Joy J. Jackson’s Where the River Runs Deep tells two stories—both significant and both fascinating. It is a biography of the author’s father, Oliver Jackson, who spent virtually his entire life on or near the Mississippi River. And it is a history of the river itself, and the many changes that have transformed it in the twentieth century. Born in an oysterman’s camp in south Louisiana, only a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and raised in an orphanage in New Orleans, Oliver Jackson (1896–1985) grew up to become a pilot boat crew member, a merchant seaman, a tugboat-man, and ultimately a Mississippi River pilot, the profession to which he had always aspired. Drawing extensively on oral history, including a series of audiotapes her father recorded before his death, Jackson presents a detailed social history not only of her father and his forebears but of a way of life now past. She vividly portrays village life in once-thriving but now-vanished river communities such as Port Eads and Burrwood in the delta below New Orleans, and in such working-class areas of the city as the Irish Channel. And she provides detailed descriptions of the early days of riverboat piloting between New Orleans and Baton Rouge and of tugboat work in the New Orleans harbor. Throughout, she evokes the special passion and respect that pilots have always had for their work and the river. Woven into Jackson’s narrative of her father’s life and career is a history of the profound changes in life and commerce on the Mississippi River since the turn of the century. During Oliver Jackson’s lifetime, cotton gave way to petroleum as the major product transported on the lower Mississippi, while steamboats faded away and were replaced by towboats, with their long lines of barges. After mid-century many of the plantations and rural homesteads that had lined the banks of the river since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were crowded by the increasing presence of petrochemical plants. Jackson also writes about such calamitous events as the hurricane of 1915 and the great flood of 1927, and she describes the menace of German submarines at the mouth of the Mississippi during America’s early months in World War II. Where the River Runs Deep is a story of river life unlike any other. It will appeal to students of regional history and family history, as well as to anyone fascinated by the lore of the Mississippi.

Mark Twain relates the boyhood experiences on the Mississippi that led to his ambition to be a river-boat pilot.

March 8, 1990: An intoxicated three-man crew, including Flight Engineer Joseph Balzer, fly a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727 with 91 passengers aboard from Fargo, North Dakota to Minneapolis, Minnesota.Northwest Airlines, alcoholism July 25, 1990: All three pilots stand trial for flying a commercial airliner while under the influence of alcohol; all three are convicted and sent to federal prison. July 26, 1990 – present: Joe Balzer fights for redemption and to regain all that he has lost. Flying Drunk is his story. Since he was a young boy, Joe Balzer dreamed of flying. He pursued his goal with a vigorous passion and earned his pilot licenses, piling up hours of flight time with a wide variety of planes and jets with one overarching goal: to one day fly for a major airline. But Joe had a problem. He was an alcoholic and refused to admit to himself that he had a problem. His alcoholism caught up with him in March 1990, when Joe was arrested with two other pilots for flying a commercial airliner while under the influence of alcohol. His world began crumbling around him and his new marriage faced the ultimate test. He lost his promising career and his dignity. Every major media outlet, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and Time Magazine covered the shocking story for the stunned American flying public. The trial that followed drained Joe’s life’s savings and federal prison nearly broke him. Flying Drunk is Joe’s bittersweet and thoroughly chilling memoir of his twisted journey to a Federal courtroom, his time in the notorious Federal penitentiary system in Atlanta, and his struggle to recapture all that he held dear. Today, Joe is a recovering alcoholic, celebrating more than nineteen years of sobriety. The long road back from perdition led him to American Airlines, where good people and a great organization recognized a talented pilot who had cleaned up his act and was ready to fly again, safely. Flying Drunk is an incredible journey of the human spirit, from childhood to hell, and back again. Everyone should read and heed its message of hope and redemption. No one who does will ever forget it. About the Author: Joe Balzer is a pilot for American Airlines with more than 15,000 hours of flight experience. He has a Master’s Degree in Aerospace Education and is also an inspirational speaker, traveling around the country speaking to pilots and other groups on the dangers of alcohol and other addictions, bringing his audience to laughter and tears with his powerful message of hope. Joe lives in Tennessee with his wife Deborah and their two children. Flying Drunk is his first book.

Enigmatic Pilot is Kris Saknussemm’s outrageously brilliant yet profoundly moving exploration and excavation of the American dream—and nightmare. In 1844, in a still-young America, the first intimations of civil war are stirring throughout the land. In Zanesville, Ohio, the Sitturd family—Hephaestus, a clubfooted inventor; his wife, Rapture, a Creole from the Sea Islands; and their prodigiously gifted six-year-old son, Lloyd, whose libido is as precocious as his intellect—are forced to flee the only home they have ever known for an uncertain future in Texas, whence Hephaestus’s half-brother, Micah, has sent them a mysterious invitation, promising riches and wonders too amazing to be entrusted to paper. Thus begins one of the most incredible American journeys since Huck Finn and Jim first pushed their raft into the Mississippi. Along the way, Lloyd will learn the intricacies of poker and murder, solve the problem of manned flight, find—and lose—true love, and become swept up in an ancient struggle between two secret societies whose arcane dispute has shaped the world’s past and threatens to reshape its future. Each side wants to use Lloyd against the other, but Lloyd has his own ideas—and access to an occult technology as powerful as his imagination.

Life on the Mississippi (1883) is a memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. It is also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans many years after the war.

Winner of the Donald T. Wright Award from the the Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library, a special collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Life Between the Levees is a chronicle of first-person reflections and folklore from pilots who have dedicated their lives to the river. The stories are as diverse as the storytellers themselves, and the volume is full of drama, suspense, and a way of life a “landlubber” could never imagine. Although waterways and ports in the Mississippi corridor move billions of dollars of products throughout the US and foreign markets, in today's world those who live and work on land have little knowledge of the river and the people who work there. In ten years of interviewing, Melody Golding collected over one hundred personal narratives from men and women who worked and lived on “brown water,” our inland waterways. As photographer, she has taken thousands of photos, of which 130 are included, of the people and boats, and the rivers where they spend their time. The book spans generations of river life—the oldest pilot was born in 1917 and the youngest in 1987—and includes stories from the 1920s to today. The stories begin with the pilots who were “broke in” by early steamboat pilots who were on the river as far back as the late 1800s. The early pilots in this book witnessed the transition from steamboat to diesel boat, while the youngest grew up in the era of GPS and twenty-first-century technology. Among many topics, the pilots reflect movingly on the time spent away from home because of their career, a universal reality for all mariners. As many pilots say when they talk about the river, “I hate her when I’m with her, and I miss her when I’m gone.”