Lucky Town - Softcover

Brown, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 146200945X ISBN 13: 9781462009459

Publisher: iUniverse Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

Lucky Town is a beautiful piece of writing. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny, this novel is always accurate in its precise rendering of filial love and devotion. We are reminded, as art will do, that the human spirit is indomitable, and that the most ordinary lives can be utterly extraordinary in their tragedies and victories. - Tim O'Brien "A wonderful narrative There is an utterly compelling nature to this vigorous tale of the pilgrimage of a son and his erratic, passionate father Few writers possess James Brown's authoritative talent for dealing with such besetting familial ironies". - Thomas Keneally

About this title

About the Author

James Brown is the author of the memoirs, The Los Angeles Diaries and This River. He has received the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. His writing has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Ploughshares. He teaches in the M.F.A. Program at Cal State San Bernadino.

From Kirkus Reviews

A love-hate relationship between a father and his son heats up to a competitive flash point in Brown's propulsive fourth book (Final Performance, 1988, etc.). Bobby Barlow, now 30, looks back at the teenage years he spent with his father, Floyd, a car thief, gambler, and all-round bad- news guy, in the late '60s in Portland and Las Vegas. Floyd becomes enamored of Melinda Johnson, a beautiful former prostitute who is working as a receptionist while going to law school at night. When Floyd loses two fingers in an accident at the mill where he is working and the insurance company insists it will pay for only one and a half since one finger was chopped off at the first knuckle, he kidnaps an insurance executive, threatens to slice off his fingers, then dumps him and makes off with his Cadillac. Floyd and Bobby then pick up Melinda and get involved in a chase with the police, not only because of the stolen car, but also because Melinda's boyfriend, Bo Stenovich, is a cop. After a few years in prison for Floyd and a foster home for Bobby, the two are reunited and set out to hook up with Melinda again, even though she married Bo a few days after the arrest. Their crimes escalate from petty to more and more serious, but through it all Bobby is enthralled by his father, even as he comes to realize that he is more of a parent to Floyd than Floyd is to him. Bobby's voice is matter-of-fact, and he often states the most surprising information flatly and to comic effect. The male version of Mona Simpson's Anywhere But Here but so much better. Tense as we experience the Barlow guys' emotional and physical thrills. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 146200945X
• ISBN 13: 9781462009459
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300