Jere Hoar  1929
Major Works
- Body Parts 1997
- The Hit 2003
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Photo
of Jere Hoar by Nancy Jacobs
Biography of
Jere Hoar
By Luke Campbell (SHS)
Journalist, teacher, novelist, and short story writer Jere
Hoar was born October 23, 1929, in Dyerburg, Tennessee, but
he has lived in many places and is currently a resident of Oxford,
Mississippi. The depression caused his family many
hardships, and his father supported the family, which included
Hoar, his mother and a brother Johnny, by selling books, advertising,
and serving as a lieutenant in the Civilian Conservation Core.
His father served during World War II and rose to the rank of
colonel and received the Purple Heart. He then purchased
the Troy Messenger, a daily newspaper in Troy,
Alabama, so Jere Hoar finished high school at Troy High and
helped his father with the newspaper. Hoar worked in the print
shop, but by the time he was sixteen, he was the police reporter.
At age seventeen, he became the editorial writer for the newspaper.
In an interview with SHS student, Kim Lehman, Hoar says
that it was at this point that he decided to become a journalist
(Lehman).
Hoar served in the Air Force during the Korean War,
earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Auburn University,
the University of Mississippi, and the University of Iowa. For
thirty years, he taught journalism at the University of Mississippi
and is now professor emeritus. While teaching at the University
of Mississippi, Hoar won the Outstanding Teacher Award in 1974.
He published more than forty scholarly articles, six monographs,
three television scripts, and a chapter in a textbook. Hoar
also “read law” in the Mississippi Perceptorship
Program. Later, he passed the bar exam and was admitted
to the Mississippi Bar.
After retiring from teaching journalism, Hoar began writing
short stories. Reviews of his work have been published
in the New York Times, Booklist, and Bookman News. Hoar
published a collection of eleven short stories entitled Body
Parts in 1997. His first published novel,
The Hit is a novel. It was published in 2003.
Hoar has won many honors for both hi s teaching and his writing.
In teaching, he won the Outstanding Teacher Award and was invited
as a visiting professor at other universities, including King’s
College in London, England. For his writing, Hoar’s awards
include Pirate’s Alley, William Faulkner Prize, The Deep
South Writers Conference Competition, and the Kansas Arts Council/KQ
award. Currently, he is working on a coming-of-age novel that
has a working title, Preacher Boy, as well as
a a novel inspired by the grandmother he never knew; both
will be set in the South in the twentieth century.
2008 UPDATE: Retired from teaching of the
University of Mississippi, Hoar was honored at a reception in
2002. Curtis Wilkie, a 1963 UM graduate, wrote a letter inviting
former students and friends of Jere Hoar to donate to the Jere
Hoar Scholarship fund, which is now among the University’s
fastest growing endowments of its kind.Today Hoar lives on his
small farm outside of Oxford where he raises, trains and hunts
with English setter bird dogs, trains herding dogs and enters
them in competition trials, and tends three Tennessee Walking
horses and a flock of registered St. Croix sheep.
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A Review of
The Hit 2003
by Luke Campbell (SHS)
In The Hit, Jere Hoar has combined elements
of mystery, suspense, and a little eroticism to create an
exciting novel. The cover quotes John Grisham as saying,
"The Hit is lean, fast, unpredictable, and immensely
enjoyable. When I finished I said, 'I wish I' d written
that." Like protagonists in many mystery novels,
protagonist Luke Carr plans to carry out the perfect crime.
The story takes place after Luke returns from the Vietnam
War. The locale is a small town in rural, Northern Mississippi.
Luke's character is a complex combination of anger, greed,
lust, and pain as he grieves for his lost love and plots to
achieve ill-gotten gains, all complicated even more when the
lost love involves him in the murder of her wealthy husband.
This book was particularly enjoyable to read because of all
the twists and turns provided by Hoar's maze-like plot.
Just when the reader is sure of the next move, some event
comes as a surprise. The suspenseful writing is also
full of imagery and action. In many ways this book could
be compared to Southern novels such as Peyton Place
or the writings of Tennessee Williams. The novel involves
steamy romance, an unfaithful woman with divorce almost impossible
because of cultural convention, and murder as a last resort
for lovers. At the same time the novel has many of the
elements of a film noir movie, such as the Maltese
Falcon. Creative descriptions and imagery contrast
with the plot. For example, after being asked to commit
a murder, Luke doesn't dream of crime or punishment.
Rather, he finds himself naked and part of a frieze in which
he pursues his naked lover, who pursues a senatorial man with
gold coins, who seems to be pursuing Luke. The image is at
once erotic, tantalizing, and possibly foreshadowing
Luke's future.
The book is witty, fascinating, and highly readable.
It is not, however, not for the young reader or the reader
who may object to sex and violence. I would rate this
book with five stars, but if it were a movie, I would give
it an R or at least a PG-13.
A Review of Body Parts 2000
by Kimberly Lehman
(SHS)
Body Parts is a delightful
collection of eleven short stories by Jere Hoar, all set in
the South. Each story has its own theme and flavor.
The collection has been called a "wonderful synthesis of Southern
influences" (Hall) and "a winner" (Kirkus Reviews).
Brett Lott observes that "Hoar's voice is a welcome, refreshing
aberration." Each story follows a new set of characters
and an interesting plot. For example, a lonely widow
watches as strangers drive by her home. Finally, she encounters
one of the strangers who invites her to work for him. She
now must decide whether she will accept this stranger’s
offer and ease her loneliness or stubbornly refuse to work
as a housekeeper in Tell Me It Hasn't Come to This.
This story has  been
compared to the works of Flannery O' Connor (Kirkus
Reviews). However, Hoar's work has also
been noted to reflect the writing styles or themes of such
authors as Barry Hannah, Erskine Caldwell, and William Faulkner
(Drury). In addition to the lonely widow's story,
other plots include the hardships that plague a young family
during the Great Depression of the 1930s in My Father's
Voice, Lifting. In addition, Hoar ties in coming-of-age
themes in Body Parts-A Memory of 1944, and A Brave
Damn-Near Perfect Thing. Three of the main characters
in A Brave Damn-Near Perfect Thing, Fergus, Cookie,
and Clarke, are based on actual people, which probably explains
why it is easy to relate to most of the teenage thoughts and
pressures experienced through the eyes of Jeff, the main character.
This story, along with others, is so straightforward in every
detail that often the reader is often surprised by the
ending. Other characters, more flamboyant and unusual,
are focused on in the story The Snopes Who Saved Huckaby.
This story tells of Wevel Snopes, a traveling evangelist during
the 1930's, who is unable to resist sexual temptation. Through
his downfall, he is able to bring new life to the small town
of Huckaby. Another story Skin tells of a small, low-class,
rundown town in the heated tensions of a lawn mower race.
The stories express Southern culture and human nature realistically.
This collection of short stories is definitely an enjoyable
book to read that deserves the praise it has received from
many critics.
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An E-mail Interview
with Jere Hoar
by Kimberly Lehman (SHS), May 3, 2000
1. Where did you grow up?
Photo of Barry Hannah and
Jere Hoar below by Nancy Jacobs
 I
was born in Dyersburg, TN., but moved away (with the help
of my parents) when I was two. I lived many places--Barnwell,
S.C., Provo, Utah, and Minersville, CA, for example, in one
year. I attended thirteen schools before
being graduated from high school, and lived in a far greater
number of towns --most of them in the South. Because the Depression
had crippled the economy, my father activated his commission
when he could, and served as a lieutenant in the Civilian
Conservation Corps. At other times before 1941 he sold
yearbooks, sold advertising, and managed a furniture store.
He was a lieutenant in the Army at Maxwell Field in Montgomery,
AL, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He volunteered
that day for overseas duty, and soon shipped out to the Pacific
Theatre, where he rose to the rank of Colonel and was awarded
the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart. My brother, mother
and I remained in Montgomery. During WW II, I began
10th grade in Sidney Lanier High School.
2. Where did you attend high school? What kind of student
were you?
 I
spent half a year in Sidney Lanier, and the remainder of my
high school years at Troy High in Alabama, where my father
had bought the Troy Messenger, a daily newspaper. I
was an average student--a bit lost--in Sidney Lanier, but
an excellent student in Troy High.
3. What made you become interested in journalism?
Dad was in the business and
I was "forced labor." Once I moved beyond print shop
tasks and was entrusted with the job of police reporter at
16, and became the (secret) editorial writer for his newspaper
at age 17, I was hooked.
4. What made you decide to be a professor?
I've always liked to learn,
and teaching a subject is a way to learn it well and to organize
your knowledge. Frankly, I thought I could do a better
job of teaching than many of my own college professors had
done! And teaching is--well, it's a service.
In some small way a teacher may contribute to others' lives
and careers. I would not like to look back, having lived my
life totally for myself.
5. Are you currently working as an attorney?
No.
6. What influenced you to write Body Parts?
I had short term goals and
long term. The short term goals were to free myself
from the tyranny of facts, and learn a new way of writing.
Fiction writing can be a search for human truth based on the
writer's vision. Fiction should either entertain or become
part of our lives, or both. To learn, I chose to write
different types of short stories with different points of
view. The next step was to publish some of the best
in a collection. Fortunately, the collection became
a New York Times book of the year, and a book of the year
selection of the American Library Association.
7. Were the characters in Body Parts based
on anyone in real life?
I'm not sure what other writers
do, but in my case there are only three fictional characters
I can think of that are based solely on single individuals.
These are Clarke, Cookie, and Fergus in the BODY PARTS story,
"A Brave, Damn-Near Perfect Thing."
8. Have you written any other books?
Photo of Jere Hoar at book signing
at Square Books by Nancy N Jacobs
No other fiction books.
I became a professional fiction writer in retirement.
Before that, most of what I wrote was nonfiction. I've
published more than 40 articles and studies in magazines and
journals ranging from WESTERN HORSEMAN to THE JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY;
six monographs; 29 short stories in literary journals and
commercial magazines; a chapter in a textbook; and many book
reviews in journals and newspapers. I've also sold three
scripts to public television.
9. Have you received any other awards that I do not have listed?
- The Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award at Ole Miss
- Pirate’s Alley William Faulkner Prize (co-winner)
- Kansas Arts Council/KQ Award for short fiction
- Finalist, Hemingway First Novel Contest
- The Silver Em for Contributions to Journalism
- Fulbright grant through Group Projects Abroad
- Finalist, Flannery O'Connor Competition
- Other awards in film arts, television script writing,
and poetry
10. Are you planning on writing another book? If so,
do you have a title for it yet?
Three novels are partially
written. One is a thriller (Note: The Hit
is now published), one is a coming-of-age novel, and one is
a novel inspired by biographical anecdotes and two photographs
of a grandmother I never knew. The coming-of-age novel has
the working title, PREACHER BOY. The imagined life story about
my grandmother will begin with a short story in BODY PARTS
titled "My Father's Voice, Lifting." It will follow
the heroine from girlhood to old womanhood.
11. Do you have any favorite hobbies?
Yes, I do! I read novels, story
collections and nonfiction books, hunt quail and raise bird
dogs, ride Tennessee Walking Horses, have a flock of St. Croix
sheep, train my herding dog and compete with her, and study
subjects that interest me. Right now, that subject is
genetics.
12. Do you have any family you would like to mention?
My daughter, Lu Ann, is the
supervisor of group homes for the retarded in North Mississippi.
My elder son, Tom, is a director of public relations.
Ben, a former dentist, is becoming a missionary. All
have received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Ole
Miss.
13. Is there any other information you would like to share
that I have not
already asked?
I'd like young people to know
that a life in the arts is not one that most writers, musicians,
painters, and so-on are born to! The major difference
between a published writer and a non published one is that
the former is persistent and a learner. As a teacher with
36 years of experience, I promise you that there are more
talents and abilities in you and your classmates than you
will ever develop fully. Some are great talents, and some
are lesser, but we are all potentially inventive and multi-talented
individuals. How we our spend time in our preparatory years
is important. Every choice matters. My brother, Johnny,
and I were fortunate as boys. Our mother, who had little experience
in the world, convinced us that we could achieve whatever
we wanted if we wanted it enough, would prepare ourselves,
and would work hard and persistently. We were small and ignorant,
had no experience in the world, and believed her. That
has served us well.
*One more point: it helps to set both short term and
long term goals, so that you are rewarded and encouraged at
each stage in your journey.
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Related
Websites
Jere
Hoar's own official web page.
Linda
M. Castellitto interviews Jere Hoar.
Robert
L. Hall interviews Jere Hoar for Southern Scribe.
Murder
with Southern Hospitality exhibit at Ole Miss features
Hoar.
Brief
information about Hoar is available here.
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Bibliography
Castellitto, Linda M. "Jere Hoar." December 10, 2003. <http://www.booksense.com/people/archive/h/hoarjere.jsp>.
"Jere Hoar." University of Mississippi. December 9, 2003. <http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/hoar_jere/index.html>.
Padgett, John B. Body Parts. University
of Mississippi. September 1, 1997. <http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/books/1997/october.html>.
Lehman, Kim. Interview with Jere Hoar. May 3, 2000.
Hoar, Jere. The Hit. Context Books: Washington
D.C., 2003.
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