Junior Ray

By John Pritchard

Book Overview

This provocative novel takes the reader on a wild ride inside the mind of a Mississippi Delta good-old-boy ex-deputy sheriff who is as vicious and racist as the worst 1950s-'60s stereotypes. Junior Ray Loveblood narrates the story in his own profane, colloquial voice, telling why he hates just about everybody and why he wants to shoot Leland Shaw, a shell-shocked World War II hero and poet who is hiding in a silo from what he believes are German patrols. Through a series of sleights of hand, misdirections, and near misses, Junior Ray and his sidekick Voyd give a dark tour of the Delta country as they chase their mysterious prey. Junior Ray's thoughts are peppered with excerpts from Shaw's notebooks--sometimes starkly different from Junior Ray's diatribe, sometimes eerily similar--and by the end of the story, it is up to the reader to sort out whose reality is more fantastic, Shaw's or Loveblood's, as the one stalks the other through the pages of this highly original and darkly comedic story.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158838232X
• ISBN13: 9781588382320
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

TUNICA MS AND THE GOOD OLE BOYS

THIS BOOK IS A TRUTHFUL BOOK WITH ALL THE NAMES CHANGED . MOST OF THESE PEOPLE I KNOW OR KNEW . IT GIVES A VIEW OF THE PLACE I GREW UP. BUT I NEVER RELIZED HOW BAD THE PLACE REALLY WAS . UNTIL THIS DAY I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SUBMORINE .I HEARD MY PARENTS TALK ABOUT IT . THE AUTHOR COULD HAVE USED A FEW LESS NASTY WORDS . BUT IF HE WAS WRITING LIKE POEPLE TALK IN THAT TOWN THEN HE HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T LIKE THE BOOK BECAUSE IT IS GRAPHIC BUT THAT IS JUST THE WAY IT WAS AND STILL IS ONLY IT IS IN REVERSE NOW.

Junior Ray, an Instant Classic

I grew up in the South, and although Junior Ray is somewhat older, I understood his millieu. I had friends who were as bloodthirsty, and relatives who were as racist, but I knew no one who was as philosophically sophisticated as Pritchard's protagonist. JR is a latter day Falstaff, Caliban, Aaron the Moor, and Don Quixote combined into one marvellous character. Don't be misled by the setting: Pritchard's planters, bankers, "niggas," and "white trash" are all around us still, and if we look deeply enough, JR is us. Let's hope that Pritchard will delight us again in the near future. In the meantime, Junior Ray will remain a cult classic -- unless of course, the NYTimes has the courage to review it. PS: Junior Ray includes by far the most amusing human copulation scene ever to appear in literature.

One helluva good book

Pritchard has succeeded in creating a character on the par with Holden Caulfield or Ignatius Reilly: you don't like them at all really, but you can't stop reading to see what they'll do next. At a time when the modern South constantly tries to show that it has left behind its old ways, Junior Ray Loveblood doesn't give a crap whether you approve of his way of looking at things. This book is funny, aggravating, intriguing social commentary from a man whose time has gone.

Ms. Atlanta Birmingham Jackson is tip of the iceberg.

From the adventures of "Mr. Floppy" and "Miz Squint," to all my other favorite parts, each time I re-read them, I laugh out loud louder! Hooray for Junior Ray!

The land between Faulkner and Tennessee Williams

This is a book strong on character and place. As such it preserves and describes a most peculiar region of the American South, a nonfictional place most notably written about by J.Cobb in "The Most Southern Place" on Earth. That is the setting of Junior Ray. Though "Junior Ray" is about the change from hand labor to mechanized agriculture and from the ways of the 19th century to the technology of the twentieth, all combined with an elemental savagery, there is a large dose of high buffoonery woven throughout the book. Readers will find "Junior Ray" one of the most fascinating and funniest books they've ever read.