Featured Author John (Jack) M. Cunningham Jr

Featured Interview With John (Jack) M. Cunningham Jr

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1954. I later attended the University of Alabama where I received a degree in history and also studied education. After my graduation I moved to New Orleans, Louisiana where I taught school. After Hurricane Katrina hit the city, I moved back to Alabama. Fortunately, my home didn’t suffer much damage in that storm. As far back as my junior high school years, history has been one of my passions.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve loved books and reading as far back into my childhood as I can remember. In the mid-1980s, I began writing professionally.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Most of the novels I read are historical fiction. Regarding non-fiction, I enjoy history and biographies. C,S. Forester, Sarah Sundin, Angela Hunt, Bruce Catton and Alexandre Dumas are my favorite authors. My first inspiration for writing novels was Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series. This led me to write two Civil War novels with a naval setting: Vengeance & Betrayal, and River Ruckus, Bloody Bay. Bruce Catton inspired me to dig deeper into the American Civil War. Sometimes, inspiration comes from places I visit or stories I read in magazines newspapers, and on the internet.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
In 1850s Mobile, Alabama, a backslidden Christian named Gideon Deshler spirals toward destruction, his demise hastened by evil Elvira Sturgis with whom he falls in love. She and her father, president of the nearby Spring Hill Jockey Club, brutalize their slaves. Two of Sturgis’s slaves, the jockey Ned and his girlfriend Becky, must escape to Canada so they can fulfill their dreams. But how? Alabama is far away from Canada, and it also doesn’t have an Underground Railroad.

Meanwhile, a mystery surrounds the death of a champion Thoroughbred named Green Legs. Before he can solve this mystery, Gideon must get delivered from Elvira’s spell and reconcile with Sam Quarles, with whom he’d fought a duel. Sam’s father had been Green Legs’s owner.

Sam’s brother, Joe, feuds with Gideon’s friend, Owen Washburn, over Green Legs’s death. To keep his promise to his dying father, Joe vows to regain the status of his father’s horse farm in a big match race against Owen’s champion, Comet. Joe’s hope lies in an ornery Thoroughbred named Johnny Boy. If Johnny doesn’t win the Pride of Alabama Stakes, Joe vows to kill himself, for horseracing is his life and he’d have failed his father’s dying wish. Yet, Green Legs’s real killers and their accomplice have other plans.

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