~from Ami

I show up at an author reading a week ago to kick off the Arkansas Literary Festival. It’s a joint effort by all the Panera Breads of Northwest Arkansas, hosting local authors and donating proceeds to the various literacy councils. I don’t know what to expect, breathless and tired after a day of working, stopping in Claremore to finalize insurance on our car and to drop off flyers at the library for my upcoming signing…then racing down the Cherokee Turnpike, late, for two hours through 5:00 traffic.

But I arrive and gulp down a cold water with a slice of lemon (which I then eat for my dinner :-), wondering who the other authors are. Then I’m aghast to see Donald Harington-one of my favorite writers- sitting two tables away from me.

Even more aghast to find I will be following him after he reads, with my own little oft-performed song and dance, during which I get all shaky describing how much I love Harington’s novels and how I admire him so.

I like to say I was introduced to Mr. Harington’s works in the late eighties, when the Fayetteville Public Library was considering banning Lightning Bug. You better believe I marched right down and checked it out.

Harington, having spent his summers in the deepest valleys of the Arkansas Ozarks, is a master storyteller. Entertainment Weekly has dubbed him “America’s Greatest Unknown Novelist.” Though the writer’s hearing is gone, the Ozark dialect on the page still springs to life, echoing a long-ago Arkansas, where ghost towns now linger in valleys decades-abandoned, populated mostly by fields of wild flowers, bluffs, and clear creeks.

My husband’s forebears came out of Newton County, where Harington’s fictional Stay More is located. I’m always in mind of Limestone and Boxley Valley when I’m reading Donald Harington, places seemingly forsaken by the modern world. Lost to us now?

Are his books controversial? Um, yes. But I think he does it well and true. That’s it more than anything, his novels are true to Arkansas.

Here’s a list of my favorites, in order:

The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks

Some Other Place. The Right Place.

Let Us Build Us a City

Lightning Bug

The Cockroaches of Stay More

The Choiring of the Trees

The Cherry Pit

I am waaay behind in my reading, with Ekaterina, Butterfly Weed, When Angels Rest, Thirteen Albatrosses, and With to work into the list above. I received The Pitcher Shower for my birthday and am halfway through it.

So I approach Mr. Harington after our shindig is over and indicate I’d like to have my picture taken with him. He looks pleased and grips me after he’s signed my book, smiling as my dad snaps the camera. I make a promise to myself…become a better writer…become a better writer!

The inscription inside The Pitcher Shower reads:

For Ami Elizabeth Reeves, with many thanks for the unanswered question. Donald Harington. Panera. Fayetteville. 04/20/06. (I’d raised my hand and asked, with my love of lists… “Which of your books is your favorite?” (his wife scribbling the questions down on paper for him) and he answered, “Ma’am, that’s like asking a mother which of her children she loves the most.”)