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Last Queen of the Gypsies
William Cobb
NewSouth Books
978-1-58838-242-9
$27.95 hardcover
6 x 9
300 pages
November 2010
Fiction
ebook ISBN: 978-1-60306-062-2
William Cobb’s first novel in nine years is a brilliant, quirky, highly readable story as compelling as it is fresh and original. The book interweaves the stories of Lester Ray, a 14-year-old boy who was deserted by his mother when he was a baby and has now escaped his abusive alcoholic father, and Minnie, a woman who was abandoned by her Gypsy family of migrant fruit pickers when she was 11— while they journey on parallel quests to find families they never really knew. It ranges from the Great Depression to the new millennium and from the panhandle of Florida, where the novel is basically set, to New York City during World War II, to the Georgia and Carolina coast, to Fort Myers and south Florida. Lester Ray, dimly aware that his mother was probably a Gypsy, runs away from the little town of Piper, Florida, carrying with him a substitute family: Mrs. Mack, an elderly neighborhood woman, and a bizarre 14-year-old girl named Virgin Mary Duck. He goes where Romany Gypsies lived in the South during the late 20th century—the world of traveling carnivals. Lester Ray finds work with a carnival and meets odd and strange and wonderful people there. Minnie’s journey is lonelier, moving from the dry sandy heat of central Florida in 1933, to a brothel in Cedar Key, to New York, to Piper, to the winter camps of the Gypsies near Fort Myers. She is seen first as a girl, then as a woman—a person of immense fortitude and strength, as engaging and unforgettable as Scarlett O’Hara.
Praise for The Last Queen of the Gypsies
"Off and running from the first sentence, William Cobb's new book will break your heart and make you laugh at the same time. With a large and lively cast of characters that include, no fooling, a dwarf named Virgin Mary Duck, The Last Queen of the Gypsies will enthrall you with its clear prose, its precise detail, its insight into human nature gypsy or not. One of my favorite things about the book is its unwinding landscape, both North and South, showing a world as richly imagined as any I've seen in recent fiction. Mr. Cobb's A Walk Through Fire and subsequent novels established him as one of the South's premier voices, and here he is with a new book that is as strong as ever. Stronger."
-Tom Franklin, author of Hell at the Breech
"The yellow brick road meets Tobacco Road in this brave, carnivalesque journey into the South of our dreams and nightmares."
-Jack Pendarvis, author of The Mysterious Secret of Valuable Treasure
"The Last Queen of the Gypsies is William Cobb's most compelling novel. While the action throughout is fast-paced, Cobb skillfully develops a number of complex characters, starting with an abandoned little girl whose courage and determination to survive will win any reader's heart. Hilarious, poignant, brutal by turns, the novel opens a window on the fascinating world of North American Romany Gypsies and on authentic small town southern life in the thirties and sixties. This was a novel I could not put down."
-Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife
Reviews of Last Queen of the Gypsies
Cobb
explores the Gypsy subculture in the United States in his first novel in nine years. Lester Ray and Minnie guide the narrative as it jumps to various times throughout the twentieth century. By using vibrant characters and locations, Cobb draws in the reader to an intriguing work of fiction. Beginning by recounting the story of Minnie being abandoned as a child, the tale travels throughout the Easten section of the nation, as the plot unfolds.
The characters' actions and the situations in which they find themselves in are often extreme, which helps the construction of an enthralling novel. Overall it is an engaging book that explores the largely unknown Gypsy culture."
-Kristin Whitehair, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS
As printed in MultiCultural Review, Fall 2010 (Volume 19, Number 3, page 76)
Read Foreword Reviews article on Last Queen of the Gypsies here.
Read an excerpt from Last Queen of the Gypsies here.
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