that great and gritty town on the river called the Old Man. Ragsdale and Walker are again seeking a beam of light and a glimpse of truth. And they're not bluffing.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Memphis Bluff

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Memphis in May. The International Barbecue Contest, the Cotton Carnival, and now two murders. And it is all on the shoulders of failed cotton farmer and current Memphis homicide detective, J.W. Ragsdale, to solve both crimes before the tourist start leaving in droves. J.W. and his partner, Tyrone Walker, sift through an unusual cast of characters, ranging from black gangs dealing crack, to an heir apparent son of Southern aristocracy, and to the newly crowned Maid of Cotton. To make matters worse, someone is intent on turning out mass market bad barbecue, the unpardonable sin in Memphis. Through all this, a power struggle for gang leadership has left bodies strewn about the bluff City. Wondering if agrarian fever might not be so bad, J.W. Takes the investigation to his home country, the Mississippi Delta. What he finds could change his life forever...or end it.

Memphis Ribs

Salvo Pr

Snake Song

J.W. Ragsdale, a failed Mississippi cotton farmer turned Memphis homicide detective, along with his partner, Tyrone Walker is faced with a cowboy preacher, a home invasion, urban gangs, and a killer who sees spirits and converses with the dead. The setting is Memphis, a city haunted by the blues, rock and roll, magic, humor, and violence. J.W. and Tyrone must sort through another spell of mania on the Big River, and bring things back to a low rumble in a town where tough mojo hands, death, and high hilarity come together.

Memphis Mojo

Humor & Satire

Lamar University Press

Memphis in May. The International Barbecue Contest, the Cotton Carnival, and now two murders. And it is all on the shoulders of failed cotton farmer and current Memphis homicide detective, J.W. Ragsdale, to solve both crimes before the tourist start leaving in droves. J.W. and his partner, Tyrone Walker, sift through an unusual cast of characters, ranging from black gangs dealing crack, to an heir apparent son of Southern aristocracy, and to the newly crowned Maid of Cotton. To make matters worse, someone is intent on turning out mass market bad barbecue, the unpardonable sin in Memphis. Through all this, a power struggle for gang leadership has left bodies strewn about the bluff City. Wondering if agrarian fever might not be so bad, J.W. Takes the investigation to his home country, the Mississippi Delta. What he finds could change his life forever...or end it.

Memphis Ribs (Hot Persuit)

Americana Pub Inc

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Duff, Gerald. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Duff, Gerald

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Duff, Gerald. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Indian Giver

Home Truths: A Deep East Texas Memory

Playing Custer

Nashville Burning

Nashville Burning

Memphis Bluff

Memphis Ribs

Snake Song

Memphis Mojo

Memphis Ribs (Hot Persuit)