Famous All Over Town
A Novel
Published on 12. November 2021
355 pages
978-1-61117-440-3 (ISBN)
Description
This sweeping comic novel examines the public and private upheavals of life in a small Southern town from the Civil Rights era to the new millennium.
Famous All Over Town, the first novel from Southern storyteller Bernie Schein, is a comically candid multi-generational account of two Jews, a lowcountry native and a Northern transplant. Their lives interweave through the momentous events of a sleepy coastal hamlet based on Schein's native Beaufort, South Carolina.
Schein's cast includes Southern Jewish lawyer Murray Gold and his foil, displaced New York psychiatrist Bert Levy. There's also an emotionally scarred drill sergeant and his alluringly unconventional wife; a corrupt sheriff and his violent son; an African American madam and her two brilliant children; a fallen Southern belle; a transvestite Vietnam veteran; and many others. With their conflicted identities, burgeoning ambitions, and romantic entanglements, they live through the turbulent 1960s into the 1990s, confronting the ramifications of the civil rights era, Vietnam, Watergate, and-closer to home-a deadly version of the infamous Ribbon Creek incident.
Foreword by Janis Owens.
Famous All Over Town, the first novel from Southern storyteller Bernie Schein, is a comically candid multi-generational account of two Jews, a lowcountry native and a Northern transplant. Their lives interweave through the momentous events of a sleepy coastal hamlet based on Schein's native Beaufort, South Carolina.
Schein's cast includes Southern Jewish lawyer Murray Gold and his foil, displaced New York psychiatrist Bert Levy. There's also an emotionally scarred drill sergeant and his alluringly unconventional wife; a corrupt sheriff and his violent son; an African American madam and her two brilliant children; a fallen Southern belle; a transvestite Vietnam veteran; and many others. With their conflicted identities, burgeoning ambitions, and romantic entanglements, they live through the turbulent 1960s into the 1990s, confronting the ramifications of the civil rights era, Vietnam, Watergate, and-closer to home-a deadly version of the infamous Ribbon Creek incident.
Foreword by Janis Owens.
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Book
09/2014
University of South Carolina Press
€28.50
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Person
Retired educator Bernie Schein is the author of If Holden Caulfield Were in My Classroom: Inspiring Love, Creativity, and Intelligence in Middle School Kids and, with his wife, Martha Schein, coauthor of Open Classrooms in the Middle School. He holds an Ed.M. from Harvard University with an emphasis in educational psychology. A forty-year veteran of middle school instruction and administration, Schein has served as the principal of schools in Mississippi and South Carolina and helped found the independent Paideia School in Atlanta, where he was honored as Atlanta's District Teacher of the Year in 1978. His stories and essays have appeared in Atlanta Magazine, Atlanta Weekly, the Beaufort Gazette, Creative Loafing, Lowcountry Weekly, and the Mississippi Educational Advance, and he has been interviewed on National Public Radio.
Content
- Intro
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Author's Note
- Prologue, Fall 1992: Elizabeth Trulove Shakes the Sheriff's World
- Part I : Spring 1960
- 1 Sergeant Jack McGowan Marches 71 Recruits Into Oyster Creek
- 2 Dr. Bert Levy Confronts Sergeant McGowan After the Death March
- 3 Bert Consults with Lila at Her Brothel for a Second Opinion
- 4 The C.O. Reads the Yankee Newspapers
- 5 The Sheriff Diddles, Jesus Gets in the Way, and Elizabeth Burns
- 6 The New York Times Stumbles into Action
- 7 The Times Covers the Story, the C.O. Covers His Ass
- 8 Bert Continues to Treat Jack and Discovers They Are Not Alone
- 9 Bert Requests Emergency Procedures, Jack's Graffiti Reveals a Clue
- 10 The Boys Fish as Elizabeth Asks a Damn Good Question
- 11 Bert Escalates the War between Jack and His Father
- 12 Bert Contemplates the Photo of Jack's Wife Mary Beth
- 13 Bert Frees the Children and Exposes the Saboteur
- Part II: Summer 1961
- 14 Driver Worries About Everything from Alligators to Communists
- 15 Murray Recalls Showing Bert the Town
- 16 Bert Takes the Stand
- 17 The Headlines Speak for Themselves
- 18 Elizabeth Concludes That Being a Good Girl Is a Lot of Work
- 19 Mary Beth's Visit Excites Bert and Murray
- 20 Arlanne Discovers the Love of Her Life
- 21 Bert Desperately Turns to Lila for Help Once Again
- 22 Boonie Walks Out of Driver's Childhood Forever
- 23 Bert Watches With Fascination as Lila Takes the Stand
- 24 Murray Smells Trouble, Then Serves the Noble Cause of Love
- Part III: Fall 1966
- 25 Elizabeth Integrates the Somerset County Schools
- 26 Bert Finds It Difficult to Look and Not Touch
- 27 Lila Shows Bert What 'The Cause' Really Is
- 28 Arlanne's World Goes 'Round and 'Round
- 29 Bert's First Therapy Session With Elizabeth Is an Education for Both
- 30 Bert Tells Lila What 'Elizabeth's Cause' Really Is
- 31 Bert Tries to Get Elizabeth to Be Wherever She Is
- 32 Arlanne Gets Caught but Her Heart Beats for Bert
- 33 Bert Counsels a War Criminal
- 34 Jack and Royal Confide on Scataway Island
- 35 Driver Advocates a Nonviolent Response to His Report Card
- 36 Bert Obsesses Over Mary Beth, Then Screams into a Towel
- 37 Arlanne Displays Revolutionary Zeal, but Bert Still Yearns for Mary Beth
- Part IV: Winter 1966
- 38 Royal Surrenders, but to Whom?
- 39 Bert is Ordered to the C.O.'s Office
- 40 Arlanne Learns That Bad Girls Can Go to Heaven Too
- 41 The C.O. Contemplates the Death March Into Vietnam
- 42 Pat Conroy Teaches Elizabeth to See the World Through Her Own Eyes
- 43 Arlanne Plots Her Seduction of Bert Among the Night Flowers
- 44 Jack Knows Solitude and Joy, However Ephemeral
- Part V: Spring 1967
- 45 Regina Is Haunted by the She-Devil Inside Her
- 46 Arlanne Is Instructed to 'Read On, My Love'
- 47 Regina Takes a Long Time to Do Nothing
- 48 Arlanne Interrogates a White Caller Pretending to be Black
- 49 Bert Treats Hoke, or Is It, He Wonders, the Other Way Around?
- 50 Nurse Lane Thelma Dee's Take on the Best Therapist in Town
- 51 Lila and Jack React to Regina's Suicide Attempt
- 52 God's Messenger Pays a Nocturnal Visit to the Reverend
- Part VI: 1968
- 53 Arlanne Gets Published
- 54 Rob Reacts to Arlanne's Article
- 55 Rob Invites Another Article as Arlanne Determines That Money Is the Source of All Good
- 56 Rob Lets Arlanne Hear From Her Readers
- 57 Bert Defines for All Time the Jewish Condition
- 58 Elizabeth Obsesses With Arlanne's Article but Has No Idea Why
- Part VII: 1970s
- 59 Elizabeth Refuses to Deliver Her Valedictory Address
- 60 Elizabeth Delivers Her Valedictory Address
- 61 Arlanne Pitches a New Story, Then Procrastinates Like Crazy
- 62 For Mary Beth, Jack, and Royal, It's Watergate Versus Waterbed
- 63 A Renewed Mary Beth Takes to Dusting and Cleaning the Dusted and Clean
- 64 Somerset Converges on the Trial of Royal Cunningham
- 65 Lila Appears to be Violating a Corpse in Room 27
- 66 Royal Touches Up His Makeup While Boonie Goes Bananas
- 67 Regina Receives Her Proof That There Is a God
- 68 For Arlanne and Driver, Two Wrongs Don't Make a Writer
- 69 Arlanne Wonders if Jimmy Carter has the Tool for the Presidency
- 70 Driver Is a Negro In Harvard Square
- 71 Driver Learns Some Holes Are More Equal Than Others
- Part VIII: 1980s
- 72 Former Madam Lila Gets Elected to Town Council
- 73 For Murray, Bert, and Arlanne, Love Mostly Conquers All
- 74 Jack Goes in the Water, Royal Goes to Jail, and Mary Beth Goes to Work
- Part IX: 1990s
- 75 Arlanne Says It's Better to be an Oreo Than a Cracker
- 76 Tova's Opinion on Whether 'No' Means 'No' and 'Yes' Means 'Yes'
- 77 Lila and Elizabeth Find Peace in the Inevitable
- About the Author
