Charleston, SC, Oct. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The powerful memoir of Ruby Nell Birt, written mostly in her voice, is an inspiring story of faith and resilience and an unwavering spirit of grace and forgiveness. Author Phil Hudgins spent countless hours with Ruby Nell and others to produce Grace and Disgrace: Living with Faith and the Leader of the Dixie Mafia. Hudgins is a retired journalist who has written two other books: Travels with Foxfire, published by Anchor Books, and I Took the Fork, the memoir of journalist and philanthropist Lessie Smithgall.

In Grace and Disgrace, Ruby Birt tells of her life with her husband, Billy Sunday Birt, one of Georgia’s most notorious criminals, a man responsible for the murders of more than fifty people between the late 1960s and 1974. When her husband was finally brought to justice and sent to prison, she became a single mother with five children, at a crossroads she never anticipated.

By embracing her Pentecostal heritage and taking on five jobs to provide for her family, Ruby Nell exemplified tremendous perseverance and trust in God to get through each day. In spite of her pain and struggle—not to mention the shadow of her husband’s legacy—she became a respected member of her community, building a future for generations to come.

Grace and Disgrace is the story of an extraordinary, godly life, that of Ruby Nell Birt, who refused to leave her home in Winder, Ga., despite encouragement from friends and doctors to move away.

Thanks to son Shane Birt’s recalling details from prison talks with his father, this book helped solve a fifty-year-old triple murder in Boone, North Carolina. Billy Sunday Birt and three other men were responsible for the deaths of a man and his wife and their 18-year-old son during a snowstorm on February 3, 1972.

Grace and Disgrace is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. For more information about the author, please visit philhudgins.com

About the Author:

Phil Hudgins is a retired journalist who worked more than fifty years in the newspaper business. He is a 1964 graduate of the University of Georgia and a 1974 Nieman Fellow of Harvard University. He is the author, along with Jessica Henrick, of Travels with Foxfire: Stories of People, Passions, and Practices from Southern Appalachia and of philanthropist/journalist Lessie Smithgall’s memoir, I Took the Fork. He and his wife, Shirley, have two daughters, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. They live in Georgia.

Media Contact:

Shane Birt

Email: sbirt@gagroundbreakers.com

Available for interviews: Author, Phil Hudgins

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• Grace and Disgrace: Living with Faith and the Leader of the Dixie Mafia

Leah Joseph
Palmetto Publishing
publicity@palmettopublishing.com