Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Too Many Books, not Enough Politics? by D.G. MARTIN "Aren't you writing about politics end of the Civil War. Duke Johnston anymore?" a newspaper editor asked gained his nickname as a football hero me the other day. and student leader at Duke University. I stuttered because I have been After college he became a Charlotte writing more about books than politics lawyer and Republican city councilman. lately. The editor continued, "Are He had prospects of being governor you a little gun-shy from that someday, until a minor sex scandal controversy about the brought those dreams column you wrote to an end in the mid bringing Joseph 1980s. Goebbels' The real leader of the voice into North family is Duke's wife, Carolina politics?" Jerene Jarvis Johnston, Maybe he has a point. whose every action is Counting today, I have calculated to enhance written five consecutive or protect the family's columns about books. social position. Her One of them, however, family's art collection, Brandt Ayers' In Love housed at Charlotte's with Defeat, was about Mint Museum and politics in Alabama displayed in the Jarvis and North Carolina. Room, gives her The others Marissa leverage with the city's Pessl's Night Film, social elite. Jason Mott's The But the family is Returned, Alan Gurganus' Local running out of money. Jerene's brother Souls, and in today's column, Wilton is a wealthy author of a series of Barnhardt's Look Away, Look Away, Civil War-era romances. Sometimes are fiction. So is Lee Smith's Guests he shares his wealth with his sister's on Earth, which will be the subject of family, but his assistance is usually a forthcoming column. undependable and is always demeaning. All these books and authors are Meanwhile, none of the four important, so important that every Johnston children show potential or informed North Carolinian should interest in leading the family to social know about them: Ayers because he prominence and wealth again. The puts 50 years of Southern politics and rebellious, liberal Annie runs through civil rights struggles in perspective; three marriages. Bo, who might Gurganus and Smith, who are among have been a lawyer or businessman, our state's most important and beloved is instead a troubled Presbyterian authors, are giving their fans new books minister. Josh is a mostly closeted gay for the first time in years. with a secret active sex life, thanks to Meanwhile on Sunday, Sept. 22, resources he finds on the Internet and Pessl, Mott, and Barnhardt made the devoted help of his best friend and the Top 25 on The New York Times' companion, a super smart Africanhardcover fiction bestseller list, showing American lesbian. The youngest child, the country that North Carolina is Jerilyn, shows early social promise until still producing writers worthy of she shoots her way out of a national attention. marriage to a socially acceptable So this will be another column Charlotte boy. about a book. Barnhardt's Lookaway, Does Barnhardt accurately portray Lookaway, a Dickens-like novel, the social, civic and political scene in follows the decline of a contemporary, Charlotte? I think he stretches things socially prominent Charlotte family. to make a good story. But when I Barnhardt takes his readers to country challenged him, he promised he could clubs, museums, mansions, college produce facts to show the situations in fraternity and sorority rush parties and the book are close to what Charlotte aftermaths, debutante balls, retirement and North Carolina are really like. homes, real estate developments, gay One fact is indisputable. Barnhardt pickup sites, homes for unwed mothers, is a gifted storyteller and a welcome abortion sites, Civil War reenactments addition to North Carolina's literary and, note this, political campaigns. pantheon. The family's titular leader, Joseph B. ("Duke") Johnston, has a D.G. MARTIN, Host of UNC'S Bookconnection to the Confederate watch, Contributing Writer. COMgeneral best known for his MENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly. surrender to Sherman at the com. 32 UCW OCTOBER. 2-8, 2013 Embassy Suites® Fayetteville/Fort Bragg NC Thank You Fayetteville! Voted Fayetteville's Best Hotel •We at the Embassy Suites Fayetteville/Ft. 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