Modern Baptists: A Novel (Voices of the South) - Softcover

James Wilcox (Author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807131660 ISBN 13: 9780807131664

Publisher: LSU Press, 2006

Synopsis

Universally and repeatedly praised ever since it first appeared in 1983, Modern Baptists is the book that launched novelist James Wilcox's career and debuted the endearingly daft community of Tula Springs, Louisiana. It's the tale of Bobby Pickens, assistant manager of Sonny Boy Bargain Store, who gains a new lease on life, though he almost comes to regret it. Bobby's handsome half brother F.X.-ex-con, ex-actor, and ex-husband three times over-moves in, and things go awry all over town. Mistaken identities; entangled romances with Burma, Toinette, and Donna Lee; assault and battery; charges of degeneracy; a nervous breakdown-it all comes to a head at a Christmas Eve party in a cabin on a poisoned swamp. This is sly, madcap romp that offers readers the gift of abundant laughter. Modern Baptists was included in Harold Bloom's The Western Canon, in GQ magazine's forty-fifth anniversary issue as one of the best works of fiction in the past forty-five years, and among Toni Morrison's "favorite works by unsung writers" in U.S. News and World Report.

About this title

Review:

Praise for James Wilcox:

‘Wilcox is a highly polished comic performer.’
Observer

‘Wilcox has a sophisticated control of pace, his humour the chill of home truth, and his squibs at the expense of small-town America are rarely off-target.’
Jim Crace, TLS

‘It’s not easy to write a really original novel... Yet Wilcox manages to do just that in his very funny book, MODERN BAPTISTS.’
Daily Telegraph

About the Author:

James Wilcox is the author of eight novels, including North Gladiola, Miss Undine's Living Room, Guest of a Sinner, and, most recently, Heavenly Days. He is Robert Penn Warren Professor and director of creative writing at Louisiana State University and lives in Baton Rouge.

About this edition

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0807131660
• ISBN 13: 9780807131664
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 250