Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel - Softcover

Sherman, Dayne

9780990630326: Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0990630323 ISBN 13: 9780990630326

Publisher: Accendo Books, 2015

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10th Anniversary Edition of Award-Winning Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel by Dayne Sherman. Includes Reader’s Guide for Book Groups and Author Interview. Booklist Magazine's "Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to Country Noir" - Louisiana Pick, 2012 Description: Baxter Parish, Louisiana, is a bloody place where family tradition is stronger than the law and pride more valuable than life. Thirty-year-old Jesse Tadlock returns home to Packwood Corners to claim his inheritance after a peaceful, if not dull, twelve-year Army hitch. With a steady job, a past love back in his life, and his own land, he thinks he’s outlasted the legacy of violence that has haunted his family. But the morning after his first night in his new home in Mount Olive, a neighbor turns up at his door with a loaded rifle on his arm and a bloodthirsty pit bull in tow. Balem “Cotton” Moxley says he was born in this house and he’ll die there, or Jesse will. With his Uncle Red pushing him to deal with the threat the old way—meeting fist with blade, bullet with bomb—at odds with his desire for a simple peace, Jesse must find a way to stand up and save his own, even if it means losing everything to the fires of pride. Praise for Dayne Sherman and Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel “This pitch-perfect debut novel, about a hard-luck place where blood feuds spring up natural as pit bulls after raw meat, will go down easier with fans of rural crime stories than a juicy pork steak steeped in red-eye gravy.” ---Booklist (May 2012 "Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to Country Noir" Winner & Starred Review) “Backwoods violence and blood feuds are nothing new in Southern fiction, so it takes a strong writer to slug it out with in swamp and come back with a memorable story. Ponchatoula novelist Dayne Sherman is just such a writer, and Welcome to the Fallen Paradise, set in a fictional Baxter Parish, is just such an unforgettable book... utterly compelling.” --Times-Picayune (one of four “Best Debuts” in 2004) “A very slick debut tale, colorful and taut, that takes us into a crazy world and, at the close, brings us out alive.” -- Kirkus “Sherman’s promising debut chronicles a young man’s thorny return to his Louisiana hometown... Sherman brilliantly reunites a land with its own set of vicious rules with a native of that land who, as a changed man, simply wants peace. Weaving his way through a series of complex characters and a terrain fertilized with a proud but bloody history, Sherman tells a spirited and engaging tale.” --Publishers Weekly “Dayne Sherman’s exciting fiction takes us down a dusty Southern road to a place where both honor and ties of blood are more important than breath itself, and where even the religion is violent.” --Tim Gautreaux, author of The Missing and The Clearing “Dayne Sherman writes like I wish I could if I was still young enough to change.” --Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin’ and Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story "Welcome to the Fallen Paradise reads like an amped-up, muscle-bound, southern morality tale of old. But Dayne Sherman has taken a classic story of family honor and revenge and given it just the right dash of modern swing. Fast-paced, action-packed, and filled with one memorable character after another, this is one page-turner that will remind you that the southern gothic is alive and well.” --Inman Majors, author The Millionaires

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About the Author

Dayne Sherman is a college professor. He has worked a variety of jobs as a grocery store clerk, carpenter's helper, door-to-door rat poison distributor, watermelon salesman, itinerant Baptist preacher, English as a second language teacher in Russia, fitness instructor, and most recently as a reference librarian. At 18 years old, he took the GED and went to the university in his hometown. A member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sherman earned master’s degrees from LSU and Southeastern Louisiana University. Welcome to the Fallen Paradise was published by MacAdam/Cage in 2004. It was named a Best Debut of the Year by The Times-Picayune and a Notable Book by Book Sense. Recently, Welcome to the Fallen Paradise was the sole "Louisiana" pick for Booklist's "Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to Country Noir." His writing has appeared in many literary magazines, and one of his short stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sherman lives in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, with his wife and son. His website is daynesherman.com. Zion is his second novel.

From Publishers Weekly

Sherman's promising debut chronicles a young man's thorny return to his Louisiana hometown. Baxter Parish is a "dead-end place, a place filled with death and violence, a territory sunk in the mire of unemployment and poverty." After serving 12 years in the army, 30-year-old Jesse Taddock returns to Baxter Parish to bid his dying mother farewell, and then decides to stay. He secures a job as deputy sheriff, reunites with an old high school flame and buys a house with his $30,000 inheritance. Life looks to be just fine until the giant Balem "Cotton" Moxley shows up at Jesse's doorstep with a shotgun, vowing to reclaim the land he insists rightfully belongs to him. Jesse, forced to choose between capitulation (the sheriff's strong advice) and a good hard fight, opts for the latter. With the assistance of his uncle Red, Jesse prepares to go head to head with Moxley, erecting blockades and fashioning an arsenal of bullets, bombs and blades. Sherman brilliantly reunites a land with its own set of vicious rules with a native of that land who, as a changed man, simply wants peace. Weaving his way through a series of complex characters and a terrain fertilized with a proud but bloody history, Sherman tells a spirited and engaging tale.
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