In the very best tradition of Lake Woebegone, Wisc., and Tuna, Texas, first-time novelist, Jane. F Hankins, has created the imaginary town of Peavine, Ark. Nobody knows for sure where it is located, but somewhere in South Arkansas en route to Monroe, La., the author said, during a recent telephone interview from her home at Little Rock.
But for sure, it is the site of much of the action in “Madge’s Mobile Home Park” Volume One of the Peavine Chronicles Series.
The South Arkansas launch of the book is set for 11:30 a.m. May 12 at the Pine Bluff Country Club. The event is a fundraiser sponsored by the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and will include lunch, a book signing and a 20-to-30-minute reading from the book by Hankins and her husband, former Little Rock radio personality, now television news anchor Craig O’Neill (a.k.a. Randy Hankins). Tickets are $50 each and are available by calling Dabney Pelton at 870-550-5464 or e-mailing her at peavine@muleheadbrand.com. A signed copy of the book will be given to each guest as a party favor.
Hankins, an artist turned novelist, says there is not a lot of difference in the two pursuits. All her visual works (sculpture, painting and drawing) are telling a story, so it was not that much of a stretch to begin writing. She is also trying to turn toward painting and writing because clay work is very damaging to the body and ruins the hands.
A graduate of Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, she was one of two to receive a bachelor of fine arts degree the year she graduated. She has always liked fantasy and created a series she called Frier’s (her maiden name) Famous Frogs when she was a teenager. This idea came from her sculpture teacher at the Memphis Academy of Art, where she attended Saturday classes while she was still in high school.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
She met her husband at ASU, and they have been married more than 40 years. Of their career choices, Hankins said that her mother once said that she never believed O’Neill would make his living telling jokes and she making fairies.
In 2003 when Hankins met Fanny Flagg, the author of “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe,” she told her, “You have no idea what you started.” Hankins was inspired by this novel to do an entire series of sculptures of elderly Southern ladies. In 1992, she entered some of these pieces in a juried show for the National Museum of Women in the Arts and was one of 10 artists chosen to represent Arkansas in an exhibit at Washington, D.C.
Hankins began creating the characters for her book in 2000, when she did a one-woman show, “The Mavens of Madge’s Mobile Home Park.” The pieces were inspired by handmade roadside signs she saw while traveling between Little Rock and New Orleans: “Curl Up and Dye,” “AKC Toy Poodle and Dog Outfits,” “Big Bob’s Honey Hole Septic Service.” Delving into her imagination, Hankins produced sculptures of the people who would own these businesses. She wrote one-page stories about each, which included their connections to Peavine, and made drawings of their trailers.
Loretta “Doll” Dumas was the widow of the richest man in Peavine. After his death, Doll moved from her mansion into a double-wide at the mobile home park and became a friend and benefactor to this community of very quirky residents. Her husband’s riches came from cotton and oil.
Hankins gave Doll dyed black hair done in a tall beehive up-do, cat-eye glasses, holding a cigarette in one hand and a cold PBR beer in the other.
Hankins described the show as a success. At the opening reception, she served a table full of junk food from the ’50s and ’60s “catered” by Kristy and Misty, The Party Girls, who are from Pine Bluff and characters in the book.
Through the years, she added more characters and stories with Doll acting as her muse.
By the time she met Flagg, she had a series of short stories, but no idea what to do with them, Hankins said. People kept telling her that she should write a book. If she did, some assumed it would be for children since much of work has a fantasy theme.
When one friend learned of her pursuit, Hankins said the woman assumed it would be for children and told her she was buying one for each of her children. Hankins said that she thought they’ll have to be much older before they read it because it is rated PG.
Three days after Christmas in 2003, the year she met Flagg, Hankins determined that Doll would be the connector of all the stories. She now had an opening, middle and end and she began to build upon that for “Madge’s Mobile Home Park.”
A few days later at a New Year’s Eve party at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre at Little Rock, Hankins said that her husband announced to Bob Hupp, The Rep’s director, “Jane is writing a novel.” Hupp immediately saw the possibilities for a Readers’ Theatre and scheduled one for the next year.
Hankins, her husband and their two grown children, Abby Hankins Kirby and Thomas Hankins, did three sold-out performances. At this time Hankins had written seven chapters of the book.
“Hearing the voices of my characters and seeing the positive reactions of the audience gave me the confidence to keep writing,” Hankins said, but it was still seven years before it was completed.
She did much of the writing at Barnes and Noble at Little Rock. She said that she would go in, buy a latte and then sit facing the New Releases sign and write for an hour. After hand writing, she would then laboriously type it into the computer, expanding upon her original manuscript.
After some rejections from publishers, she posted portions of the book on her Facebook page. She immediately removed it after Little Rock publisher Ted Parkhurst called.
Hankins drew illustrations for the book and painted the cover; however, she said that her favorite part of the cover is the what’s printed across the top of the page – “Volume One of the Peavine Chronicles Series.”
Hankins allows that her second novel is easier to write because she knows the focus and how it is going to end. For it, she has an outline and several chapters written and the title – “Thirty-Foot Elvis” – and a title for the third, “Out of the Mouths of Birds.”
First Lady Ginger Beebe told her she had to have a character based on Gov. Mike Beebe. Hankins said that she thinks it will be Buckshot Bradley. He will be running for the state House of Representatives, have a beautiful head of white hair and love to hunt.
As the title of the first book indicates, it is a story about residents of a mobile home park, and the present day in the story is the 1980s. It is about two women on a journey, one in the afterlife. It is a complicated way to write a book, Hankins said, adding that the main theme is redemption, mostly comedic, but it has its moments.
The book is most entertaining, said Kitty Rubenstein, an organizer of the fundraiser. “We will all recognize people we know.”
Hankins invented the town, Peavine, and a parallel universe. She said she thought the name of the town sounded “cool and funny” and she knew a Sheriff Peavine when she was a youngster, and there was a hunt club, Camp Peavine, in the area.
“It’s such fun to make things up. It is a lot better than worrying,” Hankins said.
It is a community of imaginary people who became real.
“Ask me about anyone of these people and you would think I knew them and I do,” Hankins said. Sometime she thinks of them as real people. “I even had Doll Dumas buy me a Christmas present to reward myself.
Hankins gives credit not only to her husband, who has not yet read the final version of the book, but also to Pine Bluff friends, Jim and Susan Buckner. Hankins and Mrs. Buckner are lifelong friends, growing up together in Jonesboro, where their fathers were partners in an architectural firm.
Mrs. Buckner said that Hankins had written down quotes and phrases from her and her husband throughout the years. “Spam-sucking trailer trash” (which is lower than “white trash”) is one. She doesn’t know if it made it into the book.
“Jane is an amazingly creative person – outgoing, happy and friendly,” Mrs. Buckner said. This is reflected in her artwork and her writing.