A new novel by Alec Clayton
I’m not writing this. I’m screaming it. But only inside my mind. It’s all in my head. You are in my head.
Left completely paralyzed and unable to talk after a stroke, newspaperman Willie Ray Rivers recalls his fight for justice in the little town of Hub City, Mississippi; his love for his wife Ella; his conflicted search for the divine; and his sexual obsessions.
On the southern edge of Hub City lies the all-black community of Palmers Crossing, famous for having been the local center of voter registration actions in Freedom Summer 1964, and known for its big discount store, Yardbirds, and a dance hall, Johnny’s, renowned for bringing in famous blues and jazz performers (the chitlin circuit).
A resurgent Ku Klux Klan tries to put Yardbirds and Johnny’s out of business and destroy the community of Palmers. There are threats and political rallies, and someone sets Yardbirds on fire.
Alec Clayton’s Locked In is soon to be published by Mud Flat Press.
I love Willie Ray Rivers’s voice. Clayton pulls off the same brilliant trick he has manage in all of his novels (the word “trick” is, truth to tell, not really accurate. This is far greater than a knack, or a mere trick. It’s my inability to think of a better word that is to fault here, not Clayton’s writing.)
Instead of railing about the evil, the author speaks from the voice of a normal, but sane and basically decent observer.
− Jack Butler, author of Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock
Read Butler’s review of Tupelo and preview of Locked In here. (Note, there are spoilers in the preview.)
Find out more about Clayton’s other books here: https://mudflatpress.com/alec-clayton/