Monday, May 19, 2008

When The Publishing Laboratory at the University of North Carolina Wilmington set about to publish a title of literary and cultural significance to coastal Carolina, bringing Ben Dixon MacNeill's classic memoir of North Carolina's Outer Banks, The Hatterasman, back into print was a perfect selection. Nearly half a century after its original hardcover publication by then newcomer John F. Blair, publisher, the book has become something of a rarity on Southern bookshelves. The Publishing Laboratory's 50th anniversary paperback edition features a new introduction by author and chair of the UNC Wilmington Department of Creative Writing, Philip Gerard (Cape Fear Rising), who cites The Hatterasman as a major influence, and a new publisher's note, including a brief biography of Ben Dixon MacNeill. Also included are 29 original line-drawing illustrations by Wilmington artist and former UNC Wilmington professor Claude Howell.

Winner of the 1958 Mayflower Award, The Hatterasman is part nature story, part historical narrative, part adventure story and part rhetorical farce. "The language of the book is oddly timeless—archaic and colloquial at the same time, a chronicle of nested stories you might hear from a salty old-timer at the bait shack," writes Gerard in his introduction. "MacNeill captures the stoic humor, the foibles, the strong-willed women, the superstitions and especially the landscape—a landscape in constant motion, sand moved by water and wind into ever-shifting configurations: an accurate metaphor for the world of our lives, which never stands still but challenges us to know it fresh after every storm."

The Publishing Laboratory, the UNCW Department of Creative Writing's literary book imprint, involves students in the "real-world" business of book publishing. Under the direction of Publishing Laboratory director, Emily L. Smith, and former director Barbara Brannon; intern John F. Loonam, Jr., a long time resident of the North Carolina coast, handled the book's editing and design.

The book is available in retail bookstores regionally and for trade distribution nationwide through the Publishing Laboratory's partner distributor, John F. Blair (www.blairpub.com or 1.800.222.9796).

Ben Dixon MacNeill (1889-1960) was one of North Carolina's best-known journalists; he wrote for several newspapers including the Wilmington Star-News and the Raleigh News & Observer—the latter for more than 30 years. He was an authority on North Carolina's Outer Banks, living and writing on Hatteras Island. In 1937 he served as the publicity director for the inaugural production of The Lost Colony, and that same year joined efforts to convince the federal government to preserve the Outer Banks as a national resource. This came to fruition a few years before his death with the establishment of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 1953.

Philip Gerard teaches creative writing at UNCW and is chair of the Department of Creative Writing. He has published three novels, including Hatteras Light, and two books of nonfiction.

Claude Howell (1915-1997), a Wilmington native, is known nationally for his paintings featuring coastal life in the Carolinas. He served as UNC Wilmington's first professor of art and taught at UNCW for 21 years before retiring in 1981.

For more information, contact Emily Smith in The Publishing Laboratory at 910.962.7401, smithel@uncw.edu, or call the UNCW Department of Creative Writing at 910.962.7063.

Advance praise for The Hatterasman 50th Anniversary Edition

"Ben Dixon MacNeill knew the real Cape Hatteras—a skinny, wind-scoured strip of sand strung with a few fishing enclaves. It's always been a place of strange stories and stranger characters, although nowadays you have to look harder to find them. This is a great new edition of a regional classic, enhanced by Philip Gerard's reflections on what Hatteras and The Hatterasman mean to those of us who love the Outer Banks."

—Jan DeBlieu, author of hatteras journal

"Ben Dixon MacNeill lived on a high Hatteras hill and from that prospect caught four and a half rich centuries of Carolina maritime life. It's all here: from 1497, when Amerigo Vespucci anchored in the Bight of Hatteras, up through the Civil War and, later, submarine warfare, until just before the coming of the Bonner Bridge. Blackbeard, King Pharaoh and Bannister Midgett march through these lively pages, and MacNeill truly celebrates the Lifesaving Service and the Coast Guard, the real men of the roiling surf. The return of The Hatterasman is a signal event for the literature and lore of the Southern coast."

—­Bland Simpson, author of ghost ship of diamond shoals

Available in bookstores May 2008

THE HATTERASMAN 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
by Ben Dixon MacNeill • illustrated by Claude Howell
Trade paperback, 6x9, 290 pages, 29 original illustrations. $18.95.
ISBN 978-0-9791403-4-1 • review copies, available on request