B-Four (Deep South Books) - Softcover

Hodges, Sam

3.62

16 ratings by Goodreads

9780817310493: B-Four (Deep South Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817310495 ISBN 13: 9780817310493

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 2000

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Newspapers, the Civil War, love, barbecue . . . Nothing escapes Hodges's
twisted sense of southern culture in his outrageous novel B-Four.

Beauregard Forrest has been a faithful son to his wealthy
and quirky father, joining him in Civil War reenactments and morning coffee,
and an uncomplaining second fiddle to his brother Jackson, an ex-Crimson
Tide football player.

To please his father, Beauregard works as a cub reporter
at the Birmingham Standard-Dispatch, a job his father hopes will
raise Beauregard's college entrance test scores and gain him admittance
to prestigious and gentrified Washington and Lee University.

Far from honing his skills and sharpening his wit, however,
Beauregard's assignments at the Standard-Dispatch--Pet of the Week
and obituaries--promise to bury him in Section B, Page 4, hence his nickname.

Beauregard's road to Page 1 is filled with more potholes
than an Alabama back road. Assigned to cover a speech by a British cleric,
the young reporter believes he may have escaped journalistic limbo, only
to discover the entire sermon delivered in Latin. When he files his story
partly in Latin, he finds himself once again covering breaking news at
the Humane Society.

Hoping to woo his love interest, Lorena, and wow his fellow
reporters with a sizzling front-page scoop, B-Four investigates an anti-Atlanta
campaign organized by the Birmingham Boosters. The hilarity that ensues
launches him on the road to self-discovery.

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About the Author:

Sam Hodges is currently a Washington Correspondent for Newhouse News Service and has been a staff writer at the Birmingham Post-Herald and the Orlando Sentinel. Born in Georgia, Hodges now lives in Washington, D.C. and is a correspondent for the Mobile Register.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A mildly humorous but mostly unexceptional debut from newsman Hodges about his home turf, Birmingham, Alabama, and a cub reporter learning the ropes at the local paper who finds--all at once--love, the will to defy his tyrannical father, and a front-page story. Forced to accompany his banker father on weekly Civil War reenactments, young Beauregard Forrest specializes in realistic battlefield deaths but aspires toward loftier goals. He owes his job to parental string-pulling, and so suffers the scorn of fellow reporters and the city editor, who assigns him the obits, Metro briefs, and Pet-of-the-Week fluff that earn him the sobriquet ``B- Four'' (derived from the inner recesses of the paper where his work always appears). However, with help from a sympathetic senior colleague he begins to make headway as a newshound, first stumbling onto a story about madcap Birmingham boosterism in the form of an orchestrated rush-hour tie-up in rival Atlanta. Scooped by the Associated Press, he rebounds by falling for an eccentric poetry student who leads him to a scandal involving a portable classroom used as a hunting lodge for school officials, this in a time when space limitations force children to be taught on an auditorium stage. The romance proves rocky, but he perseveres, getting both his story and the girl in the end. Meanwhile, much of the novel hinges on banalities: Will Beauregard take the SAT test for entry into the college of his father's choice? Will he tell his new love about these plans? How many cups of coffee will he consume? Colorful and charming in distinctly southern ways, but ultimately disappointing: a standard tale of bright futures and saccharine sentiments. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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