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NEWSOUTH BOOKS
978-1-58838-217-7
1-58838-217-6
$24.95 hardcover
5 1/2 x 8 1/2
200 pages
Fiction
AVAILABLE NOW |
Junior Ray Loveblood returns in this sequel of sorts to Junior Ray, the 2005 debut novel by John Pritchard. Junior Ray was named one of Barnes and Noble's Top Ten Debut Novels for the year. Equally profane and unintentionally profound, the fictional narrator of Pritchard's novel lives in the complex stew of evolving race relations, failed economies, and corrupt politics that define much of the post-civil rights rural Deep South--in Junior Ray's case, specifically in the Mississippi Delta. In Junior Ray, Loveblood, a white racist deputy sheriff, and his sidekick, Voyd, pursued and tried to kill a shell-shocked war veteran. Now, in a setting some years later, Loveblood is semi-retired and working as a security guard in one of the floating casinos that have replaced cotton as the cash crop in the Mississippi Delta. And in his spare time, Junior Ray has become an amateur historian, fascinated with the ill-fated Yazoo Pass expedition by a Union armada up the Mississippi River in 1863.
about the author
John Pritchard grew up in the Mississippi Delta; he now teaches college English in Memphis, Tennessee. Junior Ray was his debut novel.
REVIEWS
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In this insightful, laugh-out-loud follow-up to his debut novella, Junior Ray, Pritchard again indulges the profanely backwoods, occasionally backwards, voice of Mississippi “good ol' boy” Junior Ray Loveblood. Formerly deputy sheriff of a Mississippi delta town, Junior Ray is now an aging parking lot guard at the floating Lucky Pair-O-Dice Casino, and an amateur historian. His account of a failed Union naval expedition at Yazoo Pass on the Mississippi River also includes the story of his research expedition, with his friend Mad Owens, to the Magic Pussy Cabaret & Club “up in Meffis.” Among other theories, Junior Ray speculates that peyote ruined Union Lt. Cmdr. Watson Smith's life, that love undermined Mad Owens's and that the strip club saved his own. Each interwoven story is as surprising and strong as Junior Ray himself, who conjures a surreal scene of ironclads logjammed in a bayou as colorfully as he recounts a backroom lap dance from his best friend's granddaughter Petunia. Between expletives and misanthropic digressions, Junior Ray reveals a lifetime of deep, unlikely friendships, even getting at an occasional truth in a humble manner that's—as Junior Ray might put it—“as soft as a quail's fart.” (Oct.)
Library Journal
This follow-up to Pritchard's debut novel, Junior Ray, remains true to the formula that led to the first book's unlikely success. Blues is a wildly profane, book-long regurgitation devoid of plot but not hilarity. This time out, instead of focusing on Junior Ray's intention to kill a World War II veteran who has just escaped from a mental hospital, the narrative looks at Junior's "research" of the Yazoo Pass expedition by a Union armada up the Mississippi River in 1863. Though Junior's account contains laugh-out-loud dimestore philosophy on race, history, religion, and especially sex, the narrative curiously veers into didacticism. Perhaps in trying to impress upon the reader that Junior is more than just an ignorant "peckerwood," Pritchard takes some of the fun out of such an outrageously unique character. One wonders if placing Junior in a more conventional narrative structure, with more interaction with other characters, would provide him the layers necessary to bring him more fully to life. Lightly recommended.-Kevin Greczek, Hamilton, NJ
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