Hi friend, and welcome to Spark, Tennessee. I’m Vern Jarvis and I’ll be showing you around today.
Let’s start our walk at the south end of Market Street with the Curly Q beauty shop. Most of the ladies in Spark stop in for a wash and set every week. Now that Queenie has hired Evangeline, there can be two chairs’ worth of what I call visiting and others might call gossiping going on.
Next door is my shop, Jarvis Emporium. It’s a this ‘n that shop where you can pick up what you need without having to make the hour-long drive into Nashville.
Over there is Strickland’s Drugstore, run by Shorty Strickland. He’s got the usual medications and tonics, but he has a great collection of greeting cards. He thinks he’s pretty funny, so if you want a birthday card with the hind end of a donkey on it, or a get-well-soon card with a person wrapped up like a mummy, that’s where you should go. Shorty’s got a heart of gold though, and will run a prescription out to your house if you’re too sick to come in.
That’s the Tennessee Farmers Bank on the corner, and now we’re passing the feed store, where our farmers can pick up supplies. Spark has second and even third-generation dark fire-cured tobacco growers here. More than one farmer has been woken up by a city slicker in the middle of the night banging on their front door when smoke is pouring out of the tobacco barns.
That delicious smell is from the Blue Plate diner, run by Arden Gatewood. After we finish the tour let’s stop in for lunch. I love her roast beef, mashed potatoes, and green beans, but you get whatever suits you. Save room for dessert, though! You don’t want to miss her banana pudding.
Here’s Honeybelle’s, the ladies’ dress shop. They always have a pretty window display, and I hear Lurelle does a good job of making sure no ladies buy dresses too similar to each other after that unfortunate incident at the Spark High School’s 10th reunion.
Across the street is the Gazette office, where the editor, Dewey Pritchard, gets the paper out every Friday. He’s very fond of exclamation points, but I guess that’s part of the news business.
Where all the cars are is Humboldt’s BuyMore grocery store. My Callie Jane just got engaged to Humboldt’s oldest son, Trace. He’s got lots of big ideas for expansion. I like things to stay the way they are, but that’s the younger generation for you.
This intersecting street is Poplar Avenue. You’ll notice the church down about a block. I grew up in that church, as did most everyone around here. They hold the Founders’ Day picnic on their grounds, and my wife and I got engaged on that little gazebo with the latticework and wisteria.
If you go down another few blocks you’ll see my house, 4513 Poplar Avenue. I have a garden out back that I’m might proud of. Tomatoes are my specialty, and I’m always trying out new varieties.
I’ve shown you the Market Street highlights, but there’s a lot more of Spark to explore. Your kids can hunt for crawdads in Flat Rock Creek just over that rise, or you can take a drive out Creekside Road to see the prettiest farmland in Cooke County.
Let’s head back to the Blue Plate and see what today’s special is. If it’s fried chicken, don’t pass that up, and if you tell her you’d like a double order of biscuits, you can take some home with you.
Posey Jarvis knows she's the rightful Empress of Cooke County . . . she just needs to make everyone else realize it too.
Thirty-eight-year-old Posey Jarvis is the self-appointed "Empress" of rural Spark, in Cooke County, Tennessee. She spends her days following every word about her idol and look-alike Jackie Kennedy, avoiding her stalwart husband Vern, and struggling to control her newly defiant daughter Callie Jane—all while sneaking nips of gin. When Posey unexpectedly inherits a derelict mansion from her quirky old Aunt Milbrey, she finagles her way into hosting her high school's twentieth reunion there. She cares nothing about seeing her classmates, but she cares deeply about seeing the love of her life, a man who dumped her nineteen years ago. Possums are nesting in the parlor and the stench of cat urine permeates the sunroom, but she must be ready for the big day, even if she has to do the work herself.
Eighteen-year-old Callie Jane finds herself accidentally engaged and is panicking about her fast-approaching wedding. She's also had enough of her domineering mother. Even though she loves her father, the idea of working at his Emporium for the rest of her life just makes her . . . so sad. She longs to escape from her mother, her job, her upcoming wedding, and the creepy peeping Tom terrorizing the town. She dreams of leaving everything she's ever known in her rearview mirror and starting over in California, but when her life has been mapped out for her from birth, how can she break free?
Set in a gossipy small town during the turbulent 1960s, and full of Southern charm and unforgettable characters, The Empress of Cooke County is a novel about found family, what it means to be loved, and how being true to yourself can have life-altering consequences.
Women's Fiction Southern [Harper Muse, On Sale: September 3, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781400342594 / ]
Elizabeth Bass Parman grew up entranced by family stories, such as the time her grandmother woke to find Eleanor Roosevelt making breakfast in her kitchen. She worked for many years as a reading specialist for a non-profit, and spends her summers in a cottage by a Canadian lake. She has two grown daughters and lives outside her native Nashville with her husband and maybe-Maltipoo, Pippin.
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