Natchez author Greg Iles is not Penn Cage.
It might be hard for readers to reconcile that fact with his new book, “Southern Man,” his seventh novel featuring protagonist Cage, a former Texas prosecutor who moves back to his hometown of Natchez to raise his daughter after the death of his wife.
The Cage story started with his 1999 novel, “The Quiet Game.”
By the time the reader picks up “Southern Man,” Cage and Iles almost seem as one.
Both men grew up and live in Natchez. Both men are published authors. Both lost part of their legs in car accidents. Both men have a daughter that works in Jackson as an attorney. Both men watched their mothers die of a rare blood cancer. Both men suffer from multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer – the same cancer that killed their mothers.
“From the beginning, Penn and I shared a certain number of character traits, but he was never completely based on me. But in “Southern Man,” I was facing a very different kind of challenge,” Iles told Today in Mississippi during a recent interview.
“One, I was moving Penn ahead 18 years in time to 2023. Two, by now most of your readers know that at age 36, I was diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer, something I chose to keep secret for most of my career. While I was writing “Southern Man,” my mother was diagnosed with the same cancer, and I had to watch her die long before I finished the book. During this prolonged effort, I found it impossible to leave those unique and remarkable circumstances out of the process. It’s as though the intensity of those events finally caused Penn and I to merge into the same character at last.”
Iles, 64, was asymptomatic for years after his diagnosis. He survived for more than 20 years with a “smoldering” form of the cancer, Iles said. Two years ago, however, the cancer “switched on” while writing “Southern Man.” Iles is slated to get a stem cell transplant soon. In 2011, Iles lost part of his right leg after he was injured in an automobile accident on Highway 61 near Natchez.
“Southern Man” is a political crime thriller.
A mass shooting, police corruption, race relations, and the hidden generational secrets of powerful Mississippi families all play important roles in “Southern Man.” Tragedies pile up in the narrative’s first 200 pages. Readers of Iles’ previous novels know that the author has never shied away from this kind of subject matter.
“I once had an editor, Colin Harrison, who was also an author. He used to laugh and say every Greg Iles novel contained five times as much plot as any other writer’s and enough for five books. There’s certainly some truth in that. But in the case of “Southern Man,” the escalating sequence of tragedies was quite intentional,” Iles said.
Although he was born in Germany — Iles’ father ran a U.S. Embassy’s medical clinic — Iles has lived in Mississippi since he was 3. Iles grew up in Natchez and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983.
“In many ways, I had an idyllic childhood in Mississippi. Natchez was quite a different town in the 60s and 70s. It was an exciting blend of urban and rural life, probably unique in the state. It had a long tradition of international rule, and that gave those of us lucky enough to grow up there a very broad background and sense of a larger world,” Iles said.
With Stephen King and John Grisham counted as longtime fans, the author of 15 New York Times best sellers could live anywhere in the world. Instead, he chose to say in his home state.
“I’ve always loved Morgan Freeman’s answer when he was asked why he lived in Mississippi when he could obviously live anywhere in the world, ‘Because I can.’ Mississippi has produced some of the finest (art) in the nation, and indeed, the world. I’m proud of the Mississippians who have left and found success and have now returned to change their home state for the better. The things that make Mississippi, and once made all of America, a richer place — a deep love of extended family and of the land itself — still endure here, and we are all the better for it. It’s the reason northern factory managers who came to Natchez with terrible notions about the south ended up retiring here. To their surprise, they loved the place. As one of my Mississippi heroes, Mac McAnally, wrote in his song, “Back Where I Come From”:
“Back where I come from
Where I’ll be when it’s said and done
And I’m as proud as anyone
That’s where I come from”
Mississippi has produced some of the finest (art) in the nation, and indeed, the world. I’m proud of the Mississippians who have left and found success and have now returned to change their home state for the better.
