Joe : a novel

'[Larry Brown was] gifted with brilliant descriptive ability, a perfect ear for dialogue, and an unflinching eye... stark, often funny... with a core as dark as a Delta midnight.'—Entertainment Weekly She's had no education, hardly any shelter, and you can't call what her father's been trying to give her since she grew up'love.'So, at the ripe age of seventeen, Fay Jones leaves home. She lights out alone, wearing her only dress and rotting sneakers, carrying a purse with a half pack of cigarettes and two dollar bills. Even in 1985 Mississippi, two dollars won't go far on the road. She's headed for the bright lights and big times and even she knows she needs help getting there. But help's not hard to come by when you look like Fay. There's a highway patrolman who gives her a lift, with a detour to his own place. There are truck drivers who pull over to pick her up, no questions asked. There's a crop duster pilot with money for a night or two on the town. And finally there's a strip joint bouncer who deals on the side. At the end of this suspenseful, compulsively readable novel, there are five dead bodies stacked up in Fay's wake. Fay herself is sighted for the last time in New Orleans. She'll make it, whatever making it means, because Fay's got what it takes: beauty, a certain kind of innocent appeal, and the instinct for survival. Set mostly in the seedy beach bars, strip joints, and massage parlors of Biloxi, Mississippi, back before the casinos took over, Fay is a novel that only Larry Brown, the reigning king of Grit Lit, could have written. As the New York Times Book Review once put it, he's'a writer absolutely confident of his own voice. He knows how to tell a story.'

nearing Fifty, Joe Ransom Won't Slow Down, Not In His Pickup, Not With A Gun-and Certainly Not With Women. But All The Fast Living In Mississippi Won't Fill The Hunger Joe Can't Name. At Fifteen, Gary Jones Is Already Slipping Through The Cracks. Part Of A Hopeless, Homeless Wandering Family, He's Desperate For A Way Out. He Finds It In Joe. Together They Follow A Twisting Map To Redemption-or Ruinan Understated, Powerful, Beautiful Evocation Of A Place, A Time, A People.

publishers Weekly

with This Powerful, Immensely Affecting Novel Brown Comes Into His Own As A Writer Of Stature. As In His Previous Books ( Dirty Work ; Big Bad Love ), His Subjects Are Poor Southern Rednecks Who Exist From Day To Day, From Hand To Mouth, In Tar-paper Shacks And Shabby Mobile Homes. Some Are Hard, Mean And Utterly Lacking In Moral Fiber; Others, Such As The Eponymous Protagonist, Try To Live With Integrity And Dignity Despite Limited Opportunities, Despite The Ingrained, Ubiquitous Habit Of Drinking Prodigious Amounts Of Beer And Whiskey. Joe Ransom Is Almost 50, Newly Divorced, With Bitter Recollections Of Years Spent In The Pen For Assaulting A Police Officer While Drunk. A Product Of His Time And Place, Joe Is Reckless, Self-destructive, Hard-driving, Hard-drinking, Sometimes Ruthless, But He Is Essentially Kindhearted And Decent. Joe Manages A Crew Of Black Laborers Who Poison Trees For A Lumber Company. When He Gives A Temporary Job To Teenage Gary Jones, Part Of A Migratory Family So Destitute The Boy Has Never Seen A Toothbrush Or Understood The Significance Of A Traffic Light, Joe Is Touched By The Boy's Dogged Determination To Work Although Gary's Alcoholic, Vicious, Amoral Father Takes The Money As Soon As Gary Earns It. In His Own Laconic Way Joe Acts As Mentor For Gary, Until, In The Novel's Wrenching Conclusion, Fate And Joe's Own Stubborn Morality Wrench Them Apart. Seamlessly Constructed, The Novel Hums With Perfect Pitch, With Language As Lean And Unsparing As The Poverty-mired Mississippi Rural Community Brown Depicts. He Has Achieved Mastery Of Descriptive Detail, Demonstrated In Scenes That Variously Depict The Contents Of A Country General Store, A Bloody Dogfight, Men Butchering A Deer, Joe Cleaning Out Bullet Wounds In His Arm Without An Anesthetic, A Punishing Rainstorm. The Dialogue Is As Natural As Spring Water. Brown Never Condescends To His Uneducated, Gambling-addicted, Casually Promiscuous Characters; With Compassion And Eloquence, He Illumines Their Painful Lives And Gives Them Worth. (oct.)

In his first work of nonfiction since the acclaimed On Fire, Brown aims for nothing short of ruthlessly capturing the truth of the world in which he has always lived. In the prologue to the book, he tells what it's like to be constantly compared with William Faulkner, a writer with whom he shares inspiration from the Mississippi land. The essays that follow show that influence as undeniable. Here is the pond Larry reclaims and restocks on his place in Tula. Here is the Oxford bar crowd on a wild goose chase to a fabled fishing event. And here is the literary sensation trying to outsmart a wily coyote intent on killing the farm's baby goats. Woven in are intimate reflections on the Southern musicians and writers whose work has inspired Brown's and the thrill of his first literary recognition. But the centerpiece of this book is the title essay which embodies every element of Larry Brown's most emotional attachments-to the family, the land, the animals. This is a book for every Larry Brown fan. It is also an invaluable book for every reader interested in how a great writer responds, both personally and artistically, to the patch of land he lives on. "She's had no education, hardly any shelter, and you can't call what her father's been trying to give her since she grew up "love." So, at the ripe age of seventeen, Fay Jones leaves home.". "She lights out alone, wearing her only dress and her rotting sneakers, carrying a purse with a half pack of cigarettes and two dollar bills. Even in 1985 Mississippi, two dollars won't go far on the road. She's headed for the bright lights and big times and even she knows she needs help getting there. But help's not hard to come by when you look like Fay.". "There's a highway patrolman who gives her a lift, with a detour to his own place. There are truck drivers who pull over to pick her up, no questions asked. There's a crop duster pilot with money for a night or two on the town. And finally there's a strip joint bouncer who deals on the side."--BOOK JACKET. "Facing the Music," Larry Brown's first book, was originally published in 1988 to wide critical acclaim. As the "St. Petersburg Times" review pointed out, the central theme of these ten stories is the ageless collision of man with woman, woman with man--with the frequent introduction of that other familiar couple, drinking and violence. Most often ugly, love is nevertheless graceful, however desperate the situation. There s some glare from the brutally bright light Larry Brown shines on his subjects. This is the work of a writer unafraid to gaze directly at characters challenged by crisis and pathology. But for readers who are willing to look, unblinkingly, along with the writer, there are unusual rewards “Brilliant... Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit.” —The Washington Post Book WorldNow a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green. Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won't slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he's desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption--or ruin. "Nearing fifty, Joe Ransom won't slow down, not in his pickup, not with a gun - and certainly not with women." "Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he's desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption - or ruin."--Jacket The author "aims for nothing short of ruthlessly capturing the truth of the geography that shaped him and his art [and] ... what it's like to be constantly compared with William Faulkner, a writer with whom he shares the undeniable inspiration of the Mississippi land."--Jacket By The Pond -- Thicker Than Blood -- Harry Crews: Mentor And Friend -- Chattanooga Nights -- Billy Ray's Farm -- Fishing With Charlie -- So Much Fish, So Close To Home : An Improv -- The Whore In Me -- Goatsongs -- Shack. Larry Brown. A Shannon Ravenel Book--t.p. Verso. Historie fra det amerikanske Syden med druk, vold og fattigdom om venskabet mellen en barsk enspænder og en dreng, som bliver mishandlet og undertrykt af sin fordrukne far She came down out of the hills that were growing black with night, and in the dusty road her feet found small broken stones that made here wince Seventeen-year-old Fay flees her abusive father and the migrant labor camps of her childhood and hitchhikes through Mississippi