The South Dies Every Day

Lee Clay Johnson’s second novel, Bloodline, released in 2025 by Panamerica (the publishing arm of the newspaper County Highway), centers on Winston Alcorn, a grifter auctioneer transformed into a Lost Cause politician. Winston readily admits that he suffers from self-diagnosed “far-memory,” wherein historical events of consequence collide with everyday life, namely the Middle Tennessee exploits of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan. At an early age, Winston’s mother took him to the heroized bronze statue of Morgan atop his horse, Black Bess, on the town square, unspooling a narrative of descendancy for them. Though Winston finds little evidence of this lineage, he feels it “in his bones so deeply . . . he could hear hooves pounding down the street.” Whether Morgan’s relationship to the Alcorns is real or imagined is unimportant to Winston. What matters is that it gives Winston the power of self-creation, a mythology that grants his life the meaning and agency he would otherwise lack.