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read an excerpt |
The Backside of Nowhere tells the tale of popular movie star David Lawrence who has not spoken to his detested father in more than twenty years. When the old curmudgeon has a heart attack and careens off the top of a parking garage, David goes home to the little bayou town of Freedom to be with his family. While there, he falls in love with his old high school sweetheart, confronts a lifelong enemy (the local sheriff), and discovers that his beautiful adopted sister, Melissa, is not who he thinks she is. A hurricane is heading toward Freedom, and within the family a different kind of storm is brewing. David’s obstinate old man, practically on his death bed, decides to throw a hurricane party and ride out the storm with friends, perhaps knowing he’s about to die and wanting to go out with a bang. When the storm hits, the Lawrence house is swept off its foundation and washed down the bayou with everyone trapped inside. It comes to rest against a pile of debris. Water fills the lower floor. David’s father and Melissa are trapped underwater, and it is David and his old enemy the sheriff who must save them. It is filled with floods and hurricanes and riots at football games, and yet it’s not really about all that action at all; it’s more about the inner storms that rage in the fetid bayous of memory and long-held secrets. "Alec Clayton’s The Back Side of Nowhere is his best novel so far, and is a rollicking good read. It contains Hollywood pop gossip as well as downhome humor and veers from the ridiculous to the sublime, with strong characters and important social issues all subsumed into the plot. If you liked Clayton’s other novels you should grab this one immediately. It’s not just good but fun." --Larry Johnson Author of Veins "The Back Side of Nowhere
(what a great title!) is a wild and funny Southern novel set on the Gulf Coast
in range of New Orleans. It deals in floods and hurricanes, not all of them
natural. As we say, It's almost too true to be funny (it isn't really).
Sometimes people describe things like this as Southern Gothic--but the fact of
the matter is, these people really are that strange--if by strange you mean
having a life of your own that interacts hilariously with the modern media but
does not depend on them. If you're a fan of Big Poppa and his crazy Southern
children, this ought to be right up your alley. A great ride!" "I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
impressed. I read and reread sections just poring over the word pictures."
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