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    Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta
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    Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta
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    Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta
    Audiobook10 hours

    Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta

    Written by Richard Grant

    Narrated by Shaun Grindell

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Richard Grant and his girlfriend were living in a shoebox apartment in New York City when they decided on a whim to buy an old plantation house in the Mississippi Delta. Dispatches from Pluto is their journey of discovery into this strange and wonderful American place.

    On a remote, isolated strip of land, three miles beyond the tiny community of Pluto, Richard and his girlfriend, Mariah, embark on a new life. They learn to hunt, grow their own food, and fend off alligators, snakes, and varmints galore. They befriend an array of unforgettable local characters-blues legend T-Model Ford, cookbook maven Martha Foose, catfish farmers, eccentric millionaires, and the actor Morgan Freeman. Grant brings an adept, empathetic eye to the fascinating people he meets, capturing the rich, extraordinary culture of the Delta while tracking its utterly bizarre and criminal extremes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Audio
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781494586942
    Author

    Richard Grant

    Richard Grant is an author of nonfiction books, a journalist, and a documentary film writer. His last two books, Dispatches from Pluto and The Deepest South of All, were New York Times bestsellers. His previous books include the adventure travel classic God’s Middle Finger: Into the Heart of the Sierra Madre and American Nomads, which was made into an acclaimed BBC documentary with Grant as the writer and star. Currently a contributor to Smithsonian magazine, Grant has published journalism in Esquire, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Originally from London, England, now a US citizen, he has traveled extensively and written books about Mexico and East Africa. After several years of living in a remote farmhouse in the Mississippi Delta, an experience chronicled in the multi-award-winning Dispatches from Pluto, Grant is living in Tucson, Arizona, with his wife and daughter.

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    Reviews for Dispatches from Pluto

    4/5

    78 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      For a contemporary view of one of the poorest regions of the American South, you cannot do better than this book. Author Richard Grant, a transplanted Englishman, writes with humor and insight about living in the Delta region of Mississippi.
    • 4/5
      The adventures of a British journalist in the Mississippi Delta. This book does a god job of conveying the complexities of the Delta, especially interactions between black and white Mississippians. Grant also describes the richness of the soil, the problems of the climate and the "joys" of buying and then maintaining an aging mansion. I enjoyed this book, but it's perhaps not for everyone.
    • 5/5
      The premise here, that stereotypes about Southerners are worthy of investigation, is a big leap for a Brit living in NYC. But Richard and his fifteen years younger American wife, worn to a nub by the city's expenses and lack of space, decide to take a friend's offer and buy a house in Pluto, a hamlet in the poorest county in the poorest state.The couple makes close friends and relishes their helpful and generous neighbors. But their black friends won't come into their house or eat at their table. They come to believe that Southern black and white people love and despise each other strongly and in equal portions. And then there are the insects.A brave adventure, and they are still there. The reader will happily share the saga of their days, but not their fate. Anyone, black or white, who has not managed to wrench themselves away from this remarkable remnant of what was, is surely touched in the head and lucky.
    • 5/5
      This is really fantastic. Richard Grant's best travel/journalism book to date. This part of the country is tied up in a lot of negatives for good reason - poverty, racism, corruption, violence. But it's also strong community, tradition and, well, good times. What makes this more than a good book about the Delta is Grant's outsider status as a British expat which allows him to see objectively American culture and racism in a way that is even handed. People opened up to him, spoke their mind and he presented their POVs with respect. There's a lot of strange stuff that happens in this part of the country - usually of a "weird crime" nature - but there is also a lot of positive that can be said. I'll never see Mississippi and the Delta the same again. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      It's true; the Mississippi Delta does sound like another world. Richard Grant, a Brit and a generally urban person, joined into this world with enthusiam. He came to appreciate the many generous and kind people and the beauty of the place, but also kept a keen eye for the weirdness all around him so he could share that with us.
    • 5/5
      Basically, really good read. If you want to learn more of the South, from a different perspective, a Brits, then this is the book for you. I learned so much about the instilled culture that is still alive there, and the reason its people leave and more important, the reason they stay! I would love to go visit this family!
    • 3/5
      Parts of the book were particularly good at describing reality in the Delta region. It's not a place I'd care to spend time, and I nearly gave it up. But there are some treasures. In particular, I found chapter 17, 'Grabbing Smoke' to be an excellent reflection on the complexities of the race issue. Randomly, there is also a great recipe for okra as well.
    • 4/5
      This is an affectionate and empathetic exploration of life in the Mississippi Delta. Ostensibly written from an outsider's perspective (and perhaps for that audience), this book is mostly likely to resonate most with the residents and diaspora of the Delta above all. Perhaps most of all, it is concerned with race relations, which defines almost all life in the Delta, but is concerned with reporting different viewpoints (which does skew white, although self-conciously) rather than coming to grand conclusions. Often funny, sometimes wrenching, always outrageous, this book seems well on its way to becoming a minor Southern classic.
    • 4/5
      An outsider gets a look at the deepest of the deep south up close. His reactions to the prevalent racism, poverty, and under-education are balanced by the warmth and openness he finds among the people of the Mississippi delta. He does a great service, and it's an interesting read, kept my attention throughout. But I'm not convinced to move there!
    • 5/5
      What a surprisedly great little book! I received this advance copy from NetGalley, in exchange for a FAIR review. No problem there, this one is a gem!Richard Grant is a writer living in New York City, who on some crazy whim decides to buy an old plantation-style home in the delta of Mississippi. No logical reason why, other than a visit he had with a chef from there, and the fact that he was tired of the rat race. Little did he know of the problems of living in the delta. Snakes, armadillos, bugs, leaky roofs, are just some of the issues he and his girlfriend face. Before he could give up, he discovers the phenomenon of Southern hospitality. To his surprise, people in the area are friendly and eager to help him out. Quite a change from the impersonal big city experience. But the book is not just a humorous retelling of his adventures. A large portion of the book examines Grant's experiences with the racial issues of the south. Pluto, a small town, is one of the poorest, least educated, and most corrupt locations in the United States. Grant is blessed with the ability to talk with just about anyone, and makes friends with people from all walks of life in the area. His examinations, and insights into the inherent racism and other deep rooted problems of Mississippi are incredibly well-stated. Grant managed to lead me to examine my own beliefs, and I came away with a new found appreciation of the subject. And he does it while still making you laugh throughout the experience. The writing is first-rate and the flow of the book is great. Grant is a fantastic author, who I am looking forward to following in the future. I highly recommend this book!
    • 4/5
      Just love narrative fiction when it is done well and takes the reader into the heart and soul of a region, or a person, or even an event. This book does just that . Took me into the Mississippi Delta, a place I know only from reading the books of the many authors that this region has produced. Grant, a travel writer has a little more invested in this book, because here he falls in love with a place, buys an plantation style house where he and his girlfriend Mariah try to settle and learn the area.At times humorous, huge mosquitos, first adventure with fire ants, learning armadillos are not your lawns friends, and of course the dreaded snake. Tackling weeds that seem to appear overnight, bamboo that can grow ten inches in a day and learning just how cold it can get in winter and the high cost of heating such a large house. Yet, he meets many wonderful people, gets a tour of disappearing towns, learns the particulars of Southern hunting, learns to love the hard drinking, love of partying people that make up the Delta. Learns the ins and out of Southern cooking and has his first taste of a koolickle.He doesn't shy away from the difficulties still alive in the Delta today. The area is 80% black and many of the old ways still exist between black and white. Poverty is a real concern as are the conditions of the schools, many which receive an F rating, though he does visit a school that has turned itself around, within two years managing a C rating, but not without difficulties. Also is the area that has the most teenage pregnancies and children being raised by only a mother. He tries to understand the many contradiction that make up the Delta and its people. The music, the many, many churches, he visits them all.A good hard, alternately amusing look at an area that by its very contradictions is a hard one to understand. Yet, the people who live there love it and don't really want to live anywhere else. A very good read.ARC from Netgalley.
    • 5/5
      I bought this book based on the title and the description, alone. It wasn't until I started reading it that I realized the author wrote two of my absolute favorite travel books, "Gods Middle Finger" and "Crazy River". This book is excellent as well. Dispatches From Pluto is about the author, a liberal British man who is living in NYC with his liberal girlfriend, who decides to by a house in the delta region of Mississippi. You could not imagine a more "fish out of water" scenario. As funny and entertaining as the book is, it also attempts to explain racism in this part of the country. The author has a hard time recognizing that it is not as simple as many people think. Nor are the solutions or answers to the dismally low education standards, high poverty, and high teen pregnancy rates any easier to find. This is an amazing book.
    • 5/5
      Sort of makes you wan to move to Mississippi? But also, not want to move there ever. Schrodinger's Mississippi.It's a fun travel book, with interesting history!
    • 4/5
      The state of Mississippi has long fascinated me because of its rich Civil War history and its remarkable literary tradition – two key interests I have enjoyed my entire life. I first started exploring Mississippi by car in the late 1980s and I have continued to do so to this day, often spending many of my vacation days driving the state on self-directed Civil War tours, or ones designed to hit as many of the state’s wonderful bookstores and literary landmarks as I can manage in a week or ten days. As everyone knows, though, Mississippi has its dark side, a legacy from the darkest days of slavery that continues to haunt the state to this day. Look at all the standards by which American states are generally measured, and you are likely to find Mississippi near, or actually at, the bottom of every single one of them. But then consider some other measurement, such as which states produce the highest number of prominent writers (per capita or otherwise) and Mississippi probably stands near the top of the list. Let’s just say that as much as I love the state, I don’t always feel safe driving its back roads on my own.Richard Grant’s Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta portrays Mississippi and her people through the eyes of a British adventure/travel writer, a man who first became acquainted with the state while “interviewing elderly blues singers in the mid-1990s.” Grant was charmed by Mississippi, particularly by the city of Oxford, while on that initial project and would return periodically to visit his Mississippi friends. On one of those visits an old friend brought Grant to the Mississippi Delta region to show him her “home ground,” and Grant so fell in love with an old plantation house (near Pluto, Mississippi) belonging to his friend’s father that he impetuously offered to buy it – without first mentioning anything to his New York City girlfriend. Luckily for Grant, his girlfriend was as ready to get away from New York City as he was, and after looking at the house she agreed to give the Delta a shot. Thus begins the Mississippi Delta adventure of two people who could hardly have been any more different from their new neighbors if they had tried. Richard and Mariah were liberal left-wing progressives for whom being politically correct in speech and thought was simply a way of life. For their neighbors, shall we say, it was not. But in the next few months, Richard and Mariah would make some of the closest friends they had ever had, and would explore the Delta in a way that outsiders are seldom permitted to do. Grant would learn just how tricky race relations still are in Mississippi, a state with so large a black population that blacks can be said to hold as much (or even more) political clout as whites. He would learn that many Mississippi blacks would not look him in the eye when speaking with him; that even if he considered them a friend, many blacks preferred to speak with him outside or to enter his home from its rear entrance; and that there were many places his black friends did not think safe for a white man to visit – even in their company. Grant, though, because he wanted to tell Mississippi’s story, was persistent and he managed to get both his black friends and his white friends to be honest with him. Along the way he meets some of Mississippi’s most colorful people and some of her most famous, including actor Morgan Freeman who still lives in Mississippi when not working on a film, and owns (with partners) what is perhaps the state’s most famous blues club. He explores the often bizarre world of small town Mississippi politics (in which gunfire and threats sometimes play a key role), the blues legacy being left behind by a generation of blues pioneers now steadily dying off, and the improving but still delicately balanced relationship between the state’s black and white populations.Dispatches from Pluto exposes a side of a state that has been underappreciated for too long. Mississippi is rich in history, music, and American culture in a way that many other states cannot claim to be. Maybe a few more books like Dispatches from Pluto will finally expose what is still a well kept secret: Mississippi is a great place to visit – for a lot of good reasons.