Welcome to Higby : A Novel - Softcover

Mark Dunn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0413773175 ISBN 13: 9780413773173

Publisher: Methuen Pub Ltd

Synopsis

Welcome to Higby, a small town in northern Mississippi. Over one extraordinary Labor Day weekend, we meet, in interwoven narratives, an unforgettable cast of characters. Stewie Kipp and Marci Luck, whose love has grown stale; Carmen Valentine and Euless Ludlam, whose shared, debilitating shyness threatens to derail a barely-started relationship; the Reverend Oren Cullen, a widower struggling to resolve ties to his emotionally distant son Clint in the midst of lingering grief and a midlife crisis; Tula Gilmurray, whose love for her brother Hank can't heal her worry over his fading mind; and Talitha Leigh, whose thirst for adventure delivers her into the hands of a food cult. Funny, intricate and sweetly touching, with the narrative energy of an Altman movie, Welcome to Higby is a Southern-comical tale about simple dreams both realised and thwarted by the complexities of the human heart. Ella Minnow Pea has sold 20,000 copies to date

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Dunn is the author of Ella Minnow Pea, Welcome to Highy, and a new novel, IBID. An award-winning playwright, he live in Greenwich Village, New York

From Publishers Weekly:

Writing in the spirit of his clever debut novel, Ella Minnow Pea, in which an island's language-loving inhabitants must adapt to a shrinking alphabet, Dunn delivers another witty and intricate book. This time he uses biblical quotations to guide his narrative, which tracks the residents of Higby, Miss., during Labor Day weekend of 1993, as they search for happiness, love and salvation. The tightly interwoven story lines feature a veritable swarm of oddballs, including Stewie Kipp, a born-again Christian whose fiancee, Marci Luck, resents his attempts at piety; Talitha Leigh, a floozy who is kidnapped by an extremist vegan cult and renamed "Blithe"; and dim-witted Euless Ludlam, who finds himself on the receiving end of a huge inheritance. The Bible quotes aren't just gimmicky transitional devices, since the novel closely follows themes of redemption and salvation, albeit in a screwball manner: as one character, Carmen Valentine, notes, "My guardian angel likes to help me stretch my shopping dollar." The collision of celestial concepts and quirky mannerisms makes the book both laugh-out-loud funny and sweetly touching. At its core is the belief that "God equals love," though the characters demonstrate this in some rather strange ways. Dunn, a playwright, has a wonderful ear for dialogue; his rich and enticing prose, elegant structuring and wonderful attention to the smallest of details make this novel a delight.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Pub Ltd
• ISBN 10: 0413773175
• ISBN 13: 9780413773173
• Binding: Paperback