I just returned from three weeks on Ocean Isle Beach, one of the barrier islands not far from Wilmington, North Carolina. I went there to take a new crack at telling the story of my odyssey several years ago in which I ended up working as a prison guard at a maximum security prison just north of Dover. It began with a throw of a dart–which landed in Dover–and ended with me walking the tiers as correctional officer.

I wrote the story once, and followed the advice of friends and editors that I needed to tell the story of who I was and why I did what it did. It turned into far too much of a memoir. I don’t write well about myself. It seemed glib and superficial (for reasons which only my therapist undertands). There was serious interest in the manuscript, but eventually I pulled it because I was unhappy with the mixture of memoir and prison.

So, I’m rewriting it now mainly as a prison book. People love prison stories, witness all of the stuff on TV, and it’s much different and worse inside than it has been represented in those shows. In fact, I don’t think you can imagine it. Which ends up, of course, being my challenge as the teller of the story.

I went to the island with 45 pages. After the second day, I threw those pages out and started over. I didn’t like the “voice.” I returned home a few days ago with 45 new pages. Let’s hope they survive. My goal is to have a draft manuscipt by the end of the summer.

The title of my new book seems suddenly to have become quite popular. Frances Ford Coppola recently used it in describing one of his movies and, of course, Obama used it in his speech on race. Google Alerts show it being used frequently by writers and artists to describe a wide range of attitudes and emotions. The complete phrase of is: The Past Is Never Dead. It’s not even past. If you really think about that notion, it’s quite discouraging. It says that not even is the past never dead, it’s not even past. This means, literally, that the past is still the present, which really means that there really is no present, not if the past never leaves it. It’s true that for many people and cultures the past dominates the present–and definesthe future to a large degree, or at least the experience of the future–but to say that there is no room for the present is seriously misanthropic and depressing. I don’t think this is a mere word game, either, but I think it goes a good deal further than most people think when they quote the phrase. Usually it’s quoted to mean you have to keep paying for your past, that you never get away from it, which is good less frightening than the notion that it fills, in fact constitutes, the present.

The phrase was used in regard to a woman in Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun” who was trying to forget or overcome her past life, which involved murder and prostitution. It is Faulkner’s most memorable phrase, and there was a good deal of debate in the publishing house about whether a sentence made a good title. Finally, it was agreed that it best captured the theme of Mississippi’s effort at redemption from its past.  Let’s hope that its literal meaning isn’t true for Mississippi or for us.

I was pleased to see the AP piece on “The Past Is Never Dead” (finally) came out yesterday.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/22/attorney-author-examines-miss-racial-struggle/

It has been picked up all over the country, which has to be good for the book. It might have been better if it hadn’t come out so close to Christmas–the story isn’t exactly a Christmas story, after all–but one is happy with what one gets.      When I first began writing, in the late 1980s, my job was to produce a book, and the publisher was supposed to do the rest. With the internet and the publishing in the state that its in, the author is expected to do a good deal more, and I’ve had no choice but to take up the flag and wave it from atop the hill, as much as it goes against my nature. So I hustle the book, in any way that I can, unashamedly (mostly), realizing that each and every sale counts. Only a very few friends and relatives got free books this time around.

Fortunately, I have an excellent publisher this time around. Basic doesn’t give half-million dollar advances, but it produces a first-class product. And it treats each and every book with respect and dignity. Many of the bigger houses put their time and effort into the “big books,” like Sarah Palin’s, and let the others drift in the current, hoping they catch. Basic takes good care of its books, its authors, and for this I am very grateful.

I’ve been thinking of writing something on writing, so stay tuned.

James Ford Seale, convicted two years ago in the kidnapping and murder of two black youths in Southwest Mississippi in 1964, was known for his intense hatred of law enforcement at all levels, but particularly the FBI. During my research for “The Past Is Never Dead,” I heard that Jack Seale, James’ older brother and generally considered to  be the most violent member of the Seale family, had worked as an informer for the FBI.

New documents show that not only was Jack Seale an informant for the FBI, but that brother James might have supplied some information to the agency as well.  The Concordia Sentinel recently published a piece indicating that Jack had been an active informant for the FBI from 1967 on, and even mentioning the name of the FBI agent who handle him. The information came from the FBI files themselves and discussed a group of Klansmen known at the Silver Dollar Group, which was involved in many bombings during those years. Jack apparently tried to talk his brother James into working with the FBI, and in fact the FBI records indicate that James did meet with an agent and told him names of members of the Silver Dollar Group and gave information about the meetings.

The Seales weren’t the only Klansmen who turned against their comrades. The Neshoba County murders of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in 1964 were largely solved through the use of Klan informants. By 1970 the FBi had so thoroughly infiltrated the Klan in Mississippi that it was paralyzed by suspicion and paranoia.

The key was money. The FBI handed out cold cash to its informants, many of whom lived in low-income rural areas. Even Klan higher-ups were not imune; a leader of the Franklin County Klan, also on the FBI payroll, ratted out James Ford Seale and others to the FBi for the murder of the two black youths in 1964.

The FBI was well aware of the fact that James and Jack Seale were deeply involved in the murder of the two black youths. That knowledge did not stop the Agency from employing Jack Seale as an informant, despite the blood on his hands. In those days, you needed a Klansman to catch a Klansman.