Johnson, Deborah (Deborah Johns)

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Columbus, MS.

CAREER:

Writer. Genesis Press, Columbus, MS, editor; Colom Foundation, executive director. Worked as announcer for Vatican Radio, Rome, Italy, for seventeen years.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS; UNDER PSEUDONYM DEBORAH JOHNS

Tuscany, Kensington Publishing/Zebra (New York, NY), 2001.

The Lion of Venice, Kensington Publishing/Zebra (New York, NY), 2001.

The Maltese Star, Kensington Publishing/Zebra (New York, NY), 2002.

Maiden of Fire, Kensington Publishing/Zebra (New York, NY), 2004.

NOVELS; AS DEBORAH JOHNSON

The Air between Us, HarperCollins/Amistad, (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor, under pseudonym Deborah Johns, to Bride and Groom, Kensington Publishing/Zebra (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Deborah Johnson's body of work includes the novel The Air between Us, about the coming of racial integration to a small Mississippi town in the 1960s, and, written under the pseudonym Deborah Johns, several historical romance novels.

Her historical novels generally have a backdrop of civil and religious conflict. Tuscany, for instance, set fourteenth-century Italy, has a noblewoman involved with a member of the Knights Templar during a time of war with France and battles over the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. In Maiden of Fire, a young Frenchwoman is determined to free an accused heretic being tried by the Inquisition, despite her love for the count who stands to gain land and power through the trial. The Maltese Star deals with the romance of an aristocratic widow and a soldier of fortune amid political struggles in sixteenth-century France. Kathe Robin, reviewing the latter book for the Romantic Times, likened the author's works to "carefully woven tapestries." They are full of "excitement, drama and passion," Robin added, and provide a look at "times and places often ignored."

The Air between Us is set in 1966 in Revere, Mississippi. The town's schools, businesses, and public accommodations are strictly segregated by race, but that is about to change under order of the federal government. Central players in the drama of integration are two doctors, Cooper Connelly, who is white, and Reese Jackson, who is black. They work in separate sections of the town hospital. Connelly also presides over the local school board, and even though he is the son of a segregationist politician, he is in favor of integrating the schools. Jackson is prosperous and respected, but he retains enmity toward whites, and he has a difficult relationship with Connelly. The history of their differences comes out over the course of the book, amid events that include an investigation into the death of a poor white man who was brought to the hospital by a black youth; the shooting of a black minister after he participates in a civil rights protest; and an attack on Connelly. The story also explores both doctors' marital woes and Connelly's friendship with a mysterious woman who claims to be a psychic.

Several critics found The Air between Us an absorbing portrayal of the complexities of Southern life in the 1960s, although some deemed it a bit unrealistic. In the novel, "Mississippians cross racial lines with ease," related a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Among other things, the reviewer noted, after the minister is wounded, local whites rally behind him. The commentator summed up the book as "engaging" but "probably revisionist." In a similar vein, Joanne Wilkinson remarked in Booklist that Johnson depicts the racial attitudes of the time and place as "far more enlightened than history would have us believe." Nevertheless, Wilkinson called the novel "insightful" and "heartwarming." A critic for the Web site This Book Is for You praised the book's "nuanced and complicated picture" of the South, adding that if the ending is "a little rushed and fanciful," the story remains "an interesting and engaging look" at blacks and whites working together to overcome racial barriers.

Johnson received numerous compliments for her characterizations. "Compelling character studies keep pages turning," reported a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Wilkinson described Johnson's creations as "endear- ing," while the critic for This Book Is for You commented on her "strong cast of supporting characters." The Kirkus Reviews contributor found one aspect of her work particularly noteworthy, observing: "Her empathy is so deep and evenhanded that her own racial identity remains a mystery."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2007, Joanne Wilkinson, review of The Air between Us, p. 18.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2007, review of The Air between Us.

Library Journal, November 15, 2007, Eleanor I. Bader, review of The Air between Us, p. 50.

Publishers Weekly, October 22, 2007, review of The Air between Us, p. 33.

ONLINE

HarperCollins Web site,http://www.harpercollins.com/ (September 2, 2008), brief biography.

Mississippi Writers,http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/ (September 2, 2008), brief biography.

Romantic Times,http://www.romantictimes.com/ (September 2, 2008), Kathe Robin, reviews of Tuscany, The Lion of Venice, The Maltese Star, and Maiden of Fire.

This Book Is for You Web log,http://thisbookisforyou.blogspot.com/ (September 2, 2008), review of The Air between Us.