“DEER CREEK DRIVE: A Reckoning of Memory and Murder in the Mississippi Delta” by Beverly Lowry (Knopf, 368 pages, $29).
Beverly Lowry’s 10th book weaves true crime with a memoir of the post-WWII South. Focused on the brutal killing of a Mississippi socialite, “Deer Creek Drive: A Reckoning of Memory and Murder in the Mississippi Delta” revisits an event that grabbed national headlines, left lingering questions and is still met with silence in the Delta town of Leland.
In 1948, a Mississippi “social matron” named Idella Thompson was stabbed at least 150 times with a pair of garden shears. Doctors and authorities arrived at Thompson’s home on tony Deer Creek Drive, where the victim had been found by her adult daughter, Ruth Dickins. Despite strong evidence that Ruth was the killer, she blamed the event on an unfamiliar Black man. Given this commonplace, cruel accusation — and when the consequent shakedown of the Black community petered out — the exception to the usual process was Ruth’s being tried for murder. The event was a media sensation, as was Ruth’s conviction and incarceration.
“Deer Creek Drive” is in many ways an investigation of justice as impacted by culture and community. The book spares no detail about the murder, the trial or the pedigrees at stake, while also examining the larger role and legacy of Jim Crow. The resultant researched nonfiction can still read like a thriller. The writing blends archival history with casual observation, empathy, even wit.
Layered into the crime story is Lowry’s memoir of growing up in nearby Greenville, including her recollection of the trial. The distance between the author’s semi-stable upbringing and that of heritage-class Deer Creek Drive adds dimension to white Mississippi, a space some still refer to as more country club than state. Lowry describes how midcentury Delta society was the stuff of Virginia private college and debutante balls and the gentility of a “planter” (never “farmer”) social caste. We learn how these details influenced the crime scene, turning authorities away from the facts right in front of them.