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Sunday, August 18, 2019

DISPATCHES FROM PLUTO

Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi DeltaDispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you want to join an American subculture hiding in the Delta of Mississippi, this is a great way to do it. Richard Grant*is a Brit who has come to live in the Delta and still lives in Mississippi at this time. He has the personality as an outsider to be able to gain the confidence of the insiders. Also, it helped that he had a British accent. At one point in the book, one black man said: "He's not white, he's British." I loved the Field Trip chapter, but couldn't really understand the significance of Chapter 5, The Oncologist's Hitmen. The chapters that went into depth about the 'Blues' music didn't interest me. I don't give out a lot of '5 stars', this book was definitely a ' five star' book . Good writing and interesting stories that kept me wanting to go to Mississippi and take the Field Trip.

This was my Book Club book for the month for July. It was my turn to lead the discussion. Since I love to know where I am when I read a book; a map was in order. This book especially needed a map for Chapter 6 - Field Trip. I marked a Mississippi map with the route and points of interest and brought copies. It put the story in perspective and helped generate a lot of discussion.
















Here are some of my notes:

p. 10 Why is it called Pluto? (Pluto is an unincorporated town and isn't on this map.) It is called Pluto because: "Pluto is the Lord of the Underworld and all of this was just a big mean hell of a swamp."

p. 46 "South whites didn't mind how close blacks got so long as they didn't get too high socially and economically". 1st paragraph

p. 87  Clarksdale was one stop on the Field Trip. Morgan Freeman, the actor, lives here. It is the 'Crossroads' where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil. Crossroads, the movie, will give you a good look at 'the blues' in the Delta. 

p. 93 Wet Delta Salad-lettuce with olive oil and vinegar. 
           (Go to The Faded Rose in Little Rock, Arkansas
             to eat a really good one.) (Facebook link)

p. 104 The blacks were against the civil rights movement.

p. 159 Parchman Prison (Time ran out so we didn't get to discuss the prison and the 'Wage-Hand Program'.)

pps. 174-176 The schools/academies. They were not called private schools and were set up to avoid segregation.

p. 187 Quitman Country Elementary school was an experiment to provide quality education to the Mississippi schools. It worked, but was not continued, because the local school board felt that they were under the control of outsiders.

p. 216 Plantation mentality.

p. 235 Morgan Freeman's 'Meaning of Life'. "The meaning of life for every organism on the planet, including us, is to procreate and die."

p. 257-258 It's a habit.

p. 265 "and some of these women out here be have mo kids, and mo kids, just so they check get bigger."

p. 276 Feudal relic.

Maybe some of my notes will trigger a discussion in your book club if you select Dispatches from Pluto for discussion.


*Richard Grant is an author, journalist, and television host. He currently lives with his wife in Jackson, Mississippi. He was born in Malaysia in 1963 and spent time as a child in Kuwait before his family moved to London where he spent his childhood. He earned a history degree from University College in London and then moved to the United States. He has lived in Tucson, Arizona and New York City.

He grew up with an interest in traveling and writing as evidenced by the books that he has published.

1. American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers and Bullriders.

2. God's Middle Finger, Into The Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre (English title-Bandit Roads, Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre.) This book was written after he traveled in northern Mexico in the Sierra Madre Occidental, an area nine hundred miles long that contained cave-dwelling Indian tribes and is one of the world's largest areas for production of marijuana and heroin.

3. Crazy River: Exploration and Folly in East Africa tells the story of his travels along the Malagarasi River in Tanzania and other events in Burundi and Rwanda. 

4. Dispatches from Pluto








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