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Table of Contents
About The Book
John Tolley is a bumbling college dropout who yearns to become a bowtie-wearing, pipe-smoking historian. When he hears that Andrew Johnson's lost papers may have been preserved by an heir in Tennessee, he grabs his tweed jacket and heads south, convinced that he'll discover the key to a groundbreaking biography on the seventeenth U.S. president and the start of a respectable career.
But things start to go awry when his car breaks down in the town of Pantherville, Tennessee. Tolley rents a decrepit shack owned by a neurotic ex-con and is soon sucked into a world of cockfights, coon dogs, and the politics of Pantherville's good old boys. Surrounded by folks as eccentric as he is, including an alluringly shy mail carrier named Dweena, Tolley starts to feel at home -- even if his quest for academic glory might just prove to be a wild goose chase. Native and newcomer, highbrow and hillbilly cross paths and tangle hilariously in this wry and ribald tale.
Product Details
- Publisher: Free Press (January 17, 2006)
- Length: 288 pages
- ISBN13: 9780743244497
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Raves and Reviews
Jauntily entertaining...a picaresque novel and an often funny exploration of slacker consciousness...works the same deadpan comic vein as the Coen brothers in Fargo." -- The New York Times Book Review
"A kinder, gentler Confederacy of Dunces.... The success of a novel like this rests on the tenor of its narrator's voice, and Whorton hits that right on.... If you're looking for something more hysterical than historical, Whorton has a nice, light touch." -- The Christian Science Monitor
"A comedy of misunderstandings blooms to perfection in Whorton's enchanting and erudite caper, set in hillbilly eastern Tennessee.... Whorton's deadpan comic genius exploits misunderstandings...for laugh-out-loud results.... A joy." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"A winning second novel.... Warm characterization, quiet but exuberantly sly wit and a winning narrator add up to a thoroughly enjoyable escapade." -- Publishers Weekly
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): Frankland Trade Paperback 9780743244497
- Author Photo (jpg): James Whorton Jim Dusen(0.7 MB)
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