A Southern Tragedy in Crimson and Yellow:
Author Lawrence Naumoff Discusses His
2005 Sir Walter Raleigh Award-Winning Novel
On North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, October 30, at 5 PM

Those familiar with North Carolina history know the story of Hamlet, where on September 3, 1991, a hydraulic fuel line inside an Imperial Food Products plant ruptured.  The fire exits in the plant had been locked to keep the employees from stealing-trapping workers in a burning warehouse where more than twenty-five people perished and an additional fifty-six people were injured.

Lawrence Naumoff's new novel A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow captures the social realism of this horrific event and the economic downturns, failing work ethic and the mistrust shared by employer and employee that marked this tragic Southern story.

This week, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association selected Naumoff's A Southern Tragedy to receive the prestigious Sir Walter Raleigh Award for the best work of fiction by a North Carolinian. Prior winners of this award include Charles Frazier for Cold Mountain, Reynolds Price for A Long and Happy Life, and Allan~Gurganus for The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.

On the upcoming episode of UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch with DG Martin, Sunday, October 30, at 5 PM, Lawrence Naumoff shares his spirited, thoughtful, and now, award-winning, docufictional Southern novel.

In this all-new interview with the award-winning author, Naumoff explains the genre of docufiction and how he molded a historical event into a visceral literary experience in A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow.

"I think of the genre of this book in terms of a movement in the art world called 'super realism.' Super realism is essentially where things are more intensely real than they would be in real life," says Naumoff. "So, if you enter this book thinking of it as 'intensified reality' and 'illuminated reality' I think it would explain how I went about establishing the voice and vision of the book. Unlike a journalistic novel.this book has an artistic and literary vision which is why the book might be different from what people might expect."

In order to tell this deeply realistic and unexpected story, Naumoff utilizes a variety of characters.  In particular, the author traces a family of women in Hamlet from the prosperous merchants of 1919 to the chicken-plant workers of 1991. The women's lives act to parallel the history of the town itself.

"I researched the town of Hamlet.and discovered that the town was so interesting and had such a rich history that there was no way that I could tell the story of the chicken plant without telling the story of the history of Hamlet," admits Naumoff. "What I ended up doing was following a family of women from the merchant class to working chickens, which, in a way, also traces the decline of small town life in America."

Lawrence Naumoff is also the winner of a Whiting Award, a Thomas Wolfe award and many other literary prizes. His novel, Taller Women, A Cautionary Tale, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1992.

Don't miss DG Martin's exclusive interview with Sir Walter Raleigh Award winner Lawrence Naumoff on North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, October 30, at 5 PM, only on UNC-TV!

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Shannon Ravenel (New Stories from the South, 2005), Emily Herring Wilson (No One Gardens Alone), Randall Kenan (Walking On Water), Ann B. Ross (Miss Julia's School Of Beauty), Lawrence Earley (Looking for Longleaf), Peter Perret (A Well-Tempered Mind), Timothy Tyson (Blood Done Sign My Name), Moreton Neal (Remembering Bill Neal), Quinn Dalton (Bulletproof Girl), Henry Petroski (Pushing the Limits), Bill Morris (Saltwater Cowboys), Amy Tiemann (Mojo Mom), Robert Irwin (Robert Irwin 40 Years),  Tommy Hays (The Pleasure was Mine),  Mary Kay Andrews (Hissy Fit),  Jerry Shinn (Loonis: Celebrating a Lyrical Life ), (If You Want Me to Stay), Michael Parker (If You Want Me to Stay), Martha Witt (Broken As Things Are) and Gerhard Weinberg (Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leader).

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh's independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV's ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV's other local productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

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