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| Ghost of the Ozarks
ISBN: 9780252094118
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of Illinois Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Folklore; Collective memory; Stereotypes (Social psychology); Murder; Trials (Murder); Murder;
In 1929, deep in the Arkansas Ozarks, five men murdered a drifter, burned his body, and raped his teenage fiancee. Or did they? Historian Blevins (Hill People: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image) attempts to simplify the complicated saga of Connie Franklin, a harmonica-playing hobo whose alleged violent death put five men on trial for murder until Franklin-or a clever imposter-reappeared eight months later. Franklin worked various odd jobs. Along the way, he fell for 16-year-old Tiller Ruminer, and the pair decided to marry. Months after the alleged murder and rape, Ruminer finally shared her story, and bone fragments thought to be Franklin's were found in a fire pit. The gruesome torture-murder put the tiny towns of St. James and Mountain View on the national map, with reporters pouring in to cover the trial. But days before the trial began, the defense produced a man claiming to be Connie Franklin, though the townspeople were divided as to whether he was the "real" Franklin. The question remains open, though the men were acquitted of murder. Blevins's knowledge of life in the pre-Depression Ozarks is impressive, but this overlong account of the convoluted and unresolved tale of Franklin's "death" is frustrating. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
A native of the Arkansas Ozarks, Brooks Blevins is the Noel Boyd Professor of Ozarks Studies at Missouri State University. His other books include Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol' Boys Defined a State and Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image. |
