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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Set in the Mississippi backroads, this unflinchingly realistic novel focuses on the relationship between Gary Jones, the 15-year-old son of dissolute itinerant laborers and Joe Ransom, a hard-drinking ex-con who becomes his unlikely savior.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>"Brilliant . . . Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit." -The Washington Post Book WorldNow a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green.Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won't slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he's desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption--or ruin.<p/><br></br><p><b> From the Back Cover </b></p></br></br><p><b>"Brilliant . . . Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit." --<i>The Washington Post Book World</i></b> <p/>Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won't slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he's desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption--or ruin. <p/>"Literature of the first order . . . Powerful stuff spun by a sure, patient hand . . . His characters just <i>are.</i> They call to mind the Joads in John Steinbeck's <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i> and the pictures and people in James Agee's and Walker Evans's <i>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.</i> It is an understated, powerful, beautiful evocation of a place, a time, a people. It is a book that will last." --<i>Detroit Free Press</i> <p/>"Luminescent prose tempered by wit." --<i>The New York Times Book Review</i> <p/>"Sinewy and lyrical." --<i>Los Angeles Times</i> <p/>"Brown compels our admiration, Joe himself makes us care." --<i>Newsweek</i> <p/></p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>With this powerful novel of poverty-mired Mississippi... Brown comes into his own, illuminating the painful lives of his characters with compassion and eloquence. --<strong><i>Publishers Weekly</i></strong><br /><br />Bright with pain and liquor, this raw and gritty novel ranks with the best hard-knocks, down-and-out work of Jim Thompson and Harry Crews. It's lean, mean, and original. --<strong><i>Kirkus Reviews</i></strong><br /><br />Larry Brown is establishing himself as one of the most authentic literary voices of our generation. It's a voice framed, as many great voices have been, in the inflections of the South. It's a voice as true as a gun rack, unpretentious and uncorrupted, full of wit and sorrow. --<strong><i>Baltimore Evening Sun</i></strong></p> <p></p><br>

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