Although I already covered several prominent Mississippi authors, I have recently stumbled upon another through my studies at the University of West Alabama. I am currently taking a dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature class, and Michael Farris Smith’s novel “Rivers” is the most recent novel I have read. As terrific contemporary writer who calls Mississippi home, Union residents should all have a familiarity with Smith and his work.
Regarding the author himself, Smith hails from our state and has a background somewhat familiar to many people in our area. His dad preached in the Southern Baptist Convention at different churches across the state, and when he first began college, Smith attended Mississippi State University for his bachelor’s degree. After this, he pursued attended graduate school at William Carey before moving on to earn his doctorate at The University of Southern Mississippi. He then worked as an English professor at the Mississippi University for Women. He has lived in both France and Switzerland, but currently, Smith lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family (although he does not serve as writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi). Like many other Mississippians, he comes from humble beginnings, and he has used these to create terrific novels.
Although his first novel “The Hands of Strangers” does not take place in Mississippi, many of his other novels do, and he uses great detail in describing his locations. His later novels include “Rivers,” “Desperation Road,” “The Fighter,” “Blackwood” and “Nick.” A good portion of these feature Mississippi, but some do not, which shows Smith’s versatility as a writer. For instance, Nick takes inspiration from Nick Buchanan, a character in “The Great Gatsby.” Many writers could not write about different locales in Mississippi and about a character in another work. He has won several awards for his fiction, but since I have not read any of his other works, I will only briefly describe “Rivers” to give people a small taste of the novel. This book follows the story of a man named Cohen in a post-apocalyptic version of South Mississippi; drawing heavily on the influence of the destruction from Hurricane Katrina, Smith describes a world where a climate shift has caused hurricanes to relentlessly pound the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Because of this, the government has effectively sealed off everything below a boundary line that sits 90 miles north of the coast. Cohen eventually must leave the isolation of his home to help a group of people held captive by a fanatic, and the novel centers around their journey to The Line. Smith describes these locations in great detail, and many would find this story enjoyable.
Even in the present day, current Mississippi writers continue to uphold Mississippi’s literary heritage. Smith’s writing certainly belongs in the same category as William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Willie Morris. He shows his versatility through his ability to write on various subjects, and most Union residents will easily visualize many of the locations in his novels. Because Smith represents Mississippi and Mississippi contemporary writers extremely well, all Union residents should know of him and his work.
