'Staunton' makes fine selection
Ray McAllister/Times-Dispatch Columnist
Tuesday, May 2, 2006

"I Got Somebody in Staunton," William Henry Lewis' 2005 award-winning collection of short stories, has been chosen for Go Read's fifth annual community-reading program.

The selection also will be announced at the Junior League's 61st annual Book and Author Dinner tonight.

"I feel really honored and pleased," Lewis said by phone Sunday. "The idea that Richmond would embrace not just my book, but a book like mine, is very exciting to me. . . . That it would happen in Virginia is very special to me. The many places I go, I always say there's something special about Virginia."

Lewis, who goes by Hank, is an associate professor of English at Colgate University in New York. Now 38, he was a graduate student at the University of Virginia from 1992 to 1994 and taught at Mary Washington College from 1995 to 1997.

Go Read programs will be held in libraries, schools and book-discussion groups throughout the fall and winter in the metropolitan area. Lewis likely will visit here in the fall, then again in February, which is Black History Month, for school and public presentations.

"Staunton," Lewis' second book, was selected one of 2005's best by Kirkus Reviews, named an honor book by the American Library Association's Black Caucus and will receive one of five finalist awards at the PEN/Faulkner Awards annual dinner this weekend in Washington.

The Los Angeles Times calls the collection "resplendent. The stories are beautifully written and carefully crafted." The Washington Post Book World calls Lewis "both an artistic and a political writer. . . . [with] a notable gift for prose poetry."

Lewis believed they were strong stories but said he has been surprised and humbled by the reaction. "When you see how people respond to something and how it resonates, that's a powerful thing."

The Go Read program, started by community leaders after the idea was advanced in a column here, is sponsored in part by The Times-Dispatch, which also maintains the Go Read Web site.

The program had never selected a book with a direct connection to Virginia until Lewis'.

In the title story, a black college professor picks up a flirtatious young white woman in a Fredericksburg bar on his way to his dying uncle's in Staunton, haunted all the way by his uncle's warnings of what can happen to black men who pay too much attention to white women.

Lewis said three things inspired the story. "No. 1, I just love the landscape and that part of the country." Secondly, "I was always aware that rural places have historically been places of danger for black Americans." Finally, he said, the story is dedicated to the late civil-rights leader James Farmer, who was on the Mary Washington faculty with Lewis. The two men met most Saturdays to talk.

"I didn't write these stories with a book in mind," Lewis said. Put together, though, they flow from the rural South to the urban North to concluding stories in which, "when I look at them now, I realize they're more directly commenting on cultural or social issues in America."

Lewis has moved about himself, teaching at elementary, junior high and senior high levels as well as at six colleges. He even taught at the College of the Bahamas while scouting and coaching goalkeepers for the Bahamian national soccer teams.

"I can't call myself worldly," he said, "but that sense of being in that place where you can adjust to things and take people in is a big part of what my life's been about."

Contact staff writer Ray McAllister at rmcallister@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6333. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Responses may be printed from time to time.