Garden & Gun February/March 2022

EDITOR’S LETTER An Oyster Tradition GATHERING BY THE FIRE AND MAKING MEMORIES AT A BEACH HOUSE BUILT FOR FAMILY DAVID DIBENEDETTO Senior Vice President & Editor in Chief I come from a family of four boys with no shortage of opinions on a lifetime of topics. The right and wrong way to train a gundog. Bourbon versus Scotch. The best trolling spread for yellowfin tuna. Getting up with the sun or sleeping in. But we all agree that when throwing an oyster roast, you can’t do much better than a couple of bushels of Beaufort clusters tossed over an open fire. And there’s no place we’d rather do that than on Fripp Island, South Carolina, where my parents built a modest house in the mid-eighties with the prescient goal of…

Let the Games Begin Cornhole boards made to last While I’ve yet to win the coveted Cornhole Cup at the family oyster roast, I do enjoy tossing the bags. And this year I’ll be bringing a new set of boards from Tupelo Goods. The Texas company, which specializes in products for the outdoors, takes the boards’ construction to a new level with a powder-coated steel frame and all-weather materials. They’re designed to be the last set of boards you’ll ever need to buy. Whether they’ll increase my odds of sipping bourbon from the trophy remains to be seen.…

CONTRIBUTORS Michael Farris Smith WRITER Philippe Matsas No one can pinpoint exactly why so many great literary works spring from Oxford, Mississippi. “Faulkner couldn’t answer it, Larry Brown couldn’t answer it,” says Michael Farris Smith, himself an Oxford novelist. “The city just has that reputation, so artists migrate here, which naturally grows the community and the creative output.” For Smith, Larry Brown’s writing retreat in nearby Tula encompasses all of the region’s literary mojo turned up to eleven. “It’s almost like holy ground,” he says of the spot, which he describes further in “Discovering a Writer’s Place” (p. 114). “To be sitting in a place one of my heroes built for himself, a place I read about twenty years ago when I was first starting out trying to make it,…

LETTERS “I start at the back, for some unknown reason, and read every issue from cover to cover” BRAGGING RIGHTS Rick Bragg can certainly take his place among the writers he extols in “Eating My Words” (December 2021/January 2022). I can’t count the quotable passages that ring true. Betty Lamb Birmingham, Alabama The piece by Rick Bragg left me hungry for more. It was a delightful intersection of writing about authors and food, though I’ll admit to some jealousy that Bragg was able to dine with these modern giants of Southern literature. Peter Holstead Davies Lynchburg, Virginia Rick Bragg’s story was a romp of a read, so much so that I had to put down the magazine and laugh out loud! He is such a gifted treasure for anyone who…

Social Chatter GARDENANDGUN.COM AND BEYOND WE ASKED... What was the name of your first dog? In our Talk of the South newsletter, readers told us about their first four-legged best friends. Sandy. I wanted to name her Worcestershire, which was my favorite word at the time, but thankfully, my parents intervened. Judy R. When a stray showed up at our house, starving, with a chopped tail and a cut ear, I had to name her something to help her self-esteem: Beauty. Sue D. Cohiba, or Cobi for short. My husband is Cuban and loves cigars (and yellow Labs). Cheryl W. My first dog was my six-year-old birthday present, and I named her Linda’s Silver Princess. Linda P. The rescue organization named him Marvelous, but we changed it to Champ.…

INTERVIEW Triple Threat PATRICK WILSON ACTS, SINGS, AND DANCES HIS WAY FROM APPALACHIA TO HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST FRANCHISES By Silas House Matt Holyoak/Camera Press/Redux Matt Holyoak/Camera Press/Redux Patrick Wilson, one of the busiest forces in Hollywood, is also a proud native of the South who still uses a cast-iron skillet to make cornbread from scratch. This year he will star in two blockbusters: the Aquamansequel, reprising his role as King Orm; and the sci-fi epic Moonfall. He’ll also be working on his directorial debut, the fifth installment of his Insidious franchise. Wilson has an eclectic résumé—he dazzled in the TV adaptation of Angels in America and has headlined in series such as Fargo—but is perhaps best known for carrying the most successful horror series in box-office history; The Conjuring films have…