Bronze Statue of Oxford Novelist Larry Brown to Debut at Morgan Park

A bronze Larry Brown, seated and cast from archival photographs, will take a permanent position at Morgan Park on April 23 at 2 p.m., the afternoon before the Double Decker Arts Festival opens and draws thousands of visitors to Oxford's streets.

The City of Oxford commissioned Taylor-based sculptor Bill Beckwith to create the $75,000 monument, funded through public art dollars already allocated in the city's budget. Beckwith was selected unanimously from two competing proposals, with the contract structured in three payments of $25,000 each: one upon signing, one upon approval of the finished clay model, and the final installment on completion and delivery.

For Oxford, the statue formalizes what many locals have long felt: that Brown belongs alongside William Faulkner in the city's literary identity. Beckwith already cast Oxford's Faulkner bronze on the courthouse square, along with monuments to B.B. King in Indianola, Elvis Presley in Tupelo, and Jefferson Davis in Biloxi. The Larry Brown commission continues that civic roster within the same city.

Brown's biography gives the monument its particular local weight. Born in Oxford on July 9, 1951, he served as a Marine before returning home to join the Oxford Fire Department. He wrote through his off-hours for years, absorbing rejection after rejection, until his debut short story collection "Facing the Music" appeared in 1988 to widespread critical acclaim. His fiction drew on working-class Mississippi life in ways that marked him as one of the South's most unsparing voices. He died in 2005, leaving behind nine books in total. As John Cofield wrote in his April 7 column announcing the unveiling: "He served for years as a firefighter here, and for the rest of Oxford's days will be remembered in bronze here."

The April 23 date is no accident. With Double Decker beginning the next morning, the city is positioning the unveiling as a cultural opening act for a weekend that already pulls large crowds to Oxford. Morgan Park gives the statue a visible, accessible foothold, one where festival visitors can encounter it without planning around it.

Residents planning to attend should be at Morgan Park by 2 p.m. on April 23. The City of Oxford is expected to release additional details on speakers and programming ahead of the event.