Just had NPR on the radio and heard Leigh Smith talking about her latest
novel, The Last Girls.  Sure enough, talk turned to Huck! The novel is about
a group of fifty-something women taking a steamboat trip down the
Mississippi to sprinkle the ashes of a college friend.  When they were in
college they built a raft and floated the river like Huck.  Evidently there
is a discussion of Huck as archetype in the novel!
    Well, as you know, my bent is history, not literature, but I do find the
power of this story amazing. On a personal note for those of you who haven't
heard, the University of Missouri Press is publishing my history of slavery
and Sam Clemens.  It will be released in September, God willing.  I started
to do a thank you list in this e-mail but it got to be two paragraphs long
and I have to get to work and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by
leaving her out. Let me just say thank you to everyone because you have been
a tremendously helpful open group of scholars.  I hope I make some modest
contribution to an understanding of Sam Clemens. I think you will be pleased
and intrigued by some of the new material.
    Happy Holidays!
    Terrell