Let's Talk with Maggie Toussaint
Oh, the Bubbaness of it all!
June 30, 2022
When I wrote BUBBA DONE IT, I broke one of the primary rules of the amateur sleuth trope. It was unthinkable really, except there wasn’t any way to proceed without telling whodunit in the first chapter.
After all, my female sleuth, Baxley Powell, was just starting out in her police consultant role, just feeling her way through the realms of what she could and could not do in this world and the next. She meant to wait outside the bankers house as the sheriff asked, but things happened and she needed to not be alone. Everyone should understand that, especially the man in charge.
However he took a dim view of her seeing the crime scene, of her hearing the victim’s dying phrase, the one in which he shared exactly who planted the knife in his chest. “Bubba Done It.”
That big reveal should have made matters easy peasy, but instead they threw a big old mess of worms all over everything. You see, in the Deep South, the nickname of Bubba is about as ubiquitous as Hon, Dear, or Love. Though it generally applies to those of the male persuasion, my family had an Aunt Bubba. So it is in fact one of those gender fluid names and can apply to anyone.
It can be a term of endearment or a slang term of disparagement, with meanings as diverse as easygoing, companionable, assertively masculine, uneducated, bigoted, violent, etc.
Which brings us back to the dead man. He wasn’t known around town as a nice guy. If the bank was letting you know you’d skipped a payment on your car, boat, trailer, home, RV, or whatever, the dead guy called you, before he died, of course! He was the face that people really didn’t want to see.
Thus he had a whole town full of people who didn’t care for him, and more than a few of those were called Bubba. Good grief! The sheriff quickly trimmed the suspect list to include a down-on-his-luck fisherman, a crackhead evangelist, a politically-connected investor, and Baxley’s brother-in-law, the former sweetheart of the new widow.
The clock is ticking. Will Baxley find justice for the banker?
Share a nickname from your circle of family and friends for a chance to win a digital or print copy of Bubba Done It. Print winner must have a US mailing address. Winner announced on July 6.
Also, our July contest opens July 1 and is live through July 18. The entry link will be live on July 1. Winner will select a book from the book vault. If a print book is selected, the winner must have a US mailing address. ENTER HERE.
Posted in Let's Talk, with Maggie Toussaint • Tags: Bubba Done It, Dreamwalker Mystery Series, Let's Talk, Maggie Toussaint, Oh the Bubbaness of it all | 26 Comments
My husband had a brother that everyone called Bootsy. My own family didn’t do nicknames.
Thanks for sharing about Bootsy, Nancy! I haven’t heard that one, exactly, before, though we do have a woman named Bootie in our community. She’s a senior and worked in the courthouse for about a million years as the person who arranged and facilitated jury duty, so there’s no relationship to the Baby Boomer song about shaking your booty…
Niece’s nickname is LK
I have a female friend named LK, Mary! What are the odds of that?
my cousin’s husband is a Bubba, not many nicknames in our family mine is Charlie and my grandsugars are cookie and sissy, lol
I love those nicknames, Charlene! Thanks for posting.
My family doesn’t do nicknames, unless you count Tom for Thomas, Dave for David, and so on. My father-in-law used to call some of his boys “Buddy” so we kind of picked that up. On the other hand, our dogs and cats all have numerous nicknames (for example, Prince Harry Winston the mini Aussie goes by Winston but is also known as Winnie, Winnie-Pooh, Fluff Head, Red Bull, Bull Head. etc.) 🙂
Pet names count too. Prince Harry Winston seems to have acquired a great many extra names. Curious as to how he can be a fluff head and a bull head.
LOL, he is all cute and fluff but he uses his head like a battering ram!
When our first grandson was learning how to speak, he had no trouble saying “grandma” but for some reason “grandpa” came out as “Poohpa.’ The name stuck, and all five grandchildren, including the oldest who is now eighteen, call my husband Poohpa.
That’s adorable, Lois. I love Poohpa!
My daughter was called Sweet
Ah, Donna. That’s so nice. I bet she loved that nickname!
I was a teenager before realizing my uncle’s name wasn’t really Skeeter. He went through a Navy career and then two corporate jobs but never lost the nickname! Based on his size as a young boy, I think.
Made me laugh!! It takes a special person to embrace the nickname of Skeeter. But if you’re used to it, I can see how it would stick. Thanks for sharing!
My mom was always Sandy, but her name was Rosemary. Other than that, we don’t really do nicknames in our family.
This is so much fun! I wonder if the Sandy came from hair color or from the status of her bare feet…
Several of my family members go by nicknames, to the point where other people only know them that way and have no idea what their real name is. My grandpa was Dude, due to a mispronounciation of his name when learning to talk, grandma was Bobbie because she had the same name as her mother. Their oldest, my aunt was named after both of them. She went by her middle name as a kid to avoid confusion, then her first name as an adult when she moved away. She always said she knew where someone was calling from based on what name they asked for. There’s a bunch more with nicknames, you’d think my family was twice the size with all the multiple names for the same person.
I totally get what you’re saying about nicknames, Alicia. We have several people with the same names in my family too. That got settled with Big Hunter and Little Hunter and so on. Sometimes we qualify multiple people who have the same first name by calling them by their first and last names in general conversation. I’m curious about Dude’s name. I can guess his real name may have been Duke or something like Hugh, which when said by someone with an accent can sound like Dude.
My son named one of our a cats Bell, we call her princess a lot as a nickname.
That’s sweet. I’m sure Bell, as a card-carrying member of the feline persuasion, feels that Princess is highly justified.
We don’t do nicknames in my family. One of my daughter’s friends nicknamed her gremlin baby.
I’m not sure if that nickname is a compliment! Perhaps she’s a bit expressive with her emotions?
My daughter was called Cindy Lou Who from my friend Jenny. My friend said she reminded her of Cindy on the Grinch . My daughter’s name is Cindy.
that sounds like an honor to me, Sherry. I hope your daughter appreciated the gift your friend gave her. She’s now memorialized in that book, kinda-sorta.
My winner, as selected by random.org, is Sherry Brown. Congratulations, Sherry! You’ve won a copy of Bubba Done It. Digital or print available, though print is for those with a US mailing address only.