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Young Mississippi Writer
My dad started his writing career in Mississippi.
Many people don’t know that.
They also don’t realize that he wrote several books throughout his life.
When I am on my speaking tour we always set up a display of all 10 of my father’s books. Every single time I hear people saying, “I didn’t know he wrote anything other than A Land Remembered.”
A Land Remembered is certainly his best-known work but you don’t just start out as a writer and knock out a 403-page best-seller like A Land Remembered. You have to learn your craft first.
How His Career Began
Dad started his writing career at Mendenhall, Mississippi High School as editor of the school paper and then continued at Hinds Junior College as editor of The Hindsonian. He was also a sports correspondent for the Clarion-Ledger and Jackson Daily News. At Ole Miss, he was a fiction writer for the college magazine, The Rebel.
Upon graduating from Ole Miss at the age of 19 in early 1951, he had a yen to write a novel. Wanting to prove to himself that he could do it, he sat at his typewriter for 10 days. Out popped his first full-length novel, The River is Home.
He soon showed the manuscript to one of his professors at Ole Miss. The professor said, “Pat, I think you can get this published.”
With that inspiration, he set about making that happen. One problem though.
He didn’t know how to go about getting published.
Getting Published
But that didn’t stop him. He had an idea. He went to the library, looked at the publishers for many of his favorite books, and came across one, “Little, Brown and Company.”
He liked the sound of that company. It sounded like a smaller publisher. He didn’t realize then that it was one of the most prestigious publishing companies in the world! Still is.
Writing down the address, he wrapped his manuscript in brown grocery bag paper, included a note that said, “This is my novel The River is Home, please publish it IMMEDIATELY” and sent it off.
They wrote back two weeks later: “We will.”
With that acceptance, he became the youngest published novelist in Mississippi at the time. He was 25 years old.
Synopsis of The River is Home
It’s common knowledge that most people should write what they know. Well, he knew Mississippi.
He had camped, hunted, and fished in his early boyhood along the Strong River near his hometown of D’Lo, Mississippi. The Strong River was a tributary of the Pearl River. He decided to set this book there.
[An interesting side note: the Strong River was used in one scene in the movie O’ Brother Where Art Thou when the main characters meet some comely young ladies, the proverbial sirens on the rocks. You can find O’ Brother Where Art Thou on Amazon.]
The River is Home is the story of the Coreys, swamp people of the lower Pearl River. They had failed as farmers and had moved to the swamps to fish for a living.
Skeeter Corey is a 13-year-old boy who loves his swamp. He’s a sensitive boy with a love of beauty for the wild things of his home, seeking solace when he is disturbed, at his favorite spot in the river.
As Charlotte Capers put it in her 1952 The New York Times Book Review, “This simple story of a boy and the turning of the seasons is a charming excursion into a lost world of shadowed waters and the cry of wild birds, of fat fish jumping in high water and hard times when the water is low.”
It is a story of underprivileged people who are privileged to see the rain glitter like diamonds in the swamp cypress, to smell the heaven-sweet wild wisteria in the spring, to watch the elemental battle of majestic bucks in the forest, and to gather around their own table at Christmas and share with the neighbors a feast from their own swamps and river.”
Video Snippet
I took Dad’s description of the Corey family and created this following video. In it, you will get a sense of the wonderful way he uses words to describe them.
What People Say About The River is Home
In cleaning out my dad’s office, I found many articles written about this unsung book. There are also many reviews on Amazon.
Here are some of what people have said about The River is Home.
“This man combines history with fiction, yet realistic characters. He really researched before he wrote and I learned a lot about the land and the people of that era. Captivating reading.”
“Lovely story about early life on the river in Mississippi — loved the description and the interaction of the characters.”
“A wonderful, touching story about people who lived the river life years ago.”
“A story of people who lived a life of hardship, but were not greedy and respected all creatures and our earth, beautifully written by Patrick Smith.”
And as writer Nell Caughman noted in her Simpson County News review;
“The River is Home is a story that gently flows with words, but churns with human and animal emotions.”
A Word of Caution
When I read The River is Home, I’m just in awe that my father wrote such a fine piece of work at such a young age.
There is one caution I offer. The book is set at the turn of the 19th century. It is written in the vernacular of poor, uneducated folks living a harsh life in the Old South. There are some words that are disturbing to our ears. It may take a little time to get used to the cadence and the language, but that’s what makes it seem so real.
The following video is an example of the Southern dialect in the novel.
Final Thoughts
The book was first published by Little Brown and Company and later published by Pineapple Press, a company that has recently been sold to Rowman and Littlefield. So the cover has changed.
The River is Home (Paperback) – $11.95 
Other books about the south you will enjoy:
The Yearling (Pulitzer Prize winner), South Moon Under, Golden Apples, The Soujourner (my personal favorite), and Cross Creek all written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)
The Sound and the Fury and Light in August, As I Lay Dying, and The Reivers by William Faulkner
How To Speak Southern by Steve Mitchell (A fun read!)
