Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta

Richard Grant

Oct 2015 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

In Dispatches from Pluto, adventure writer Richard Grant takes on “the most American place on Earth”—the enigmatic, beautiful, often derided Mississippi Delta.

Richard Grant and his girlfriend were living in a shoebox apartment in New York City when they decided on a whim to buy an old plantation house in the Mississippi Delta. Dispatches from Pluto—winner of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize—is their journey of discovery into this strange and wonderful American place. Imagine A Year In Provence with alligators and assassins, or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with hunting scenes and swamp-to-table dining.

On a remote, isolated strip of land, three miles beyond the tiny community of Pluto, Richard and his girlfriend, Mariah, embark on a new life. They learn to hunt, grow their own food, and fend off alligators, snakes, and varmints galore. They befriend an array of unforgettable local characters—blues legend T-Model Ford, cookbook maven Martha Foose, catfish farmers, eccentric millionaires, and the actor Morgan Freeman. Grant brings an adept, empathetic eye to the fascinating people he meets, capturing the rich, extraordinary culture of the Delta, while tracking its utterly bizarre and criminal extremes. Reporting from all angles as only an outsider can, Grant also delves deeply into the Delta’s lingering racial tensions. He finds that de facto segregation continues. Yet even as he observes major structural problems, he encounters many close, loving, and interdependent relationships between black and white families—and good reasons for hope.

Dispatches from Pluto is a book as unique as the Delta itself. It’s lively, entertaining, and funny, containing a travel writer’s flair for in-depth reporting alongside insightful reflections on poverty, community, and race. It’s also a love story, as the nomadic Grant learns to settle down. He falls not just for his girlfriend but for the beguiling place they now call home. Mississippi, Grant concludes, is the best-kept secret in America.

Ratings and reviews

Great easy read. Loved the stories from the author and learnt a lot about the Delta.

Excellent Read!

Great book about people in the south

About the author

Richard Grant is an author of nonfiction books, a journalist, and a documentary film writer. His last two books, Dispatches from Pluto and The Deepest South of All, were New York Times bestsellers. His previous books include the adventure travel classic God’s Middle Finger: Into the Heart of the Sierra Madre and American Nomads, which was made into an acclaimed BBC documentary with Grant as the writer and star. Currently a contributor to Smithsonian magazine, Grant has published journalism in Esquire, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Originally from London, England, now a US citizen, he has traveled extensively and written books about Mexico and East Africa. After several years of living in a remote farmhouse in the Mississippi Delta, an experience chronicled in the multi-award-winning Dispatches from Pluto, Grant is living in Tucson, Arizona, with his wife and daughter.