This is a brief summary of some of the books he wrote:
The Sharpshooter Blues in 1995 won the American Library Association's Notable Book Award and the
Best Fiction Award of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. A review from a critic says that Nordan writes
the characters “as innocent, wayward children trapped in their own misguided notions and geography, looking only
to be lifted from the burden of facing their own relative puniness and isolation.” (Bill Kirchner). I think it
is about the life of a small town and how one tragic event and lies can damage the lives of the whole town and sometimes mend
others.
Wolf Whistle in 1993, Nordan describes this book and its plot as “just the smallest things
elaborate into the whole texture of their lives, their parents’ lives and hopes and dreams.”
Music of the Swamp in 1991 was his first novel that he wrote. It received awards from the
Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and the Prize for Notable Fiction from the American Library Institute of Arts and
Letters. Also this was the first of his writing about the Mississippi Delta, which revealed the stories about the small
town and the characters in it.
Lightning Song in 1997 is about a boy growing up on a llama farm and discovering
life. Everything was running smoothly on the farm until his uncle with handsome movie star looks stays at their house
for the summer. The boy can sense something is going on between his mother and Uncle Harris and one night in an extravagant
thunderstorm everything is revealed.
