USM grad pens first novel

USM alumnus and Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Randy Pierce signed his first novel for readers at a book signing at Main Street Books in downtown Hattiesburg Monday night.

Pierce had been working on the book, Pain Unforgiven, since June 2010. It was released in May of this year to positive reception.

"The reviews from people in the area who have read it and the ones we've seen on Amazon and Barnes & Noble are mostly good," Pierce said.

Neil White, another Mississippi author, wrote one of the reviews for the book's jacket.

"It's action packed and has great characters," White wrote. "There's a lot at stake in it."

White said Pierce's experience in the courtroom helped him craft the conflict in the novel.

"There is no good story without some sort of conflict," White said.

Pierce, who has been a justice for three years, previously served as a chancery judge and was part of the state legislature, in which he served as chairman of the education committee. He said that experience, along with the rest of his life, have helped him reach the point at which he could write the novel.

"I started to work on a story in 1998, but then I realized I wasn't ready," Pierce said.

He said the subject matter of the story is something he's had to learn to deal with throughout his 42 years of life and he that he is finally ready to tell this story now.

"I feel like I've lived long enough to take on the topic of forgiveness," Pierce said.

White, who was signing three of his own books at the event, including his memoir about life in federal prison in Louisiana, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, said that people will love the book.

Pierce received two degrees from USM in business and now serves as an adjunct professor in the criminal justice department.