Tom Franklin speaks to readers at the Hammond Regional Arts Center about the ideas behind his book “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.” Riana Braselman/The Lion’s Roar

The “Common Read” program is designed for people of the community to read the same book in order to discuss it together. The Hammond Regional Arts Center and the Tangipahoa Parish Library hosted the program, inviting author Tom Franklin to discuss his novel “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” on Friday, Oct. 20 and Saturday, Oct. 21.

“Barry Bradford who is the director of the Tangipahoa Parish Library, he was responsible for making that connection happen and getting a national acclaimed author here as part of an ongoing series that the Hammond Regional Arts Center started several years ago called ‘Celebrating a Written Work’ where we celebrate authors,” said HRAC Executive Director Maureen Joyce. “They used to do a much bigger, full-on festival, but they decided it might be better to focus on quality over quantity and a whole huge festival. And do something called a “Common Read” where you take a nationally acclaimed author’s best selling book and say as a whole parish, ‘Let’s read this together and experience the novel together.’”

“Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” is about two men, Silas Jones, the small Mississippi town police officer and Larry Ott, a lonely car mechanic. After several murders happen in the town, the two are reunited after having grown apart as childhood friends.

“It’s about two old friends who find each other again through bad circumstances,” said Franklin. “I think it’s a hopeful book. I think it is a book about loneliness and a book about healing. I hope that people, if they read the book, might try to be nicer to the weird guy in the neighborhood. The weird guy has a history and a life, and he has feelings. I think often we ostracize people, and this book can make people realize this guy is not someone to be shunned. He has a heart. That’s what I want people to bring back from it.”

Franklin discussed the origins for his idea to write the novel.

“I was interested in writing about my brother and me,” said Franklin. “Because we are so different but have the same background, same parents, a lot of the same experiences, but we could not be more different as humans. He’s conservative, and I’m liberal. We like different things. I no longer hunt. He still hunts. He loves guns. I don’t own guns. I was interested in how we could still get together and have such a great time and talk. And then the idea of a small town cop kind of fascinated me and the idea of a mechanic without customers interested me. So, those became the two characters.”

Franklin expressed what it was like for him to speak for the “Common Read” program and meet the readers of his book.

“It could not be more rewarding,” said Franklin. “To have people care enough to come out on a Saturday morning or Friday night and listen to me for about an hour, it’s really rewarding, and these are good questions. They were an attentive audience. I’d rather have an audience of 15 that is really listening than an audience of 500 that doesn’t care which I get at a school, and they’re all on their phone. This is my favorite kind of venue, my favorite kind of event.”