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Reviews of
The Backside of Nowhere |
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amazon.com reviews
Going home again, through hell
and high water D. Cloyce Smith
Up-and-coming movie star David Lawrence hasn't been home to
Freedom, Mississippi, for two decades--and, on the rare occasion he calls his
family, he can't even bring himself to talk to his overbearing father, one of
more colorful local patriarchs. His hometown and its denizens have become for
him little more than fodder for an off-Broadway one-man show.  But when Pop Lawrence has a heart attack while attempting a drunken daredevil stunt in a casino parking lot and makes national news with a spectacular made-for-TV car crash, David reluctantly heads back to the backwaters of Freedom--only to realize that there's some truth to the old saw that home is where the heart is. His sisters and mother, his high school sweetheart, and all his teenage rivalries lie in wait, threatening to turn his journey back home into a trip back in time. Memories are shared, secrets are revealed, friendships are rekindled, old feuds and old loves are resurrected--and the Lawrence family ultimately emerges from this reunion fewer in number but stronger than ever. Although filled with distinctive, oversized characters, Clayton's fiction is far more Southern realist than Southern Gothic. His storytelling at times faintly echoes the nostalgia-laced prose of fellow Mississippian Eudora Welty but mixes in snappy dialogue, revelatory flashbacks, and episodic plotting, from the novel's opening car crash sequence to the near-cataclysmic closing scenes. With both drollness and melancholy, Clayton serves up a bravado performance, evoking a time and a place that ends up being somewhere after all. The Backside takes me back!
Martha Martin "MsMagnolia"
Alec Clayton is a genius of observation, both of people and all their idiosyncrasies, as well as their locale and surroundings. Having grown up very near the same region of the fictional town of Freedom, I immediately recognized familiar characters, some of whom I could have sworn I knew in my past! While "Backside" is purely fictional, and top-notch entertainment at that, its larger-than-life characters practically jump off the pages. Their antics and quirky personalities stay with the reader long after the final pages of the book have been finished. What a fun ride!
LOTS OF FUN Amos
Lassen
I just finished reading Alec Clayton's "The Backside of Nowhere" and I am still chuckling. It is one of those books that keeps you laughing to yourself. Set near my home town of New Orleans on the Gulf Coast, I found so much that I identified with. We all know about the catastrophes of the area--the hurricanes and storms--which are caused by nature, but in this book we have other kinds of floods and hurricanes which are not the result of nature. We are all aware that truth is many times stranger than fiction. Clayton shows us that truth is often funnier if not as funny as fiction. People of that area of America are unique--in fact, they are strange. This is a look at a South you have never seen before and it is as full of gossip as it is funny. Clayton gives us wonderful characters and he weaves social issues into the plot. Stay tuned as I am working on a lengthier review which will be coming soon.
Jack Butler
Think Carl Hiaasen crossed with, oh Walker Percy. This novel is funny, acutely observed, full of larger-than-life characters (if you're from the South, you'll probably think you know some of them), and alive with rollicking action. Take a lively bunch of ne'er-do-wells (but don't call them that to their faces), plus a few do-wells, including the local boy who's made it big and mocks his roots, stir in casual racism, wild misunderstanding, floods, storms, and other disasters human and natural, and this pocket of sea-coast Mississippi explodes into hilarious and vivid life.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ! Linda Delayen 
Alec Clayton seems to have hit his stride in his most recent novel, "The Backside of Nowhere." The book begins to unfold slowly, mirroring the damp, moss-dripping setting of Freedom, Mississippi. Through flashbacks, we come to know these well-fleshed-out characters and their relationships to one another. The tempo begins to speed up as the story unfolds and brings us, at last, to a stunningly written climax that makes you feel as though you are seeing the action on a big screen and not just reading about it. From movie stars to the Ku Klux Klan and from lovers to haters, Clayton's characters leave quite an impression.
HIS BEST YET! L.E. Johnson
 This is Alec Clayton's best novel yet. If you liked any of his others you should get this one because it's funnier, wittier, and more coloquially alive than the rest. Treat yourself! Once again, Clayton has interfered with my sleep. That's right, I got so engrossed in the book that I just couldn't put it down and go to sleep. I know something about southern families and I know something about hurricanes. No one could weave the two together like Clayton has done. Once again, he developed his characters so well that I think I know them....maybe I just know people like them....bet you do too. Alec Clayton's latest novel focuses on the Lawrence family of the small town
of Freedom, located somewhere along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Hollywood
heartthrob David Lawrence returns home after the near-fatal heart attack of his
father, Earl Ray, one of the local kingpins in all sorts of illegal activities.
By the end of the saga we have been introduced to a host of Lawrences and their
friends, most of whom have a dark tale to tell from their pasts, but at times
the overall storyline gets a bit lost as flashbacks weave in and out of the
contemporary plotline and characters pop in and out. Even though BACKSIDE is
filled with a host of devilments, including two hurricanes, overall it's a
comedy, but one that is more sad than funny. However, anyone interested in tales
of the Mississippi Gulf Coast region will want to take a dip in these waters.
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