Description:
John Pritchard's novels Junior Ray and The Yazoo Blues have been dubbed "hilariously tasteless" and "not for the squeamish or pure of heart"-and equally praised by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and lovers of Southern fiction everywhere.
In Sailing to Alluvium, the third installment of Pritchard's "Junior Ray Saga," irrepressible ex-deputy sheriff Junior Ray Loveblood and his sidekick Voyd Mudd have become "diktectives" to stop the murderous activities of a semi-secret, lethal organization of Southern women, the AUNTY BELLES, headed by Miss Attica Rummage.
Sailing to Alluvium is another brilliant tale of the bumbling duo, with an unforgettable cast of characters deeply rooted in the Mississippi Delta, a place both real and imaginary. The novel, hilarious and moving, revolves around obsessions, underneath which lies the dark history of a class conflict that exists in the Deep South, not among black and white but between the white "haves" and the white "have-nots."
John Pritchard's work fits well between the singing prose of James Agee and the rustic lampoon and high humor of Erskine Caldwell. The reader is treated to a unique brand of dark comedy that closes the divide between burlesque and metaphysics, fuses the profane with the sublime, and explains the Deep South as no other writer has.
Brief description: John Pritchard grew up in the Mississippi Delta. That region and its peculiarities are the focus of his writing. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, where he has taught college English, written jingles, and worked in advertising and PR. In the 1960s, Pritchard was employed as a copyboy and then as a news clerk for the New York Times. In the 1970s, he wrote lyrics on Music Row in Nashville, where a few of his songs were recorded on the Prairie Dust, Barnaby, Warner Bros., RCA, A&M, and RCA France labels. The author has also worked as a deputy sheriff and was briefly a deckhand on a Swedish freighter.
Review Quotes:
"Gotdam! Junior Ray is back, bigger and bawdier than ever in what is not only a first-rate 'diktecktive' story but a veritable feast for the body and soul. In addition to elegant musings, both poetic and philosophical, this amazing book also offers numerous recipes for dishes such as 'Junior Ray's Famous KKKobbler, ' that are certain to set Delta gourmets to salivating from Midnight to Moon Lake." - James C. Cobb, author, The Most Southern Place on Earth
"Honed from the rough roads of dialect, the language within defines Pritchard as one of our great Southern writers. The man has an ear for the voice of his people, and he's twisted their words into a tough, raunchy, comic roller-coasting romp, corkscrewing us down the byways of a Delta that is more than likely not traveled by the average tourist, but should be." - Frank Bill, author, Crimes in Southern Indiana
"Like his protagonist, John Pritchard's novel is outrageous and ribald, a revolt against the literary school of manners and a ride that takes Southern gothic to new extremes." - Curtis Wilkie, author, Arkansas Mischief