First edition cover | |
| Author | William Watkins |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | James Richardson (cover photo) |
| Cover artist | Montague Ferry Design, NYC |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Lynx Publishing Company |
Publication date | 1999 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 192 pp |
| ISBN | 0-9668965-0-5 |
Cassina Gambrel Was Missing is a 1999 novel by William Watkins.
Set against turbulent events in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 1970s, the novel concerns a young, white, college student named Jackson Taylor who befriends an older black woman named Cassina Gambrel. As the protagonist's fortune and world expands, Cassina's narrows. Years later, Jackson begins a search for his former friend and the book takes on a cynical tone, bordering on bitterness, while the story unfolds through a series of revealing flashbacks.
Memphis is a city located along the Mississippi River in southwestern Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. The 2017 city population was 652,236, making Memphis the largest city on the Mississippi River, second-largest city in Tennessee, as well as the 25th largest city in the United States. Greater Memphis is the 42nd largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 1,348,260 in 2017. The city is the anchor of West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas and Mississippi. Memphis is the seat of Shelby County, the most populous county in Tennessee. As one of the most historic and cultural cities of the southern United States, the city features a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods.
The novel has been described as part coming-of-age story and part comedy of manners and garnered praise for the author's ability to draw keen characterizations with few words and to juggle a non-linear narrative with skill. [1]
In genre studies, a coming-of-age story is a genre of literature, film and videogames that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood. Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action, and are often set in the past. The subjects of coming-of-age stories are typically teenagers. The Bildungsroman is a specific subgenre of coming-of-age story.
The comedy of manners also called anti sentimental comedy is a form of comedy that satirizes the manners and affectations of contemporary society and questions societal standards. Social class stereotypes are often represented through stock characters such as the miles gloriosus in ancient Greek comedy or the fop and rake of English Restoration comedy, which is sometimes used as a synonym for "comedy of manners". A comedy of manners often sacrifices the plot, which usually centers on some scandal, to witty dialogue and sharp social commentary. Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), which satirized the Victorian morality of the time, is one of the best-known plays of this genre.
Characterization or characterisation is the representation of persons in narrative and dramatic works of art. This representation may include direct methods like the attribution of qualities in description or commentary, and indirect methods inviting readers to infer qualities from characters' actions, dialogue, or appearance. Such a personage is called a character. Character is a literary element.
Jackson is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Tennessee. Located 70 miles (110 km) east of Memphis, it is a regional center of trade for West Tennessee. Its total population was 65,211 at the 2010 census and 67,265 in the 2012 Census estimate.
Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer, known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and over 200 short stories.
Booker T. & the M.G.'s are an instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul. The original members of the group were Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums). In the 1960s, as members of the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King. They also released instrumental records under their own name, including the 1962 hit single "Green Onions". As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of its era. By the mid-1960s, bands on both sides of the Atlantic were trying to sound like Booker T. & the M.G.'s.
Jackson–Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport is a city-owned civil-military airport in Jackson, Mississippi, six miles (9 km) east of Jackson, across the Pearl River.
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The steep roof with windows creates an additional floor of habitable space, and reduces the overall height of the roof for a given number of habitable stories. The upper slope of the roof may not be visible from street level when viewed from close proximity to the building.
Helen Hunt Jackson, was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Commercially popular, it was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times and most readers liked its romantic and picturesque qualities rather than its political content. The novel was so popular that it attracted many tourists to Southern California who wanted to see places from the book.
West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the state of Tennessee. Of the three, it is the one that is most sharply defined geographically. Its boundaries are the Mississippi River on the west and the Tennessee River on the east. This region's boundaries have been expanded slightly to include all of Hardin County, which is bisected by the Tennessee River. The states of Kentucky and Mississippi provide the respective northern and southern boundaries, with the exception of a portion of Lauderdale County, Alabama, which lies southeast of Hardin County. The region consists of twenty-one counties.
Steve Ross is an American motion picture director living in Memphis, Tennessee. He is best known for his documentary Oh Freedom After While, a story of the Missouri sharecropper strike of 1939. Ross received a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York in 1971 and a master's degree from New York University in 1974. He is a professor at the University of Memphis and was named Communicator of the Year by the Tennessee Speech Communication Association in 1999.
The Commercial Appeal is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also owned the former afternoon paper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar, which it folded in 1983. The 2016 purchase by Gannett of Journal Media Group effectively gave it control of the two major papers in western and central Tennessee, uniting the Commercial Appeal with Nashville's The Tennessean.
Steven Lee Cropper, also known as "Steve "The Colonel" Cropper", is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, which backed artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor. He also acted as the producer of many of these records. He was later a member of the Blues Brothers band. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. Session musicians are usually not permanent members of a musical ensemble or band. They work behind the scenes and rarely achieve individual fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders. However, top session musicians are well known within the music industry, and some have become publicly recognized, such as the Wrecking Crew and Motown's The Funk Brothers.
Sarah Waters is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. A finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century, it has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series. Jackson's novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion in the reader, using complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters’ psyches.
WMC-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 5, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The station is owned by Gray Television. WMC-TV's studios are located on Union Avenue in midtown Memphis, and its transmitter is located between Crestview Drive and Fletcher Creek, near Bartlett. The station serves roughly the western third of Tennessee, northern Mississippi, eastern Arkansas and the southeastern corner of Missouri over the air, on satellite, and on various cable systems.
Prince Khaemweset was the fourth son of Ramesses II, who was born c. 1303 BCE; died July or August 1213 BCE; reigned 1279–1213 BCE, and the second son by his queen Isetnofret. He is by far the best known son of Ramesses II, and his contributions to Egyptian society were remembered for centuries after his death. Khaemweset has been described as "the first Egyptologist" due to his efforts in identifying and restoring historic buildings, tombs and temples.
A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, while the lower slope is steep. This design provides the advantages of a sloped roof while maximizing headroom inside the building's upper level and shortening what would otherwise be a tall roof. The name comes from the Medieval Latin word gamba, meaning horse's hock or leg. The term gambrel is of American origin, the older, European name being a curb roof. Europeans historically did not distinguish between a gambrel roof and a mansard roof but called both types a mansard. In the United States, various shapes of gambrel roofs are sometimes called Dutch gambrel or Dutch Colonial gambrel with bell-cast eaves, Swedish ~, German ~, English ~, French ~, or New England gambrel.
Mick Jackson is a British film director and television producer. Between 1973 and 1987, Jackson directed many documentary and drama productions for BBC TV and Channel 4. Relocating to Hollywood, he directed feature films, including The Bodyguard starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. In 2010, Jackson won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special for the dramatised biographical TV film Temple Grandin.
Camp Half-Blood Chronicles is a media franchise created by author Rick Riordan, encompassing three five-part novel series, three short-story collections, two myth anthology books, a stand-alone short story, an essay collection, a guide, four graphic novels, two films, a video game, a musical, and other media. Set in the modern world, it focuses on groups of demi-god teenagers, and features many characters from Greek and Roman mythology. The first series, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, follows the adventures of a teen named Percy Jackson at a summer camp for Greek demigods. The second series, The Heroes of Olympus, introduces several more lead characters and a second camp for Roman demigods. The third series, The Trials of Apollo, follows the now-mortal god Apollo, with appearances by many characters from the first and second series.
Memphis, Tennessee has a long history of distinctive contributions to the culture of the American South and beyond. Although it is an important part of the culture of Tennessee, the history, arts, and cuisine of Memphis are more closely associated with the culture of the Deep South than the rest of the state. For example, the city's influence on 20th-century music has had worldwide impact. Memphians have had an important role in founding or establishing several important American music genres, including blues, gospel, rock and roll, and "sharecropper" country music.
Abu Talib was an African-American blues and R&B guitarist.
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