While threaded through with lots of Southern shtick, Mark Childress’ “One Mississippi” could happen any place where two teenage boys are trying to navigate the perils of puberty.
Don’t we all have slightly odd families? Didn’t we all get tortured by something or somebody in school? Childress, in his first book since “Crazy in Alabama,” has put together an entertaining, sometimes painful and extreme look at what most have been through, and overlaid it with kudzu, Friday night football, funny Southern food, hot Baptist girls, teachers who include Henry V-8 in their Shakespeare curriculum and great characters who do the darndest things.
Daniel Musgrove’s family moves to Minor, Miss., when he is 16. It’s a huge shock for Daniel, his older brother, Bud, and younger sister Jamie. Mom, a former Southern belle, is ecstatic and starts slurring her words immediately. Dad, a salesman for TriDex Chemicals, is prepared to bull his way through any problem, including watching their life possessions go up in smoke, uninsured, in a moving van fire. Daniel never misses a chance to sass his dad and Dad always retaliates with a painful punch.
It’s the ’70s and the tiny town of Minor is lurching toward integration. First day on the bus, the three Musgrove children get tripped up and scorned for the way they talk. They face unsmiling black kids, tough redneck boys and their sisters and a barking bus driver. Back in Indiana, Daniel thought, “You never saw people like this.” As he remembers Indiana, all the people were white, lived in neat ranch houses and bought their clothes at Sears, Roebuck. They were normal.
He finds salvation in homeroom – a buddy, Tim Cousins, who believes everything is as bizarre and laughable as Daniel does. They form a team of two against the world. One of their first adventures is the entire process of attending the homecoming dance. It involves asking the Frillinger sisters, both so plain and unpopular they would never have otherwise gone, thereby guaranteeing immediate acceptance, and renting royal blue tuxedos, which the boys are assured are the height of fashion.
They do not arrive at the prom without incident; Daniel is humiliated at least twice before he can emerge from the car. Once there, they all have fun and wonder who will be homecoming king and queen. In walks Arnita Beecham, transformed. Arnita is black, straight As, wire-rimmed glasses and ironed hair – but this night, the glasses are off and she is wearing a “very thin, stretchy, translucent, revealing gown” with spiky fake eyelashes, gold lipstick and a “gorgeous wide smile.” Daniel has a great teenage-boy thought: Her “dress was a white goblet containing the upsweep of Arnita’s long legs and tiny waist, swelling outward to her bosom and naked shoulders.” Every guy eye in the place is on her and most vote with their hormones.
Flash! Arnita becomes the first black homecoming queen at Minor High. She gets crowned along with Red Martin, star football player and primo bully. The girls buzz about Arnita: Doesn’t school spirit count for something? How could this happen?
Events after the dance steer the plot to a darker place with terrible consequences. Arnita is hurt, and wakes up from a coma convinced she is white. She doesn’t want to stay in her home and turns to our guy for help.
Daniel’s life philosophy directs him on the path of least resistance, which means into some strange places and circumstances.
The Full Flower Baptist Church recruits both boys to play instruments for its new play “Christ!” Directed by the flamboyant Eddie Smock, the cast and crew get to experience some big drama outside their little drama. They take the show on the road, literally a red-dirt road that ends at a church where black ministers are being trained. The students perform to the audience’s astonishment.
“One Mississippi” is fun to read because Childress sets a fast pace and the characters change – even the dad and most certainly Tim and Daniel. The ending, unfortunately, is predictable. You know what’s coming and you’re right. Still, it’s worth reading because of the different perspective Childress offers and besides, funny is always a bonus.
Hartman is a principal in Hartman & Brown, a media-consulting firm.
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One Mississippi
By Mark Childress
Little, Brown, 400 pages, $24.95
