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A Barnes & Noble Sensational Debut Novel
"Something of a miracle." - The Memphis Flyer
John Pritchard's acclaimed first novel, Junior Ray, takes the reader on a wild ride
inside the mind of Junior Ray Loveblood, a Mississippi Delta deputy sheriff
as bloodthirsty as he is misguidedly hilarious. Junior Ray 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.
"This writer knows the country whereof he speaks, its dialect, its mores and
folkways. But this is not sociology. It is primitive fiction of the sort one rarely
sees. More's the pity. Underneath this violent language and narrative, there is a
sweet truth. It deserves to be read." - Harry Crews, The Mulching of America
"Junior Ray runs on a belly laugh per page. When Junior Ray, a deputy sheriff
who makes Flem Snopes sound cultured, sets out to track down a 'maniac' loose
in the Mississippi Delta, he proves to be more demented than his prey. Like his
protagonist, John Pritchard's novella is outrageous and ribald, a revolt against
the literary school of manners and a ride that takes Southern Gothic to new
extremes." - Curtis Wilkie, Arkansas Mischief
