Yes, it will be about Oxford in 1970, not about Oxford in the present day. It’s a history. A contemporary story would be a different (though related) thing. Nobody will ever write or make or read or watch a story or film about what the Chamber of Commerce wants you to think about your hometown. It would not matter and it would bore everyone to death, too.

In the years since the book was published, I have spoken at City Hall in Oxford, at several local churches, at the high school and the middle school, and donated hundreds of copies of BLOOD to local students. A local book person tell me that the book has divided white people in Oxford into two camps–those who are mad about the book and those who have read the book. She says there is no overlap, though I doubt that is entirely true.

I have shared the concerns expressed here that the film would present Southern and African American stereotypes; as you know, the South in as much a region of the imagination as the United States, a screen onto which Americans project their fears, fantasies, sins and longings. Like black Americans, the South is used as a kind of symbolic American language. (And when we think “the South,” we have to remember that black Americans are mostly Southerners, too.) Think of all the “plantation” movies, novels, songs, and art–the South is among the most American of topics, but songs about Dixie are likely to be written on Tin Pan Alley and movies about the region say more about America’s psychological needs than the South’s actual history.

But now I have seen the screenplay, and I think it’s quite good. Not a racial or regional cliche, nothing that makes me feel uneasy. It’s not my book, instead it’s Jeb Stuart’s movie, but so far I am pleased. There is still time for casting or acting or editing or all sorts of things to mess it up, but so far, so good. I am hopeful and pleased.

We start filming on May 5. I am sure that I won’t be able to control or predict everything that happens, but I hope to learn a lot and have a good time. Millions of people see even an unsuccessful movie, while we can’t expect the book to do remotely that well. So it’s important and worth doing, if history matters, and if it can be done right. We shall see. Thus far, I don’t feel compromised, but instead encouraged. Again, I know I am in over my head, and for me there is much at stake. There is no reason, except for the entire history of the film industry, of course, to worry about how it will portray this history. But someone has to get try and get it right, and it’s more fun than grumbling.

The first comment–that the movie would be a “hit job” that tells lies in “bad Southern accents,” among all those other things–is clearly just a shovelful of attitude. History matters, and it isn’t a Chamber of Commerce brochure. The book isn’t perfect, and the movie won’t be either, but happy-talk history gets us nowhere. Ignorance is not bliss, actually, but instead it’s just ignorance. Telling yourself you’ve always been a shining example is not the way to live better. Mama or the therapist would tell you the same thing–at some point, we have to deal with who we have actually been in order to become who we want to be.
Tim

It was a great book, Tim, thanks for telling that story.

It is important to note that the book is not actually a novel, but a history told in memoir form. Check the Essay on Sources at the back. This is not fiction. You can look it all up. BLOOD does not portray Oxford in a negative light, but instead reports what happened in Oxford in the summer of 1970, using that to launch a larger and (to my mind) much needed discussion about race in America.

The story of race in America does not stay the same, but is ever changing, and it’s time we took it in the direction of honesty and healing, mending and understanding. The remarkable thing about Oxford is not the violence in 1970; I could have written BLOOD about hundreds of communities in the country at that time. The extraordinary thing is how Oxford has responded to its painful past: I have been invited to speak at city hall and in the local schools, the book is taught at the high school every year, and people who certainly don’t agree on everything in the book or in their own lives still are accepting what happened and moving toward a stronger community. That’s amazing.

And I think the Mayor of Oxford is just thrilled to have all that money coming to his city from the film people.

There is a delicate balance here. We surely want to acknowledge and learn from history, but we also want to move on and treat things in a contextual manner in the present. Oxford is a town that has moved on well past the events, and dragging everyone through it again won’t do much for the town’s morale.

The mayor MUST DEMAND that the movie spend ample time portraying race relations as they are today in Oxford. Show black and white people getting along at school, holding doors open for each other in shops, and (gasp!) socializing together with mutual respect. This is far more important than the mayor’s possibility of “hanging out with Gwyneth”.