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R. Harper Mason

July 28, 2010

Review for Lyin’ Like a Dog

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — Tags: — R. Harper Mason @ 2:43 pm

Richard the Paperboy—from Lyin’ Like a Dog
I Ain’t Lyin’… I Love This Book…, July 1, 2010

By Betty L. Dravis “BettyDravis@gmail.com, author of DREAM REACHERS, Toonies Invade Silicon Valley +”

This review is from: Lyin’ Like a Dog (Paperback)
I’m a mother and grandmother who enjoys all reading–from mystery, horror, thriller, romance and sci-fi to kiddie lit in all its many forms. Since this book appears to be geared for young boys, I didn’t think I would enjoy it very much. However, I liked the title and the tintype photo on the cover, so decided to give it a try.

And surprise of surprises–I loved it!

Less than a minute into Lyin’ Like a Dog I found myself transported back to my childhood in Ohio and the fanciful daydreams I used to have… I couldn’t help but think of the childish capers my brothers used to pull, our daddy threatening them with his belt, etc. (Well, to be truthful, my BFF Jane Smith and I used to have some whopping adventures ourselves. Being girls, we weren’t supposed to admit them, but that’s another story…) Granted, we lived in the city, so there were no swamps or moonshiners, but there were plenty of factories, swimming holes and gravel pits to lure us youngsters, not to mention the lonely train whistles to fire our imagination and whisk us off on fantasy adventures of our own.

Anyway, it was nostalgic fun to join these mischievous, but kind-hearted and lovable boys in their riotous capers. I found myself laughing one minute, then holding my breath the next as they went off on their most dangerous daredevil exploits.

I couldn’t believe the trouble Richard and John Clayton got into… Whether they were being “Indian scouts” in the swamps, finagling money to buy comic books, spying on some moonshiners, hurrying through Richard’s newspaper route, witnessing illegal crimes, out-bullying the school bully, playing a vicious game of tug-of-war, or getting their first crush on girls, somehow they always managed to make it humorous.

I felt like I knew the cast of characters from the parents to the teachers to their friends; characters with such amusing names as Ears, Swampy, Homer Ray and Curly. Rosalie is the pretty little rich girl, Connie is Richard’s special friend, a girl called Freckles is John Clayton’s, and Uncle Hugh is their oldest friend. He’s a “colored man” whom the boys help by doing small tasks and visiting to keep him from getting lonely. Hugh tells the best stories and frightens them to death with his ghost stories. He plays a pivotal role in the book.

I particularly enjoyed their Tom Sawyer-like adventures told in the childish vernacular of the narrator, Richard Mason (patterned from the author’s life in rural Arkansas). It’s all about Richard and his best friend John Clayton Reed during the eleventh year of their lives. The time period is from December 1944 to September1945 and some scenes depict the family listening to Walter Winchell report the dramatic events of WWII.

Author R. Harper Mason certainly seems to understand a young boy’s mind because the speech pattern is spot on and the action and characteristics are realistic. He must be a natural-born storyteller because he relates this tale in an easy-to-read, chronological order with excellent pacing. The questions that form in the readers’ minds are answered in all the right places. He certainly transported me to another world with ease and efficiency. The ending was warm and satisfactory; no loose ends here.

I’m still smiling as I recommend Lyin’ Like a Dog to young and old alike. This is the second book about young Richard’s life. The first was The Red Scarf and I can’t wait to read it. I hope he continues this series.

Reviewed by Betty Dravis, July 1, 2010
Author of “Dream Reachers” (with Chase Von) and other books

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Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — R. Harper Mason @ 11:19 am

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July 19, 2010

Lyin’ Like a Dog

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — R. Harper Mason @ 8:29 pm

On July 15, Lyin’ Like a Dog, the sequel to The Red Scarf, was released. This novel continues the story of the paperboy, ‘Richard.’ His interactions with the people in the small town of Norphlet, Arkansas, and the surrounding woods and swamps, which formed the basis for my first novel, The Red Scarf, and this sequel, Lyin’ Like a Dog. It was time of brown, sunburned feet and shirtless summers where a boy’s only entertainment was his imagination. This novel, set in the rural south during WW II. It’s a coming of age novel with a nostalgic bend.
It’s a novel for all ages.
Reviews on Amazon have been excellent—7 five stars so far.

January 6, 2010

Lyin’ Like a Dog…the redneck character

Filed under: Arkansas redneck tales,Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , , — R. Harper Mason @ 3:44 pm

In the novel, Lyin’ Like a Dog there is man who is, without a doubt, a mean reneck. This is Richard’s first encounter with him.

“Dang, the sound just echoed through the woods, and I nearly jumped outta my skin ’cause a bullet smacked into a tree right beside me and bark flew out and stung my arm. Shoot, Sniffer jerked away and took off like a scalded dog.
“What in the world?” I yelled. “Who’s shootin’ at us?”
Heck, we were scared just absolutely outta our minds, and we didn’t move an inch ’cause we were afraid whoever was shooting at us might shoot again.
“That’s far enough, boys!” yelled somebody from up in front of us.
I jumped about three feet again when that fella yelled, and then he stepped out from behind a big pin oak tree holding a rifle. My gosh, he was one of the worst-looking men I’d ever seen. He had on an old crumpled felt hat and some ragged overalls with a blue work shirt pulled over them, and he was wearing some old beat-up work shoes with shoelaces hanging off the side. He had a stub of a cigar in his mouth and a kinda scruffy “I ain’t shaved in a while” look. Shoot, that guy looked as mean as some slimy snake.
It took us a little bit to calm down, and then I hollered back, “Why’d you shoot at us?” Well, I kinda threw out my shoulders like I was all put out and stuck my fingers in my belt.
“Hell, son, I didn’t shoot at you. If I’d shot at you, you’d be dead right now. I shot at that tree to get your attention.” He pulled the cigar outta his mouth, spit a stream of tobacco juice toward us, and gave us a sneer like “Y’all messing with the wrong man.”
“Whata you mean? We ain’t doing nothin’, just walkin’ ’long the creek bank,” I said. “Shootin’ at somebody’s against the law!”
“You’re trespassin’—comin’ on private property―and I’m the law in these woods. You understand that?” The man shifted his gun to his other hand like he was maybe gonna point it at us again, and I began to get real worried.
Well, I’m a little bit of a smart aleck, and I put my hands on my hips and stepped forward.
“Naw, I don’t understand that ’cause we ain’t a-trespassin’; this is Parson’s Timber Company land, and it ain’t posted or nothin’. Heck, we’re always roamin’ round on Parson’s land. Do you work for Parson’s?”
“Naw, I don’t work for no damn timber company, but if I say this is private property, then its private property. You understand that, boy?”
Well, the man kinda shifted his rifle again and gave us another hard look.
“Richard, shut up―let’s get outta here,” John Clayton whispered.
But shoot, I knew durn well we weren’t trespassing, and I just kept going on and on.
“Naw, it ain’t private property, and even if it is, you ain’t got the right to shoot at us just for walkin’ down the creek. We could have you arrested!” I kinda yelled that arrested part and shook my finger at him.
Dang, that was a big mistake ’cause, after I shook my finger at the man, he kinda squinted his eyes and his lips curled down. Whoa, I knew right then I shouldn’t have done that ’cause that man kinda leaned his head forward like he couldn’t believe I’d talked back to him, and then he licked his lips real mean. Then, my good lord, he raised his gun.
“Y’all is gonna regret pokin’ round down in this swamp!” he yelled.
“Dang! Dang! Dang!” I whispered to John Clayton. The hair on the back of my neck just stood straight up, and I stopped breathing.
“Oh my god, don’t!” yelled John Clayton, who was already backing away.
“Ahaaaaa, don’t shoot us!” I screamed, and, heck, I was running before them words was outta my mouth. ’Course, John Clayton did the same thing, and then I just nearly dropped dead of a heart attack.
Boom!
There was a rifle shot and dirt kicked up, and wow, did we turn it on. We flew through them big woods like nothing you’ve ever seen, and then, just as we started to slow down, another boom sounded, and a bullet tore through the trees above our heads. ’Course, that put us in high gear again, and we must have run another half-mile before we stopped. Well, we’d just stopped running when Sniffer, that cowardly dog, came sneaking outta the woods with his tail between his legs, giving me that “I’m so sorry I run off,” whiny look. John Clayton was panting like he’d run five miles.”

Lyin’ Like a Dog will be released March 1. If you would like to review this novel, please contact me. I only ask that you post your review on Amazon.com.

Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Jan. 1945, #25

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , , — R. Harper Mason @ 3:35 pm

The boys and all the characters from The Red Scarf return in the sequel, Lyin’ Like a Dog. The sequel, which will be released March 1st, picks up the day after the Christmas Eve ending of The Red Scarf. Richard, the paperboy, tells the story. The paragraph below is Richard’s intro into the story.
“’Course, not everything that happened to me last year was just things you’d laugh at. Heck, there was some upsetting things and some stuff that just scared the beejesus outta me. Well, most of the exciting stuff happened after last Christmas, and as the months passed things just got all wound up. Heck, there was times I thought me and John Clayton was goners for sure. Wow, some of them things were so wild you’d never believe them in a million, zillion years. Huh? You wanna hear about ’em―every little thing? Well, okay, now listen up, ’cause some stuff that happened might sound kinda made up, but it ain’t. Promise, cross my heart.”

If you are a book reviewer and would like to review this novel, please contact me and I will send you a pre-release copy to review. I only ask that you post your review on Amazon.com reviewing post.

December 24, 2009

The 2009 Christmas Letter

Filed under: Afghanistan Notes,Arkansas redneck tales,Downtown Stories,Ghosts,Natural Solutions,Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , , — R. Harper Mason @ 2:25 pm

CHRISTMAS 2009
This Christmas, Vertis and I will be staying in South Arkansas.
There’s something about Christmas that seems to draw us back to our roots. I can’t think of a place we’d rather be than Corinne, our wonderful home of 35 years…sitting by a crackling fire listening to carols. Then, maybe we’ll ride downtown, where we’ve been heavily involved…it seems like forever… to view thousands of old fashioned, red and green Christmas lights and take a nostalgic ride in a horse-drawn carriages. All of the glitter and glitz of Las Vegas can’t make a Christmas sparkle like a sense of place shared with family and friends
To me, the holidays are always about returning to our roots, seeing family and friends, and reaffirming our wonderful faith. This year will be no exception. Thanksgiving turned out to be one of the warmest and most pleasant times we’ve had with our family in years, as our extended family gathered around the table to give thanks and to enjoy each other’s company.
But, as Christmas approaches, our thoughts are always more than just about family and friends. It’s a time to celebrate our faith, and one of the special ways we do that is to attend a very special Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Church, with candles and carols. If that doesn’t get you in the Christmas spirit nothing will.
This year we have lost friends from illness and tragic accidents, and our prayers go out to those families who are grieving this Christmas. It makes us so grateful, as we approach the new year, for our health and the well being of our extended family.
As Vertis and I approach the autumn of our lives, we are especially grateful for the friendship of so many in such distant places, and, of course, here in Arkansas. Friends are such a integral part of life that I can’t imagine living without them. Christmas calls attention to our lives and relationships, and, as we look forward to Christmas, I can assure you that a life without faith, friends, family, and a place to call home, is surely a dismal existence.
And finally; as the new year approaches, Vertis and I are looking forward to a very special day, January 17th. Fifty years ago we walked out of First Baptist Church in Smackover, Arkansas to spend the rest of our lives together. This coming January 17th we’ll forgo the reception our children wanted to give us, and, maybe selfishly, take a sentimental journey back to New Orleans where we spent our honeymoon. We won’t be staying in a $10 a night Quality Inn and eating Chrystal Hamburgers this time.
Merry Christmas
Richard
Vertis

December 23, 2009

Chapter one of Lyin’ Like a Dog

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , , — R. Harper Mason @ 8:12 pm

LYIN’ LIKE A DOG

BY

R. HARPER MASON

CHAPTER ONE
My Twelfth Birthday

September 23, 1945
Shoot, birthdays, they ain’t no big deal. Ya know why? Well, let me tell you just what I think about birthdays―they’s just for rich kids. Yeah, that’s right. Heck, around my house it’s like they never happen. Oh sure, Momma’ll smile, give me a hug, and say, “I hope you have a wonderful birthday, Richard,” but that’s about it; and outside of an extra trip to the picture show or something real little, I don’t get nothing.
You know, it seems like turning twelve oughta count for something, but no, not on your cotton-picking life. Yeah, I know it has to do with money—ha!—or no money might be a better way to put it. Anything around my house that costs money better be something to eat or wear because the Mason family ain’t gonna waste a nickel on stuff like a birthday.
Well, I guess you can tell I’m kinda all bent outta shape, and I’m sitting around feeling sorry for myself. You guessed it―not even a cheap card or a ticket to the picture show this year. Heck, this birthday just about hit the bottom of the barrel. But, hey, it’s durn sure a lot better than my birthday was last year. Shoot, this year we’ve done whipped them sorry Germans, and just a couple of weeks back the Japs surrendered after we hit ’em with them atom bombs. Heck, me and Daddy almost had our ears in the radio listening to that famous newscaster Walter Winchell tell about the surrender. Shoot, he talks so fast I can hardly understand him. Every broadcast he starts off with:
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press…”
Well, ’course, that sounds real good and important like he’s talking to almost everybody in the whole entire world, so we really listen up. Gosh, when he said, “Japs sign unconditional surrender papers,” Daddy jumped outta that chair hollering for Momma to come in from the kitchen, and I was yelling like some wild Indian. Wow, that was something else. So I guess I really should just be sitting up here in the hayloft thinking about how glad I am that the War’s over. Maybe, but, well, oh, you know, I do care about the War being over ’cause them sorry Germans wounded my Uncle Spencer in the knee and nearly shot down my Uncle J. R when he was bombing ’em. But heck, it’s still my birthday, so why can’t I be glad about the War being over and still be all wrinkled up about not getting nothing for my birthday?
Well, at least I’ve got some good friends and a real good dog. My dog goes by the name of Sniffer, ’cause that old skinny, brown hound just sniffs and sniffs and howls to beat sixty all the time, but, shoot, he never trees nothing. He’s just a real good friend, and when you’ve got a dog you can talk to and he understands you, that counts for a lot. Huh, don’t think I can talk to Sniffer? Shoot, all I gotta say is “Swamp!” and that danged hound starts howling like crazy. He’s ready to go hunting. How about that?
’Course, I’ve got a whole lot of friends and one real good one. His name is John Clayton Reed, and he’s a bunch shorter than I am, but he’s weighs about fifteen pounds more’n me. Well, I’m kinda tall for twelve. Yeah, and I look a lot like my skinny momma. There ain’t an ounce of fat on either one of us, and, heck, there ain’t that much muscle. Momma keeps telling me I’m gonna fill out, but every year she marks my height on the kitchen wall and then weighs me. Shoot, I’m always taller, but heck, I’m usually not more’n a couple of pounds heavier. Well, I guess it’s that danged paper route that keeps me thin, ’cause every morning I run about five miles delivering them sorry papers―wait a minute―I’m lyin’ like a dog. I don’t run no five miles a day. Heck, I might trot for a while, but usually I just plod along, chunking papers at front porches.
I work for old Doc Rollinson down at the newsstand, who got his legs all banged up out in the oil fields, and now he hasta use a wheelchair to get around. Doc’s always yelling at me for being late, but, shoot, why be on time when you got a danged paper route that don’t pay hardly nothing? Old Doc is really something else when he wheels around in that wheelchair with a cigarette holder clamped between his teeth, yelling at me for being late. Doc thinks that cigarette holder makes him look kinda like President Roosevelt, but he’s the only one who thinks that. Heck, Doc may be grumpy, but he’s still one of my best friends.
But you know, there’s something ’bout birthdays that are kinda different even if you don’t get nothing. Today, after I got home from school, I went out to our barn and climbed up in the loft where I wouldn’t be bothered. Yeah, I just wanted to pout all by myself, but then I started thinking. Heck, the first thing I thought about was that I’ll never be eleven again. Well, that ain’t no big a deal is it? Naw, but as I leaned back on a pile of hay and thought about all the stuff that happened while I was eleven it kinda made me smile, and then I got a little sad.
Heck, there was some real funny stuff that went on around the little old town of Norphlet where I live. You know Norphlet don’t ya? Yeah, it’s just six hundred people still hanging on trying not to get sucked up by the big county-seat town, El Dorado. Well, it was a bunch bigger back in Arkansas’s oil boom in the 1920s, but the oil boom ended and folks just packed up and left. The little old town looks like a ghost town now, but it’s big enough for me and my friends.
’Course, not everything that happened to me last year was just things you’d laugh at. Heck, there was some upsetting things and some stuff that just scared the beejesus outta me. Well, most of the exciting stuff happened after last Christmas, and as the months passed things just got all wound up. Heck, there was times I thought me and John Clayton was goners for sure. Wow, some of them things were so wild you’d never believe them in a million, zillion years. Huh? You wanna hear about ’em―every little thing? Well, okay, now listen up, ’cause some stuff that happened might sound kinda made up, but it ain’t. Promise, cross my heart.

December 17, 2009

Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Dec. 1944, #24

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , , , — R. Harper Mason @ 8:48 pm

Review of The Red Scarf

“I absolutely loved The Red Scarf!!! It’s one of those rare works that anyone, no matter who, can read — from a 12-year-old boy to an 84-year-old female, it has something for everyone. This is the best book I’ve read in awhile, and I could not put it down. I actually shed some tears over it, it was that good!”

—Angela Cruz, Anchor/Producer, NBC-TV, Monroe, LA

Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Dec. 1944, #24

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , — R. Harper Mason @ 4:47 pm

You know, last Christmas was really something around the little old town of Norphlet. Heck, daddy told me we’d nearly whipped them Germans and the Japs were next.
Me and John Clayton spent Christmas Eve with our friend old Uncle Hugh. Heck, just sitting around his fireplace in his little cabin listening to Uncle Hugh tell about Christmases a long time ago was so much fun. Uncle Hugh told us when he was a little boy his mother would alway knit his a red christmas cap. He said all the kids would just have a fit cause they didn’t have one.
Well, that last Christmas with Uncle Hugh was special cause me and John Clayon had managed to get him some new glasses. Gosh he was so proud of them glasses. We had noticed a month back that he couldn’t read the Bible no more, so we worked like a couple of dogs to earn some money. My gosh coming up with $12 was about the hardest thing we ever did. Well, after we gave Uncle Hugh them glasses he picked up his old Bible and read us the Christmas story. He was so excited that I thought he was gonna cry. But then Uncle Huge gave us some special flutes that he had carved and he showed up how to play them. Well, when I told Uncle Hugh, John Clayton was the best singer in the whole 6th grade, he got John Clayton to sing a Christmas song while he played one of them flutes. Gosh, sitting by the fire listening to the Christmas story and then singing a Christmas carol while the wind howled outside…it was really Christmas.

December 10, 2009

Reviews…The Red Scarf

Filed under: Richard the Paperboy — Tags: , , , , , — R. Harper Mason @ 4:02 pm

“Every single person I have shared your book with has loved it. That is really, really saying something when a piece of literature can cut across so many generations and bring so much Christmas joy to so many. Congratulations and thanks for sharing a piece of your Arkansas childhood with the rest of us!”

—www.amazon.com

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