FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Page & Palette, 32 S. Section St. in Fairhope, will host author Jack Smith on June 5, from 2-4 p.m. He will sign his book “My Father, the Ghost,” which recounts the history of the author’s father, a sheriff in rural Alabama during the moonshine era.

Newly elected Sheriff Franklin Smith and his family moved into their new home on the first floor of the Lawrence County, Ala. jail in January 1951. He would lead a war against moonshine liquor that became the stuff of legend, rising from the mists like a ghost, the story goes, to nab unsuspecting makers and sellers of illegal spirits.

Sheriff Smith and his fellow moonshine raiders busted more than 1,000 stills during his eight-year tenure and jailed hundreds of distillers. But the aftershocks of one of those raids turned the sheriff’s life upside down.

Facing possible prison time, his quest to regain his good name and reputation is a compelling part of “My Father, the Ghost.”

But there’s another side to this “Ghost” story. You will meet a delightful array of jail characters, like Jackleg, the whiskey hauler; Big Richard, the murderer; and Peg, the nervous floor mopper.

The still raids, the arrests, the sheriff's federal trial, gutter politics, and jail characters … they’re all part of the true story of this Southern sheriff and his family of the 1950s. You will laugh, and you may cry as you read the touchingly intimate story of the man they called “The Ghost.”

Jack Smith graduated from high school in Moulton, Ala., earned a degree in English-journalism at Auburn University, and later was awarded a master’s in journalism by the University of Alabama.

His career began in 1956 as a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, where his first story centered on a relatively unknown young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. Smith also worked for The Decatur Daily and Auburn University as a professor in the journalism department.

He will exclusively sign all books purchased from Page & Palette.  For more information, call (251) 928-5295.