Rick Guy

Major Works

• Kuklos, 2000
• Airwaves 2004
• The Majesty of Eastern Mississippi Coast 2004 (photo book) with Jim Frasier
• The Vanished Mississippi Gulf Coast (photo book) 2006 with Jim Frasier
• Katana (to be published)

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Biography of Rick Guy
By Alex Holcomb (SHS)

Rick Guy was born in 1959 in Bogalusa, Louisiana. He was adopted when he was six months old. His parents were Richard and Alla Guy. He is an only child (Guy). During his childhood, he was interested in disc jockeying. He continued that interest throughout college working at ten different stations. Among many other things, he was also interested in amateur astronomy, short-wave radios and computers ("Kuklos"). He attended Bogalusa High School and graduated in 1977. He first attended Louisiana Tech University and then transferred to Southeastern Louisiana University where he graduated in 1982 with a BA in communications (radio and television). During college he discovered photography and began working for the yearbook and school newspaper. When he graduated college, he began working for the Bogalusa Daily News. After that he went to Monroe, Louisiana and then Shreveport, Louisiana. Finally he ended up in his present job, a photojournalist for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.

Guy is an award winning photojournalist. His credits include Newsweek, Time, and People ("Kuklos"). Guy likes his job very much because he gets to meet a lot of different people. He has also done a lot of interesting things on the job such as landing on an aircraft carrier in a helicopter to riding with the president in his motorcade. He has gotten to cover movie stars and other important people. In addition, he also has met several famous writers such as Eudora Welty, Margaret Walker Alexander, John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Nevada Barr, Charles Wilson, Ann Rice, Rick Bragg, and Stephen King. He will continue to be a photojournalist, unless his books sell a lot or he is offered a movie contract (Guy).

Guy has always written. Besides having a passion for writing he also loves motorcycling. ("Kuklos"). He has never had any accidents on the street, but has had a couple racing (Guy 3). He was inspired to writing his own novel after reading John Grisham’s The Firm. The first book he wrote was Airwaves (Guy 1). It takes place in New Orleans and is about a disc jockey who hears a murder while listening to a cell phone conversation on a police scanner. This mystery includes murder, the FBI, and the Secret Service. This novel took him seven months to write. Unfortunately it was rejected by publishing companies. Two years later he wrote Kuklos, another mystery novel which includes the secrets of the deep, dark south. It takes place in Mississippi and displays the corruptness and hatred of the governor and his pawns (Guy). This novel delivers a first rate thriller that keeps the reader guessing until the last bullet hits its mark (Fraiser). It was published by Graystone Publishing in 2000. He has now finished and revised Airwaves, which has been accepted for publication and will be released in October, 2001. He is currently working on his third novel Katana. This novel is about a terrorist group trying steal a nuclear bomb (Guy).

He currently resides in Brandon, Mississippi. He has been married for more than sixteen years and has a family of his own.

2008 UPDATE: Rick Guy continues to be an award-winning photojournalist. He currently has his own photography business and works for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. His novel Airwaves was published in 2004. He and attorney and Mississippi writer Jim Frasier have published two books together (The Majesty of Eastern Mississippi Coast in 2004 and The Vanished Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2006) with Rick Guy doing the photography for both books.

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Videos of Guy's visit to SHS (not available)

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A Review of Kuklos
by Alex Holcomb (SHS)

Kuklos is an intriguing and mysterious novel by Rick Guy. Guy captures the reader with his action and mystery. This page-turner will keep you on the edge until the very last page. Jim Fraiser of the Clarion-Ledger said in his review of this first published work of Guy's that "Guy’s Kuklos is one novel that delivers a believable story of political corruptness."

Kuklos is about a journalist, Alan Scott, who keeps discovering the deep, dark secrets of the Mississippi government. One conspiracy to the next sets up the stage for murder and lies. All of the powerful figures of Mississippi that commit these horrendous crimes are a part of the Ku Klux Klan. Rick Guy succeeds in offering significant and insightful glimpses into the type of political back-room dealings that go all the way to the top, and he peoples his story with realistic characters that think, speak, and act just like the folks we encounter in our everyday lives.

Guy portrays the wicked acts of corruptness yet underneath there is a  layer of Southern pride and heritage. He gives all of the characters their own role leading up to the climax. His  unique style won't even let you suspect that he is a novice writer. He depicts the corruptness and power of the Ku Klux Klan and  leaves the reader wondering about the world we live in.

I like this book a lot. If you're interested in the secrets of the South such as the KKK and its activities, this novel is a very realistic book. It talks about the actual murders of the civil rights workers that were killed in Mississippi in the sixties and the  brings these events to life.. Rick Guy  leaves the reader questioning the why of such human behavior.. Though he doesn’t dwell on one point too long, he does explain it thoroughly and makes the plot very realistic.

The setting of the book is different parts of Mississippi. Guy  brings the setting to you visually by describing it  accurately. I am from Mississippi and can relate the geography of it. He gives Mississippi a good name and frees it from its stereotypes.  In this novel, the KKK’s Grand Titan is governor of Mississippi and is now running for the presidential election. He is backed by other politically-powerful klansmen. Now two decades later, their secret is somewhat discovered by a submerged car being pulled up out of the water. The car's appearance leads to evidence of their real backgrounds, including the governor’s. This finding of this  car could put a lot of people holding political positions in jail, so they do everything in their power to eliminate the evidence, including  murder. Alan Scott, a struggling journalist decides to do a trivial story on the sunken car, which turns out to be the key to unlocking the corruptness of one of the most powerful men in Mississippi. With different clues he begins to question the innocence of the government, and in so doing Scott uncovers one of the most terrifying secrets--the real horrors associated with the KKK and these powerful men.  Scott’s life is on the line for two reasons.  The men he has uncovered secrets about want rid of him, and he is the number one suspect for a murder he did not commit.

I think this book is definitely worth reading. If you like the secrets of the South and enjoy a good mystery, this is a good book for you. It can be enjoyed by all types of people. I recommend you read it and find out what happens to Scott and what happens with the dark secrets of the KKK.

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Interview with Rick Guy
by Alex Holcomb (SHS) 2001

1. Who are your parents and how have they helped you through your life?

   My father was Richard Guy, and my mother was named Alla. My father passed away last year, which was difficult because he meant so much to me in so many ways. I was happy he lived long enough to find out that my book was being published. My mother is still alive, and after my father died, she moved here to Jackson and lives in a little apartment not far from my home. I go and see her several times a week.

2. Do you have any siblings, and f you do, are you very close to them?

   Actually I was an only child. I was adopted when I was six months old, and my parents never had any other children.

3. Are you married or currently seeing anyone?

4. What inspired you to become a writer?

   I always wrote even in high school (we used real typewriters, there were no computers in my school). I grew up reading Science Fiction mostly - writers like Isaac Isimov and Arthur C. Clark - and moved on to Stephen King and Tom Clancy later. When The Firm was first published I bought a copy, read it, and was fascinated at the way it was plotted. I thought I’d like to try my hand at writing a entire book so I bought an old world processor and went to work. The first was titled Airwaves (which I have rewritten and it is being released next). Kuklos was my second effort and took about two years to complete and another eighteen months to be published.

5. Are you only going to be a mystery writer?

   Actually no, though I have some more mysteries planned with the same main character in Kuklos. Airwaves is more action adventure in that it deals with an attempted presidential assassination. The third book I’m in the process of writing is titled Katana and is about a terrorist group trying to get their hands on a nuclear weapon.

6. What made you want to write about the conspiracies of the Ku Klux Klan?

   It was actually by happenstance. I thought of the idea of the car in the water and then went from there: Why would someone want to kill a man and hide his body? What would the man know? And so on………since the Klan was very active in that time period it worked out well to use them as the protagonist. It also let me explore some of the controversial aspects of the life in Mississippi from both perspectives of black and white.

7. Do you think you will continue photojournalism with the Clarion-Ledger ?

   Until I have a reason to move on, I will probably continue to work with the paper. If my books began to sell well or a movie deal comes from one of them, then I might be able to afford to write full time.

8. Have you ever had any accidents motorcycle riding?

   I’ve never had an accident on the street, but I have raced motorcycles for several years and have had a couple interesting accidents on the racetrack (The type of racing I do is called roadracing--you might have seen it on television. The riders are on the street, and they lean the bikes over and drag their knees on the pavement.) Anyway, I had a racebike toss me off at about 100 mph at a track in Memphis a couple of years ago, and I had to be airlifted to the hospital. Luckily, all I had was a broken collarbone and some broken ribs. It hurt to laugh for a few months.

9. What is your new book Airwaves about?

As I said before, Airwaves takes place in New Orleans and the main character is a disc jockey at a radio station (I worked as a disc jockey when I was in high school and college) who hears a murder while listening to a cell phone conversation on a modified police scanner. Through this, he becomes involved with a plot to kill the president. It involves motorcycles--no surprise there, huh?- and airplanes and a lot of FBI and Secret Service stuff.

10. Are the Civil Rights’ workers that are killed in the story related to the civil rights murders that happened in Philadelphia, Mississippi?

    Actually they are one and the same. I didn’t want to write about the murders because everyone has written about them, so I wanted to do something different but still use the event.

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Related Websites

Rick's photography business home page.

Rick's motorcycle web site Ride Mississippi.

Amazon site has book description for Airwaves.

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Bibliography

Fraiser, Jim. "Guy’s First Keeps you on the Edge." The Clarion-Ledger. 5 Nov 2000.

Guy, Rick. "Re: Biography." Email. 27 March 2001.

Guy, Rick. "Re: Interview." Email. 23 April 2001.

Guy, Rick. Kuklos. Madison, Mississippi: Graystone Publishing, 2000.

"Kuklos." Graystone Publishing. Mississippi: Graystone Publishing Company. <http://www.gspublish.com> (27 April 2001).

(Photos by N. Jacobs, SHS)

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