Interviews
I was born and raised in Newport, Arkansas. We were a family of four, my father was a lawyer, my mother a homemaker, and my younger brother, Phillip, who would grow up to be a lawyer. I was always expected to be a lawyer and planned to be one until our senior yearbook came out about a month before I graduated. I have never told this before, but here is what put the idea of becoming a doctor in my mind. My friend, Sarah, wrote in the class prophecy, a spoof, “Judson Hout will be a great surgeon and a rival of the famous Mayo Brothers. Even now he can cut a watermelon.” On hot Arkansas summer nights, some of us were known to steal the occasional watermelon. Sarah put the idea in my head, and one day I just said, “why not!”
The home in which I grew up was about a hundred feet north of the White River bridge. South of the bridge was Chastain’s Addition, a poorer area, where three of my closest friends (Carlos, Gene and Leroy) lived. Those were idealic days: no shoes in the summer (except for Sundays), out of doors from breakfast until dark, playing on the bridge, riding bicycles everywhere we went, chasing the ice wagon in hopes of receiving a chip to lick. Newport, Arkansas was a great place to grow up in the 1950s.
Why I wrote the story:
I have always liked to tell jokes, and tall tales. During long nights, while working the Emergency Room at our local hospital, I decided to pass the idle time between admissions by writing. My brother, Phil, and my wife, Carolyn, were my sounding boards. Carolyn even thought my first effort was good, but my lawyer brother said it needed a lot of work. Phil had told me about an attempted bank robbery in the small hamlet of Shirley, Arkansas, turning the hapless criminals into unintended comedians. I decided to use that narrative as a part of my second effort, which was much later to become this novella. When Phil read the original manuscript he said, “ You’ve got a winner!” My writing career was begun.
Q&A with the Author:
1. Are any of the characters in The Boys from Possum Grape based upon real people?
Answer: No. I had a friend who’s older brother was nicknamed Toady. I liked that name so I borrowed it. Another friend was redheaded and had millions of freckles, so he was called Fertilizer in the town from which he moved to Newport. Jabby was the nickname of a tough little guy who got into many fights, so I borrowed his name. Mule, Hughie and Louie are figments of my imagination.
2. Was there a real Nubbingrinder?
No.
3. What about the White River monster?
Supposedly a myth, but my brother swore to me he saw it once. He said it was a giant sturgeon. He also said he told no one else because they wouldn’t believe him. My brother was known to spin a yarn occasionally.
4. What is a suggin.
There is no known definition, but most older people in Jackson County know one when they see one.
5. Have you written other works of fiction?
Yes, three others, The Ghost of Bud Parrott, Sweet Hope and Miss Carrie. They have all been published by Parkhurst Brothers Publishers.
6. Are you writing anything now?
I have an idea for another book, but I haven’t worked it out in my mind to the point that I can start writing. Hopefully it will come to me soon.
7. How would you describe The Boys From Possum Grape?
Most readers find it funny, bawdy, even raunchy. I have been surprised that several elderly ladies reported they enjoyed the humor thoroughly. My son says it is “duck club humor,” but a writer must be true to his characters, and these characters were no angels!
8. Is there such a place as Possum Grape?
There surely is. It is a small settlement about ten miles south of Newport, Arkansas, between Olyphant and Bradford.
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