Fall, 2026
Published by University Press of Mississippi
Description
For every published article there is a backstory of behind-the-scenes adventures. Between 1980 and 2000, Dean Faulkner Wells and Lawrence Wells traveled coast to coast on magazine assignments. Backstory: A Literary Life on the Run reveals how unexpected events played a major role in each article. The collection of twenty-five articles begins with Dean’s interview with Willie “Suicide” Jones, her late father’s wing walker and fellow barnstormer, and ends with Dean’s fond recollection of a childhood Christmas at Rowan Oak, home of her uncle William Faulkner.
In between, the couple travels to Wounded Knee, scene of the tragic massacre of Big Foot and his band of Sioux, where Dean tears out a lock of hair and ties it to a fence in spiritual kinship. In Little Rock, the couple spends an evening with authors Charles Portis and Dee Brown. In San Francisco, they interview California jazz artists “Wild Mango” and singer/guitarist Joyce Cooling. They drive the Santa Fe Trail and tour Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, Texas.
There are personal moments such as attending author Budd Schulberg’s wedding reception in Montauk, New York, and dining at the home of Jackson Pollock’s widow, Lee Krasner. At a Memorial Day party on Long Island, film star Lauren Bacall tells Dean, “Hey, you sound more like me than me!” In Daphne, Alabama, Dean visits her longtime friend Peets Buffett, mother of Jimmy Buffett. In a Louisiana swamp, Larry has trouble finding an alligator to photograph until Dean points to a gator dozing at his feet. In Las Vegas, Dean’s addiction to slot machines leads to a domestic squabble. Ultimately, Backstory reveals a marriage of mind and spirit.
Reviews
“Dean and Larry come across as pleasant, knowledgeable guides, always game for adventure, whose quiet confidence and ease with people bring their stories to life. With the passage of time, each article has become a snapshot from the album of their lives.”
– Tina Chambers, Chapter 16
“This coast-to-coast picaresque reminiscence of travel writing published between 1980 and 2000, oscillating between magazine articles and accounts of how they were done, has a wistful quality. . . . We look to such writers to experience the palpability of the past.”
– Carl Rollyson, The New York Sun
“Entertaining and insightful, the words come off these pages as if they were written this morning.”
– Walter Anderson, former editor-in-chief of Parade
