Fever Chart - Hardcover

Cotter, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 193478141X ISBN 13: 9781934781418

Publisher: McSweeney's, 2009

Synopsis

Finding himself homeless on a bitterly cold night, former mental patient Jerome Coe makes his way to New Orleans, where he makes an assortment of eccentric new friends, experiences occasional psychotic breaks, and contemplates two chances for happiness. A first novel.

About this title

Review

Bill Cotter’s Fever Chart proves there is still fresh wit and fierce life in the American tongue. Read this book."
Wells Tower
As a blurber I am required to say Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Thomas Pynchon’ or George Saunders meets Mickey Spillane.’ But the truth is I’m not sure who’s meeting whom. All I know is they’re meeting on a teacup ride in a seedy amusement park, a teacup ride that has miserably failed its inspection, making the experience pleasantly familiar but alarmingly skewed, full of fun but deadly dangerous. You’ll be dizzy when it’s over if it doesn’t fly apart and chop your head off. But the ride is worth it.”
Jack Pendarvis
"Fever Chart is not about the destination so much as the reckless, driving-with-your-knees journey, and Jerome Coe is an antihero for the ages."
Texas Monthly
"Jerome Coe is a troubled young man who leaves behind the mental hospital he occasionally finds himself in to take an exciting romp through the same New Orleans that played so centrally in John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces. While Ignatius Reilly and Jerome would probably ignore each other if they passed on Bourbon Street, there is little doubt that they inhabit the same city, a baroque mess of a place, inhabited almost entirely by strange grotesques. Coe’s misadventures make for a lively, engaging read, that is funny as well as poignant. In a series of flashbacks, Cotter allows us cunning insight into the mind of Jerome Coe and the circumstances that led him to the mental hospital. A fun, engaging read that will satisfy an one left wanting more of New Orleans after encountering Confederacy."
Nate Campbell, Pop Damage

Fever Chart is one of the year’s most wonderfully dark and entertaining novels, and its protagonist Jerome Coe an unfortgettable literary character.”
Large Hearted Boy

Fever Chart is a disarming, frenetic and loving portrait of mental illness set in dirty New Orleans with a story that swept me up into an unplanned day of reading on the couch and a descriptive style that made me pray never to encounter a gangrened hand stuck inside a diaper-cum-bandage. The kicker: Ron Regé, Jr.’s incredible cover design.”
Domy.com

About the Author

Bill Cotter was born in Dallas in 1964, and has labored as an antiquarian book dealer and restorer since 2000. He presently lives in Austin with his girlfriend, the poet Annie La Ganga, and Travis, an inextinguishable roach who divides his time between the shower and the silverware drawer. He (Bill) is at work on his second novel.

Edition details

• Publisher: McSweeney's
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 193478141X
• ISBN 13: 9781934781418
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320