In The Statue and the Fury, Jim Dees, host of the public radio program Thacker Mountain Radio, chronicles a tumultuous year in the life of a small Southern town, complete with down-home eccentrics, famous figures and explosive events. In 1997, Oxford, Mississippi, sought to erect a statue to honor the one hundredth birthday of native Nobel laureate, William Faulkner. After a magnolia tree at City Hall was cut down to make room for the sculpture, “all Faulkner broke loose.” The book includes interviews with civil rights pioneers James Meredith and Myrlie Evers; late authors Shelby Foote and Willie Morris; a foggy encounter with legendary singer, Willie Nelson and a sweaty face-off with the late James Brown, the God-father of Soul. Henry Kissinger makes a cameo, as does O.J. lawyer, Johnnie Cochran. Sam Phillips, the visionary who discovered Elvis, descends on Oxford for an up-close rock and roll history lesson. “Bootleg preacher,” the late Reverend Will D. Campbell, triumphantly returns from exile. All of this, and much more, made 1997 a wild year in Oxford, Mississippi, and now it's a wild, insightful and hilarious book.

Jim Dees is the author of Lies and Other Truths: Rants, Raves, Low-Lifes and Highballs and the editor of They Write Among Us: New Stories and Essays From the Best of Oxford Writers. Since 2000, he has been the host of The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, a music and literature program heard weekly on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.