Good morning from the Mississippi river. For the last few days I’ve been in Natchez, enjoying the sights of a rare southern town that has not lost its soul to Progress: its city streets are marked by people and shops, not pockmarked by parking lots, and the streets are so dog-gone Christmassy it feels like I’m in a Hallmark movie. Well, considering that no less than three Hallmark Christmas specials have been filmed here, that is only appropriate. Amid the visitations to native American sites, necropolises, and the grand mansions testifying to Mississippi’s antebellum wealth, I have also been reading All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, a novel inspired by the life of Governor/Senator Huey Long, the latter of Louisiana. Reading this in Baton Rouge would have been more appropriate, I suppose, but there’s always the future.  Long was a unique southern politician, somebody that today would be described as a left-wing populist: one movie about his life refers to him as the Karl Marx of the hicks. Hitting his political stride in the 1920s and ’30s, he attacked big money and corrupt politicians who sheltered them, and aimed to become an authoritarian and corrupt politician in his own right — albeit one for the poor whites and blacks of the state, creating programs to build roads and bridges, schools and hospitals. Then, approaching national politics and threatening Franklin Roosevelt, he was shot.

All the King’s Men uses a fictional character named Willie Talos (or Willie Stark, in most editions) to relive Long’s rise and fall, as seen through the eyes of Jack Burden, a newspaper man who enters into Stark’s employ as a kind of adjutant; making connections for him, digging up information on political rivals, that sort of thing. The book is not about Stark: it is merely dominated by him, as Jack and his two closest friends the Stantons all have their lives warped around him. David Stanton, an idealist who regards Stark as the worst sort of politician, is offended by Jack’s friendship with and support of, Stark. Anne Stanton, who Jack has been in love with for most of his life, is both troubled and charmed by him, and hopes to convince him to support her own ideas for promoting the social welfare in the form of a children’s home. Anne is a key character in the novel, as Jack’s love for her amid her involvement with Stark tests who he is and what he really values. Another important part of the story is Stark’s stepfather, who is actually his biological father though he doesn’t know it: the Judge isn’t merely against Stark, he’s a political antagonist who Burden will play a part in destroying. The book proved an absorbing character drama, and Warren shows off a flair for writing. I will share some excerpts (and some photos) once I am home. For now, I have a few more places to see, a malt shoppe to visit, and then a long drive back to Sweet Home Alabama.