Debut Southern Novel Calling Ties Religion, Radio and Manhood Into Compelling Fiction

Debut Southern Novel Calling Ties Religion, Radio and Manhood Into Compelling Fiction

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Tenn., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Described by the Fall 2005 issue of the Rain Taxi Review of Books as "an entertaining and sometimes transcendent Southern Gothic novel worthy of his literary forbear, the late Larry Brown," the debut novel "Calling" by Joe Samuel Starnes digs beneath the surface of the Southern Baptist Church, commercial radio and small-town manhood.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20051028/NYFFNS1 )

Seated next to each other by happenstance on a bus headed out of Las Vegas, fallen Southern Baptist preacher and radio evangelist from Georgia, Ezekiel Blizzard Jr., and a down-and-out country music deejay from Louisiana, Timber Goodman, wouldn't appear to be compatible. Yet as their ride through the desert progresses and their hardscrabble stories of childhood, drinking, drug-use, gambling, radio, religion, sex and violence in what Flannery O'Connor called the "Christ-haunted South" unfold, they discover they are on a mutual quest for redemption. Just as the Greyhound bus winds through the desert, this captivating tale takes readers on a journey into the deepest recesses of the human soul.

Alice Elliott Dark, author of "In the Gloaming," a short story selected by John Updike for the "Best American Short Stories of the Century," said: "Sam Starnes has crafted a beguiling, often hilarious tale of two American seekers who end up finding truths they hadn't imagined on a bus ride through the desert. This is one of those novels that resonates long after the final page."

The Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald said "Calling" is "a top-notch novel in the tradition of Harry Crews. Starnes' narrative is a lyrical dialect with big plot turns that will keep readers turning pages."

Starnes, 38, has worked in newspapers and public relations in Athens, Milledgeville and Atlanta, Georgia; Bradenton, Florida; Houston, Texas; and New York and New Jersey. He was born in Anniston, Alabama and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia. He earned a journalism degree from the University of Georgia in Athens and an M.A. in English from Rutgers in Newark. He lives in Verona, New Jersey.

For more information, visit his web site at http://www.joesamuelstarnes.com/.

Jefferson Press, founded in 2002 in Oxford, Miss., the home of William Faulkner and more than a dozen other accomplished and noted authors who call it home, is now based in Lookout Mountain, Tenn. For more information, visit http://www.jeffersonpress.com/.

CALLING
By Joe Samuel Starnes
Jefferson Press
Publication Date: September 2005
ISBN: 0-97189-745-X
$24.95 (U.S.) / Hardcover

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20051028/NYFFNS1
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Jefferson Press

CONTACT: Charlotte Lindeman, Jefferson Press, +1-423-825-5783,
clindeman@jeffersonpress.com; or Joe Samuel Starnes, +1-973-857-4633,
sstarnes@yahoo.com

Web site: http://www.jeffersonpress.com/
http://www.joesamuelstarnes.com/

NOTE TO EDITORS: Review copies are available by contacting Jefferson Press at 423-825-5783 or clindeman@jeffersonpress.com

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