- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Back Bay Books (Oct 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0316940453
- ISBN-13: 978-0316940450
- Product Dimensions: 20.7 x 13.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,704,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for James Wilcox:
‘Wilcox is a highly polished comic performer.’
Observer
‘Wilcox has a sophisticated control of pace, his humour the chill of home truth, and his squibs at the expense of small-town America are rarely off-target.’
Jim Crace, TLS
‘It’s not easy to write a really original novel… Yet Wilcox manages to do just that in his very funny book, MODERN BAPTISTS.’
Daily Telegraph
Product Description
A brilliantly observed, hilarious and poignant social satire. Wilcox’s Tula Springs novels have the narrative litheness of Armistead Maupin and the tragi-comic insights of Anne Tyler.
When Bobby Pickens’s half-brother, F.X. – ex-con, ex-actor and ex-husband (3 times) – moves in with Bobby in Tula Springs, Louisiana, things just seem to go wrong. It’s only a matter of weeks before Bobby finds himself involved in a theft, a hit-and-run collision, a nervous breakdown, unemployment, assault and battery, a number of fouled up romances, and charges of degeneracy brought by the lunchroom attendant at Tula Springs High. It finally takes a Christmas Eve party in a cabin in a poisoned swamp to sort out the tangled affairs of Tula Springs and, in the process, to reveal to Bobby and his friends the pain and sweetness of living life with a full heart and a generous spirit.
Modern Baptists is one of five novels either set in or involving characters from Tula Springs, Louisiana, a fictional town James Wilcox has made as real as Barbara Pym’s North Oxford or Armistead Maupin’s Barbary Lane.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
When F.X. got out of jail, he went to live with his half brother, Mr. Pickens, who lived right next door to Dr. Henry's, the all-night store that sold beer and ice cubes and gas. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When F.X. got out of jail, he went to live with his half brother, Mr. Pickens, who lived right next door to Dr. Henry's, the all-night store that sold beer and ice cubes and gas. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book You've Never Heard Of,
By Humphrey Plugg (Liverpool, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Modern Baptists (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
As the introduction by Jim Crace notes, author James Wilcox has "respect but no sales". When he produces a novel which is as funny as this, but also as poignant, you have to wonder why the latter is true.
Set in the small Louisiana town of Tula Springs, Modern Baptists tells the story of Bobby Pickens, a rather sad and lonely figure who simply wants respectability and love. But the arrival of his half-brother, FX, on parole sets in train a series of events destined to thwart even these limited ambitions. Surrounded by a set of equally dysfunctional characters - FX, a drug dealer and failed actor who craves celebrity, shop assistant Burma who perhaps loves Mr Pickens, and her colleague Toinette who Mr Pickens loves, Emmet, Burma's rather odd fiance, Donna Lee, the liberal minded but broken hearted lawyer, and the silent Moab - Mr Pickens goes from one calamity to another. If you can imagine Mr Pooter transferred to the world of "A Confederacy of Dunces", it will give you a little flavour of the book. If you enjoy novels like that, or like "Lucky Jim", it is definitely worth getting - and at the heavily discounted prices on Amazon it's more than good value.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews) 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The funniest novel I have ever read,
By Bobs - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Modern Baptists (Paperback)
James Wilcox is the best author you have never heard of. His novels are comic masterpieces. MODERN BAPTISTS remains his best but NORTH GLADIOLA, PLAIN AND NORMAL, and GUEST OF A SINNER are all quite good. But if you read POLITE SEX or SORT OF RICH, you will be amazed by the way he balances hysterical comedy with dramatic pathos. In a perfect world his novels would be read by millions and he would have the status of a Phillip Roth or a John Updike.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my favorite books.,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Modern Baptists (Paperback)
I'm a voracious reader, but I rarely RE-read books. (You know how it is--so many books, so little time.) Still, I've re-read this novel over and over. Simply put, it's extremely funny, impeccably written, and contains some of the most vivid characters you'll find anywhere. My advice to those considering this book: read the first ten pages or so. If you're drawn into the story and/or find yourself laughing like a crazy person, then you know this is the book for you. If these things DON'T happen to you, well, I'm sure you're got good taste in some other area of your life. :) Really, if you're a fan of good fiction, you should give yourself the opportunity to experience the unsung, underrated James Wilcox, and this book is the best beginning.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wilcox is a master of subtle, all-too-human comedy,
By scribbler1 "scribbler1" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Modern Baptists (Paperback)
Where has this author been all my life? Or, maybe a better questions is, where have I been? "Modern Baptists" was the first Wilcox novel I have ever read, and now I want to read them all. Deft, comic, eloquently spare prose, and hilarious on every page. With writing that includes lines like "I'm just here looking at the opera," (paraphrased - but it's close) I'm ready to read the whole Wilcox oeuvre!
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