Winter/Spring 2000

Hot Off the Press
with Julia Reed and James L. Cummins, Jr.

Delta Land
by Maude Schuyler Clay
Reviewed by Julia Reed

Last summer I drove with my father through the Mississippi Delta, past thousands of acres of soybean and cotton, but also by abandoned cotton gins and grain elevators, dilapidated mule barns and boarded-up stores. As we detoured around a twisted iron bridge, my father looked out at the flat landscape of my youth and said softly, "It's over."

Uninhabitable until the turn of the nineteenth century, "the Delta" is actually a diamond-shaped alluvial flood plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. It was literally hacked out of a violent wilderness by men who wanted to reap the considerable benefits of the richest land in the world, and who were crazy enough and wealthy enough to do it. It is the remnants of their lost way of life that Maude Schuyler Clay captures in Delta Land (University Press of Mississippi).

Clay is a fifth-generation Deltan (you can't go back any further than that), and her pictures of the land are, like my father's statement, not political or social, nor are they nostalgic. They are also almost entirely unpopulated. But there are ghosts here. Ghosts of the Indians whose language gave the counties their names: Yalobusha, Tallahatchie and Tunica. Ghosts of the slaves that cleared the land. The ghost of Emmett Till, to whose memory Clay dedicates the book, and whose killers were tried and acquitted in the courthouse just a short walk away from where she now lives. And there are the ghosts of men like her own great-great-grandfather, who came to make his fortune. The land then was almost primordial, halfway under water, dense with canebrakes, infested with mosquitoes and snakes, even panthers.

In Clay's photographs it appears primordial again.

Delta Land is available through local booksellers. Or you can obtain a copy by contacting University Press of Mississippi toll-free at 1-800-737-7788.

Editor's Note: Julia Reed, the daughter of Clarke Reed, the Chairman of the Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Foundation, is a senior writer for Vogue Magazine and a regular contributing editor for Newsweek, the London Telegraph and the New York Times.

Birds of Mississippi
by William H. Turcotte and David Watts
Reviewed by James L. Cummins, Jr.

In my family, David Watts and Bill Turcotte are almost household names.

Begun more than 25 years ago, Birds of Mississippi is finally a reality. For many people, the authors included, this work is a long-awaited book that covers the diversity, distribution, conservation and history of the birds of this great state.

According to the book's co-author, William H. Turcotte, "This work is about birds, people who like to study birds and places where birds are found."

Birds of Mississippi also outlines the state's ornithological history and provides enlightening discussions about many of the interesting persons over the last several hundred years who have added to our knowledge of Mississippi's birds and their habitats.

The new book was written for both the novice and advanced bird watchers. The 394 range maps are helpful in generally describing where bird species may be found. This can be helpful in letting birders know where they could expect to find some more difficult-to-locate species such as some warblers, gulls, sparrows, shorebirds and water birds.

Birds of Mississippi contains 74 black-and-white photographs and 24 color photographs.

John J. Audubon once said, "I did not meet at Natchez (Mississippi) with many individuals fond of ornithological pursuits, but the hospitality with which I was received was such as I am not likely to forget." Well, Mr. Audubon, things in Mississippi have changed a lot. And the hospitality has improved too!

Birds of Mississippi is available through local booksellers. Or you can obtain a copy by contacting University Press of Mississippi toll-free at 1-800-737-7788.

Congratulations David and Mr. Turcotte. It's about time!