Author and Mississippi native Jonathan Odell will describe his motivations and intentions for the racially-driven plot of his widely acclaimed book The View from Delphi at 6 p.m. in Giles Hall’s Bettersworth Auditorium.
Born in Laurel, Odell graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a psychology degree and later moved to Minnesota.
In college he became involved with activism, selling The Ebony Pictorial History of Black America. Although the Ku Klux Klan tried to discourage his zeal, he kept his awareness practices in tact. The View from Delphi is a story that takes place in a fictitious Mississippi town in the early 1950s.
Two mothers, a black maid and a wealthy black woman that she serves, share and deal with the same pains. The plot also brings a realistic twist while telling about how black servants formed alliances and started the civil rights movement.
Nancy McCarley, director of the University Honors Program, has worked on the forum project since August.
“This whole project is like my first baby. I’ve seen it from start to finish,” she said. “Anyone with an interest in history, Mississippi or the pre-civil rights era should come to the lecture.”
In addition to the open forum, Odell will talk to and meet 40 honors students in McCarley’s class today.
Jones County native and Honors student Eric Shows is almost finished with the novel and will participate in the forum.
“I really enjoy the character development,” he said. “The personalities are really true to life.”
Shows said he also enjoys the novel as entertainment. “I know some of the towns are real, but some of them are fictional.”
He added, “I encourage people to come; it will be scholarly and intellectual but a lot of fun.”
Also with Odell, award-winning visual artist Jim Kuether from Minnesota will display his photography of places in Mississippi. While traveling with Odell during his research for the novel, Kuether captured images that he calls, “MSinterpretations: Images of Mississippi.”
Art gallery department director Bill Andrews displayed the pictures at the architecture building. He said the content of Kuether’s exhibit parallel with the social tones of the novel.
“The photos are black and white images as they exist,” he said. “They were taken just as they existed, but they bring an intimacy to Southern culture.”
“They have a feel of timelessness,” he added.