The January 12 meeting of the Hickory Reading Club was hosted by Marcia Everett and April Gilbert. Members enjoyed a pizza/salad/dessert meal in the Hickory Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, which was decorated with a whimsical blue and snowman motif.
Joyce Johnson’s meditation focused on the fullness of joy Gods prepared path can grant to those looking for lovely surprises and “friendly little blessings” in this new year.
For the program, Dottie Armstrong reviewed John Grisham’s novel “The Boys from Biloxi” (2022). Her introductory material included Grisham’s career in the MS House of Representatives, affiliation with the Innocence Project, involvement with missions, and other Christian and philanthropic pursuits.
Boys’ opening includes a background of Biloxi’s immigrant population and the Gulf Coast’s longstanding crime/politics connection. The plot develops as diametrically opposed values and activities of two generations of the Rudy and Malco families lead to a bombing death, a Grishamesque trial, and a cliffhanger sentence.
Associations were made between Grisham’s novel and nonfiction Mississippi Mud,
Pulitzer Prize author Edward Humes’s account of the 1987 Biloxi execution-style deaths of Vincent and Margaret Sherry.
