In 2010, Florida transplant and Ole Miss alumnus Louis Hillary Park, who grew up in Ripley, Mississippi, released his first novel, Wolf’s Run (Desire Street Press, 2010) and, through it, propelled his readers back into the 1960s Civil Rights Era in Mississippi.
That trip integrated racism, segregation, journalism, the Christian faith and athletics in a novel that one reviewer claimed that Park “hit it out of the ballpark with Wolf’s Run.
In an interview over lunch with HottyToddy.com, Park offered this as a summary of Wolf’s Run:
At its core, “Wolf’s Run” is a love story set against the violent backdrop of the 1960s Civil Rights Era in Mississippi.
The main character, Holly Lee Carter, is a young, beautiful photo-journalist left paralyzed and in a wheelchair while covering the Vietnam War. When Holly inherits her family newspaper, she reluctantly leaves her adopted home in Los Angeles and returns to the family home, Wolf’s Run, in DeLong, Mississippi.
With segregated Cattahatchie County remaining as “the last of its kind, even in Mississippi,” Holly fights to keep the newspaper out of bankruptcy and the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, and comes to believe that her father’s death was no accident.
Returning home a paraplegic, Holly must deal with her own fears, insecurities, frustrations and the reawakening of powerful, long-dormant desires. Her hard-earned Christian faith sustains her. But will it be enough to save her?
Along the way, a surprising friendship develops between Holly and Cutter Carlucci, an 18-year-old high school football star with a vicious Klansman father and a chip on his shoulder about “cripples.”
Photo and video by Ed Meek
Living on his own, with all his belongings stowed in his old Jeep, Cutter has a maturity and influence beyond his years – plus looks a movie star would envy.
With the county school system under a desegregation order and a new all-white academy set to open, “the best football player anybody in (DeLong) ever saw up close” will have to make a decision that will shape not only his future, but that of his sister and mother – and perhaps cost him his life.
When the sheriff is murdered and churches and crosses are burned, the county is ready to explode; and when the Klan’s most fearsome, deadly and unstoppable bomb-maker arrives in town, Holly’s life is in constant danger.
Before the summer of ’69 is over, Holly and Cutter will risk everything – including their lives – to uncover the Carter family’s secret, find the truth about her father’s death and to reshape the future of Cattahatchie County.
“The male and female protagonists in Wolf’s Run (Cutter and Holly) are people who, despite their deep flaws and multiple stumbles, we all wish we could be in the end when faced with the sort pressure and danger they find themselves dealing with in Delong, Mississippi, in the summer of 1969,” Park said.
“The narrator, Nate, is more like most of us really are. He’s a teenage kid, a would-be journalist who mostly just wants to get laid, get married and get gone from Delong, and let someone else deal the world’s large social and political issues that, literally, are exploding around him,” he added.
After successfully navigating the self-publication process for Wolf’s Run, Park is now working on his second novel, Hard News, a newsroom thriller set in Miami. Its release date is set for Fall 2016.
For more information, to read reviews and to view videos on Park and Wolf’s Run, visit amazon.com/Wolfs-Run-Louis-Hillary-Park or email him at LOUIS_PARK@pba.edu.
Jeff McVay is the staff writer and designer for HottyToddy.com. He can be reached at jeff.mcvay@hottytoddy.com.
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