Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi

November 17, 2008
With a sensibility as sweet as a glass of sugary iced tea and a plot as placid as a hazy summer day, Kincaid’s sixth book (after As Hot As It Was You Ought to Thank Me
) tracks the domestic travails of Truely and Courtney Noonan, brother and sister Mississippians who have forsaken sleepy rural life for adventure in California. Courtney is first to head west, finding marital contentment with Hastings, a countercultural hanger-on she meets at a Grateful Dead concert. With a scholarship for San Jose State, Truely soon follows, connecting with a computer whiz, making an Internet fortune and falling hard for Jesse. Both Noonans seem happily married, until Jesse miscarries and leaves Truely. Then Hastings leaves Courtney for a younger woman because he’s “not ready to grow old.” Though they both live in the Bay Area, these rootless siblings seldom cross paths, until Arnold, a black teenager, insinuates himself into their lives. Kincaid has been pigeonholed as a Southern writer, but this unsentimental story about the forging of an unorthodox family has universal appeal.

November 1, 2008
Blues on the bayou, and blood to boot.

The piney woods of southern Mississippi aren 't much of a place. Everyone knows everyone 's business, nobody has enough to do, and in between hurricanes there 's only trouble to get into. Ward 's first novel opens with Christophe and Joshua DeLisle, fraternal twins, preparing to jump into the swirling waters of a muddy river —to cool off, not to kill themselves. It 's a portentous moment, for just as each will jump differently, so will their lives take a different course. Caring for an ailing grandmother and just out of high school, the boys are holding their own in this backwater world until temptation presents itself: Joshua finds himself with some folding money after finding a job on the wharves, Christophe with yet more folding money after he takes up selling a little weed after not finding licit work. Danger insinuates itself in the form of the boys ' long-absent father, a bad actor with a mean drug habit who likes stronger blends than Christophe has to sell, and the story thenceforth takes turns that can be seen coming from a long way off. Ward 's plotting is predictable, but her story is closely observed, full of telling details: "Christophe had fallen asleep in the middle of counting his money, and was stretched out with his arms thrown over his head as if he had been surprised, his mouth open, the bills ragged and bunched underneath him. " The author, a native of the Mississippi coast, serves up a world that has been little depicted: the rural African-American South, a place of grinding poverty but enduring loyalties, tragic but somehow noble at the same time.

A promising debut.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 15, 2008
Mississippi may just be the setting for the beginning of this novel by the author of "As Hot as It Was You Ought To Thank Me", but the Deep Southern sensibility colors the whole story, as it does the life of protagonist Truely Noonan. His vibrant, strong-willed sister Courtney shocks her parents and local convention by fleeing Hinds County for California, where she almost immediately hooks up with the wealthy, distinctly non-Mississippi Hastings, whom she eventually marries. When it comes time for college, Truely follows, going to San Jose and leaving behind his high school sweetheart. His rise to fortune in the technology field doesn't assure a happy life, though, and late in the game he and his sister both find themselves involved with teenage Arnold, a gang boy with legal troubles looking for an attachment. It's a warm, folksy, easy-to-read tale of flawed people trying to find their way. Recommended.Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2008
Blues on the bayou, and blood to boot.

The piney woods of southern Mississippi aren't much of a place. Everyone knows everyone's business, nobody has enough to do, and in between hurricanes there's only trouble to get into. Ward's first novel opens with Christophe and Joshua DeLisle, fraternal twins, preparing to jump into the swirling waters of a muddy river —to cool off, not to kill themselves. It's a portentous moment, for just as each will jump differently, so will their lives take a different course. Caring for an ailing grandmother and just out of high school, the boys are holding their own in this backwater world until temptation presents itself: Joshua finds himself with some folding money after finding a job on the wharves, Christophe with yet more folding money after he takes up selling a little weed after not finding licit work. Danger insinuates itself in the form of the boys ' long-absent father, a bad actor with a mean drug habit who likes stronger blends than Christophe has to sell, and the story thenceforth takes turns that can be seen coming from a long way off. Ward's plotting is predictable, but her story is closely observed, full of telling details: "Christophe had fallen asleep in the middle of counting his money, and was stretched out with his arms thrown over his head as if he had been surprised, his mouth open, the bills ragged and bunched underneath him. " The author, a native of the Mississippi coast, serves up a world that has been little depicted: the rural African-American South, a place of grinding poverty but enduring loyalties, tragic but somehow noble at the same time.

A promising debut.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)