A Genuine Southern Voice Coupled With a Nicely Complex Plot

books:

	• One Mississippi Mark Childress Back Bay Books, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 44 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Coming of Age in Mississippi

I heard Mark Childress talking about this book on NPR and thought, what the heck, I need a good summer read. This book is so much more than that. A coming of age story that reaches deeper than most. A slice of life in the south during the 60's. Touching, upsetting and comical all at the same time.

Great Southern Inspired Novel

This is a Southern Gothic type of novel in the manner of Harry Crews. Very vivid and raw. An exploration of almost all the deadly sins through the eyes of a Junior and Senior in High School.

So much richness in the characters. Beautiful development of the plot. As always, Mark is right on the button with his characterizations. I grew up in Alabama. I could almost pick out people in the book that were very close to acquaintances.

A very bittersweet book with a chilling ending.
Highly recommended.

for more information click here

One m.i.s.s.i.s.s.i.p.p.i spells out a good read...

One Mississippi is a delightful read! I tore through the book and did find it a great summer read. It is a coming of age story, but one in which you will find you wish you were right there with the main characters experiencing the same experiences. I do agree with another reviewer who states that there is somehow a feeling of unresolve at the end of reading this book, but there is satisfaction with some resolution in the relationships between characters such as the main character and his friend and with his father. Highly recommended.

A Genuine Southern Voice Coupled With a Nicely Complex Plot

Well, that didn't take very long. Once I got to about the halfway point in this book I was able to just fly right on to the end. To say it's action-packed is putting it very mildly.

One Mississippi is a good read, and as I believe I may have mentioned previously, the southern voice is so authentic I forgot I was reading it in the Yankee North. Very well captured, Mr. Childress. Very well, indeed.

The book is about friendship bordering on obsession, and also about the complexity of budding adolescence. Without giving away too much that's plot-spoiling, suffice to say it covers the subject of exploring sexuality, as well as the confusion of sexual orientation and the worst of its ramifications. The book is by turns hilarious, poignant and also very violent. There's a lot packed into this one that you wouldn't at first supposed. Finding that unexpected complexity of plot was a very nice surprise, indeed.

Though I think the average reader could find a lot in the book, I know it's definitely enriched by the fact I identify with the Mississippi setting. It's hard to disassociate from that, but I would still say the appeal should be universal. Books about coming-of-age are popular largely because we've all been there and recognize all the good, bad and ugly of it. It's all too familiar, and in Mark Childress's hands the resulting issues are handled deftly with with a good degree of skill.

I enjoyed spending time with this book, and the time went by all too quickly. Definitely the mark of a good read.

for more information click here

A clear, clean voice

Each Childress book is different, the indicator of a creative mind. In his latest, "One Mississippi," a 1970s Southern community is dissected with merciless precision, often comic, and the rites of passage of two teenage boys is the prism through which all is viewed. Those who grew up in the time and place will recognize much that is rendered with clarity and truth. Each character is bound by circumstances into the hapless, stereotypical roles into which he is born with the exception of Arnita, black prom queen who believes herself white after an accident and whose break with her own reality is also her downfall. The mosaic of Southern patterns...the template for a male, the dedicated female teacher whose elevator sometimes doesn't go to the top floor, the insensitive, ignorant preacher, the hysterical wife and mother with grandiose Southern ideas, the obsessed young church music leader, the intelligent and belligerent black mama, the stud football hero, the stern but absent traveling salesman father, the confused teenage boy...grout these with frictions that come about in contacts in their daily lives and fateful disaster is inevitable. You may put this book down to attend to daily necessities, but you will soon be drawn back to find out what happens next, like a tongue probing a loose tooth. You won't be satisfied until you've turned the last page. Can you ask more of a book?

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

search for books
mississippi

Impressum / about us