October 12, 2006
SELINSGROVE, (Pa.) – Tom Bailey, associate professor of English and creative writing, will soon see his second novel in print. The book, titled Cotton Song, will be released October 31 by Random House's Crown Publishing Group under the imprint of Shaye Areheart Books.
Set in Mississippi during World War II, Cotton Song tells the story of one woman's fight to save an African American child orphaned by the mob rule lynching of her mother. Letitia Johnson is the nanny for the infant daughter of one of the town's most distinguished white couples. When the child is found dead, drowned in its bath, the townspeople are enraged and point a guilty finger at Letitia. Within a day, she is charged, sentenced and hanged. Left alone and uncertain of her mother's fate, Letitia's 12-year-old daughter, Sally, goes into hiding, fearful that she too will meet her mother's fate.
Baby Allen, the social worker assigned to Sally's case, gradually coaxes Sally out of hiding, wins her trust and secures her protection. But once the child is safe, Baby is left with an even greater mission: getting to the truth, uncovering the infant's real killer, and ultimately, transforming the ways and attitudes of a town long in need of change.
Bailey draws on his intimate knowledge of the south to deliver this page-turning, historically based tale. His grandmother was the first female director of the welfare department in Sunflower County , Mississippi . She lived next to the infamous Parchman Farm, a prison still in use today. As a child, Bailey watched the chain gangs working along roadsides, swinging their picks and shovels while singing spiritual hymns. Juxtaposing his grandmother's opened-minded, unbiased spirit with the Jim Crow mindset, Cotton Song was born.
Bailey's first novel, The Grace That Keeps This World , was published by Crown Publishing and Shaye Areheart Books in October 2005. A paperback version was released in July. Based on his Pushcart Prize-winning short story “Snow Dreams,” the novel won the 2006 fiction prize from the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters. The award puts Bailey in league with such authors as Walker Percy, Richard Ford and Rick Bass.
Bailey recently completed a third novel, tentatively called Sunny Hills, and based on his father's experiences growing up in an orphanage in West Virginia. Random House will also publish this book, along with a fourth novel, for which Bailey has been doing research in the Grand Canyon . Inspired by a helicopter accident over the canyon, Bailey hopes to explore the lives of those who live – and die – amid this natural wonder.
Prior to joining the faculty of Susquehanna University in 1999, Bailey taught in the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University . His work has earned him a Newhouse Award from the John Gardner Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for fiction. It has been anthologized in New Stories from the South and been noted in The Best American Short Stories. In addition to his novels and collection of short stories , Bailey has published two instructional books with Oxford University Press, On Writing Short Stories and The Short Story Writer's Companion.
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Contact: Victoria Kidd
570-372-4119
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