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Jonathan Odell

Goodreads Author

Born

Mississippi, The United States

Website

http://www.jonathanodell.net

Twitter

JonOdell56

Genre

Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir

Member Since

April 2008

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Born in Mississippi, I grew up in the Jim Crow South and became involved in the civil rights movement in college. I hold a master’s degree in counseling psychology and have been active in human resource development for over 30 years, including holding the position of Vice President of Human Resources for a Minneapolis based corporation and later founding my own consulting companies.

I am the author of the acclaimed novel The View from Delphi, which deals with the struggle for equality in pre-civil rights Mississippi, my home state. My new novel, The Healing, explores the subversive nature story plays in the healing of an oppressed people and will be published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday early 2012. In 2015 Maiden Lane released Miss Hazel and ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

Any chance Hazel and The Rosa Parks League will be made into an audiobook?

Jonathan Odell Hey, Cheryl. No plans yet. I'm hoping my fans chip in for me to read it over the phone to them!
…moreHey, Cheryl. No plans yet. I'm hoping my fans chip in for me to read it over the phone to them!
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Explain the relationship between your novels A VIEW FROM DELPHI and HAZEL AND THE ROSA PARKS LEAGUE. I have read HAZEL and have a Copy of the other to read. What is the difference? Thanks so much for your help. Deby Coley

Jonathan Odell Hello Deby, a good question. And an important one. I talk about this on my website, so I will both give you the link and paste it below. Thanks for as…moreHello Deby, a good question. And an important one. I talk about this on my website, so I will both give you the link and paste it below. Thanks for asking. http://www.jonathanodell.net/a-word-a...

A Word about the Previous Version

Much of the story and many of the characters in Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League saw an earlier life in my first novel, The View from Delphi, released in 2004 by a small West Coast publisher to positive reviews but limited distribution. After the success of my second novel, The Healing, Maiden Lane Press was convinced that Delphi deserved to reach a larger audience, in a revised edition. I enthusiastically agreed to the project. Do overs may be common in kids’ games, but they are extremely rare in the world of publishing.

A survey of the book releases over the past ten years since the publication of Delphi proved to us that there was plenty of room in the marketplace for a book that attempts to place a fully developed white character and a fully developed black character in the same story, on the same page; in other words, without having one playing the finely drawn hero and the other the stereotypical victim who needs saving or villain who needs disposing of. We authors, white and black, are still learning to tackle the issue of race in America without resorting to trite formulas with timeworn morality lessons.

So what are the differences between the two works?

First of all, the new title and cover better reflect the promise of the book, i.e. a 1950’s small-town Southern setting, an intimate feeling of family and friendship, a twining of black and white storylines, and an irreverent strain of humor.

Miss Hazel is nearly a hundred pages leaner than Delphi and has been restructured to make it move more logically. There is less backstory and side-story. The goal of this version was to tighten, intensify and deepen the relationship between to two major characters, Vida and Hazel. Anything that distracted from that focus was condensed or eliminated completely. I believe the result is a richer, more directed and fast flowing read. I hope you agree.

Personally, one of the pleasures of the rewrite has been opportunity to revisit a cast of characters with whom I had once fallen I love, but then had to bid farewell. It was a delight to find that they were all still alive and well, excited about being put back on the page to tell their story once more, but with renewed vigor. I know I’m biased, but I do believe they outdid themselves.
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Jonathan Odell’s books

Average rating: 4.01 · 11,066 ratings · 1,514 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Healing really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8,812 ratings — published 2012 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League 4.03 avg rating — 1,848 ratings — published 2012 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The View from Delphi 4.01 avg rating — 406 ratings — published 2004 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The American Times: a Satire 1780 [Leather Bound] 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blackbirds, Lyrebirds, WeaverBirds: 12/23 cc&d, v340 by Janet Kuypers (Goodreads Author), Steve Doran, Margaret D. Stetz 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Jonathan Odell's Blog

The Plow and the Pencil

When I was interviewing Mississippians for my book, an elderly black man talked about his days as a sharecropper. He summed up his experience like this, “When God handed out possessions, he must have give the black man the plow and the white man the pencil.” It was his way of saying that under Jim Crow, the black man did all the work, but no matter how big a crop you brought in, it was the figures Read more of this blog post »

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Published on February 22, 2015 17:45 • Tags: rosa-parks, women

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Jonathan Odell wants to read Religion and Nothingness (Nanzan Studies in Religion and Culture) (Volume 1) by Keiji Nishitani	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Dec 14, 2024 01:56PM · like

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Quotes by Jonathan Odell (?)

“Sometiimes when you look at a person all you see is the tangle and you miss the weave”
― Jonathan Odell, The Healing

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“A flapping tongue puts out the light of wisdom."~Polly Shine”
― Jonathan Odell, The Healing

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“When I look up, there are women as far as I can see, standing in the river one behind the other, generations going back to the beginning time, from the very womb of God.”
― Jonathan Odell, The Healing

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Polls

What shall we read in January, 2025? Books published after 1990.

A Miracle of Catfish, by Larry Brown

15 votes 31.3%

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, by Imani Perry

10 votes 20.8%

Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks

10 votes 20.8%

My Darkest Prayer, by S.A. Cosby

6 votes 12.5%

Code of the Hills, by Chris Offutt

4 votes 8.3%

The Healing, by Jonathan Odell

3 votes 6.3%

48 total votes

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