Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how Lewis Nordan's story, "Wolf Whistle", is far from being a mere historical description. The paper identifies the narrative devices that Nordan utilizes to pinpoint the tensions behind the actual historical conflicts and shows how Nordan's narrative, therefore, is not only a historical account but a recreation of the past, which helps to shed light and meaning on the real events.

From the Paper:

"Lewis Nordan's Wolf Whistle is probably the best known fictional account of the murder of Emmett Till for racist reasons in 1955. Although Nordan does preserve the main lines of the true history in his book, the story is far from being a mere historical description. Wolf Whistle is not, as one would expect, a grave story that chills through its realism. Instead, Nordan employs a widely-used postcolonial style, in which historical facts, magical realism and a very rich symbolism blend effectively. Naturally, these story-telling techniques help to create a complex reality that manages to rewrite history in a meaningful way by pinpointing the tensions behind the actual historical conflicts."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Baker, Barbara A. "Riffing on Memory and Playing Through the Break: Blues in Lewis Nordan's Music of the Swamp and Wolf Whistle." Southern Quarterly, Spring 2003
• Costello, Brannon. "Poor white trash, great white hope: race, class, and the (de)construction of whiteness in Lewis Nordan's Wolf Whistle." CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 45.2 (2004): 207(17)
• Metress, Christopher. "'No Justice, No Peace': The Figure of Emmett Till in African American Literature."MELUS, vol. 28, 2003.
• Nordan, Lewis. Wolf Whistle. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 1993
• Taylor, Art. "Magical Realism and the Mississippi Delta." Mississippi Quarterly, Vol. 57, 2004

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