Ruffin's 'Pompeii Man' Named 'Outstanding American Novel'
Sam Houston State University English Professor Paul Ruffin's
novel "Pompeii Man" has been cited in the "Dictionary
of Literary Biography Yearbook" as an Outstanding American
Novel published in 2002.
The DLB records the achievements of the world's most influential
literary figures each year. Its yearbook summarizes the immediate
past year's achievements in literature and lists the best
collections of poetry and short fiction and outstanding novels
for the year, all selected by a group of DLB editors.
The editors of the yearbook, in selecting "Pompeii Man"
as an outstanding novel, described the book as a "literary
thriller set in New Orleans and on the Mississippi Coast."
It cited among Ruffin's strengths in the book his "strong,
clear story line, a deeply accurate sense of place, characters
interesting enough to contain contradictions and offer surprises,
and above all a voice, a style that moves easily between the
colloquial and the lyrical." They also published an excerpt
from the novel.
The yearbook last year listed Ruffin's second book of stories,
"Islands, Women, and God," as one of the best 13
collections of fiction published in 2001.
Ruffin said that it is gratifying to have his books recognized
in what he regards as a very important reference book.
"I don't know that this recognition does all that much
for sales, but it certainly legitimizes the presses that published
the books," he said.
"Islands, Women, and God" was published by an independent
press, Browder Springs Publishing, and "Pompeii Man"
was released by a university press, Louisiana Literature Press,
out of Southeastern Louisiana University.
"My agent got close a couple of times to selling 'Pompeii
Man' in New York, but not close enough," Ruffin said.
"I never did have to fool with going down to the bank
with a big advance check. I finally decided that it might
be better to go with a university press while I still have
enough life left in me to go on the road with it."
He said that Random House still has the manuscript and has
had it for over three years. "I keep waiting for them
to call and tell me when they are bringing it out. The phone
has been awfully quiet."
One of the big problems with the novel as a commercial book,
Ruffin admitted, is that it is hard to like the characters.
"You have villains that you can't like: the early Stafford,
who is too stupid to like; Susie, his wife, who's too shallow
at first to like. The only person readers can really go for
is the black detective, Merchant, and the converted Stafford,
but both come along too late."
When the Baton Rouge Advocate reviewed the book, they devoted
the whole front page of their Sunday supplement book section
to it, with a big picture of the front of the book and of
Ruffin, but the headline read "No One To Like."
Ruffin said that one reviewer described the book as a "disturbing
erotic thriller," and he admitted that it is dark.
"But, hey, it's very, very real," he said. "I
wrote the book as a study of a man's plunge into hell as a
result of his folly, but my agent talked me into the commercial
ending. I wish I had stuck with the original version. If readers
are going to dislike the characters anyway, at least it wouldn't
matter that none turn into heroes."
He noted that "literary fiction does not require agreeable
characters. To be sure, it is hard to find one at all in the
work of Flannery O'Connor, perhaps the best fiction writer
this country has ever produced."
Ruffin is currently working on two new novels, one called
"The Keepers" and one titled "The Gravel Pit
War."
"They are roughly two lightyears apart in subject matter
and tone," he said. "The Keepers" is a murder
mystery focusing on a couple who find themselves back in their
hometown caring for aging parents.
"The book is a love story, but they have to go through
a whole sea of hell to get to the beach where they can throw
down a towel," he said. "It's every bit as dark
as 'Pompeii Man.'"
"The Gravel Pit War" is the story of a group of
white boys who defend their swimming hole against an "army"
of black kids during the 1960s in Mississippi.
The University Press of Mississippi is publishing Ruffin's
second novel, "Castle in the Gloom," in 2004. Set
in East Texas, it is a psychological thriller in which an
estranged couple spend the night as captives in a converted
storehouse not far from Lufkin.
"I think it's the best thing I've ever done," Ruffin
said, "but that may be mildly subjective."
He is also dealing with the Mississippi press on an advance
contract for a memoir titled "Growing Up in Mississippi
Poor and White But Not Quite Trash" and finishing a book
of Texas pieces called "The Segovia Chronicles."
Copies of Ruffin's books may be bought in Huntsville at Hastings.
- END -
Text submitted by Will Wright
SHSU Media Contact: Frank
Krystyniak
Oct. 17, 2003
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