NEWSOUTH BOOKS
978-1-58838-232-0
1-58838-232-X
$15.95 paperback
6 x 9
158 pages
Fiction/Literary
AVAILABLE IN NOVEMBER
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Praise for Junior Ray:
...while not for the squeamish, Junior Ray deserves shelf
space beside the best southern Literature--even if it makes its neighbors
blush.
--bn.com
...in this promising debut novel, John Pritchard proves that he knows
the language and customs of (the Delta's) natives as well as any
writer to come along in quite some time...pitch perfect.
--Steve Yarborough, The Mobile Register
Junior Ray's peculiar views on marriage, redneck sex, religion, and law
enforcement are laugh-out-loud funny...
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review
This writer knows the country whereof he speaks, its dialect, its morés
and folkways. But this is not sociology. It is primitive fiction of the
sort one rarely sees. More's the pity. Underneath this violent language
and narrative, there is a sweet truth. It deserves to be read.
-- Harry Crews, author of The Mulching of America and Celebration
Junior Ray is an unforgettable narrator: hilarious, rowdy, and
stubbornly his own. In life you’d cross to the other side of the street
to avoid him; in John Pritchard’s delightful fictional debut, you’ll
turn the pages to see what that rascal does next.
--Louise Redd, author of Hangover Soup
John Pritchard uses his narrator's distinctive voice to comment on how
things have changed since the days when 'Mississippi used to be able to do
whatever it wanted until the United States found out about it...' A
short, funny novel [with a ] colorful narrator for a messy Mississippi
tale.
--The Tennessean
Junior Ray is a novel about understanding the unlovable.
--The Mississippi Press
John Pritchard has brought to life one of the most tangible, offensive,
realistic and rascally characters ever to step out of a 1950s patrol car.
--Jackson Free Press
Although Junior Ray is hateful, he is sometimes very funny and, on
occasion, insightful into the class and race workings of Delta society...
--The Tuscaloosa News/Alabama Public Radio
This provocative, and sure to be controversial, novella takes the reader
on a field trip inside the mind of a Mississippi Delta good-old-boy
ex-deputy sheriff who is as vicious and racist as the worst 1950s–60s
stereotypes. Junior Ray Loveblood tells the story in his own profane,
colloquial voice, telling why he hates just about everybody, and why he
wants to shoot Leland Shaw, a shell-shocked World War II hero and poet who
is hiding in a silo from what he believes are German patrols. The reader
gets to sort out whose reality is more fantastic, Shaw’s or Loveblood’s,
as the one stalks the other through the pages of this highly original and
darkly comedic story.
about the author
John Pritchard grew up in the Mississippi Delta. He now teaches
college English in Memphis, Tennessee. This is his first book. His second book, The Yazoo Blues (sequel to Junior Ray) will be published in October.
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