HOW I LEFT THE GREAT STATE OF TENNESSEE AND WENT ON TO BETTER THINGS
by Joe Jackson

Publisher:  Carroll & Graf

Pub Date:  Spring 2004

Format:   Hardcover

Brief Description
From the six time Pulitzer Prize nominee and Edgar Award Finalist comes a picaresque novel of social realism set in the 1960s south, which draws its themes from the wanderings of Appalachian migrants, the Tennessee Valley Authority, cockfighting rituals, the Bay of Pigs, the Freedom Rides, and restless youth of the early 60s

Review Highlights:
 "The adventures of a plucky, restless 16-year-old in 1960s Appalachia come to life in Jackson's heartfelt, meandering first novel. ...the story is told with zest and brims with drawling dialogue.... others will appreciate Jackson's range and determination."
--Publishers Weekly

 

Past Review and Endorsement Highlights:

 [for A FURNACE AFLOAT]

"A gripping tale of the high seas so well written you feel as if you're actually experiencing the terrible ordeal. A true stunner you'll never forget."
--Clive Cussler

"A FURNACE AFLOAT is so skillfully written I felt as if I were adrift with the ill-fated sailors of the Hornet as they faced starvation, madness, sharks, and the biggest threat of all -- each other -- in their epic struggle to survive. Much like The Perfect Storm, this is a compelling account of rugged men fighting to endure in a life-and-death battle with a most unforgiving opponent -- the open sea. Read it and you won't be disappointed!"
--Pete Earley
Author of The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison

"An extraordinary story, beautifully told. Jackson wears his research lightly but he has an unerring eye for the telling phrase and the significant detail, while his mastery of the historical context and the undercurrents of class and race bubbling below the surface, illuminates a narrative of ever-mounting drama and tension."
--Neil Hanson
author of The Custom of the Sea

"Joe Jackson has written a spellbinding castaway saga that vividly recaptures the 1866 disaster of an American clipper ship swallowed up by a fire at sea. A Furnace Afloat--in the nautical tradition of Herman Melville, Jack London, and Herman Wouk--is a hair-raising narrative that is impossible to put down. A true triumph in historical recreation."
--Douglas Brinkley
Director, The Eisenhower Center for American Studies, and Professor of History, University of New Orleans


Review Highlights:

(for DEAD RUN)
"[A] fascinating and honest portrayal"
--New York Times Book Review

"Burke and Jackson offer a gripping inside look at the life usually hidden behind prison walls and a frightening indictment of the criminal justice system."
--Publishers Weekly

"..[they] produce a dark epic chronicling the only multiple escape from death row, and the redemption of a man condemned for a murder likely not his own doing, in that rare volume that is at once a taut, gripping true-crime tide and a disturbing indictment of the nether regions of criminal justice."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A remarkable prison narrative."
--Philadelphia Inquirer

"Dennis Stockton is quite likely to become famous posthumously as a result of this superb book."
--The Christian Science Monitor

"There's more than enough intrigue, action, and disturbing comedy to fill several thrillers, but Dead Run is a true story of a man who refused to sit still and wait for the hour of his death."
--Amazon.com

"Dead Run, unlike other books by inmates, employees or outsiders, provides an authentic, verified, objective view of the prison world."
--The Angolite: The Prison News Magazine

"Readers looking for a true-crime story that reaches for broader themes... will find one in Dead Run."
--Orlando Sentinel

"Uplifting and depressing in equal measures I was moved by this book to once again protest against the Death Penalty. If there is to be any sense in Stockton's death maybe this is it."
--Crime Time
World Rights:  Contact Carroll & Graf

Dramatic Rights:  Contact Lukeman


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