The Baker's Boy: A Novel [Hardcover]

Barry Kitterman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2008

Set in Central America and in middle Tennessee, Barry Kitterman's debut novel gives us two intertwined stories: In the first, Tanner Johnson, nearing midlife, has left his pregnant wife and taken a job as a baker, working nights, trying to avoid a shadowy presence that haunts him from the past. In the second, Tanner relives his painful experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Belize, where he taught at a boys' reform school nearly a quarter century ago. Haunted by the past, he struggles to find the courage to accept his role as a husband and prospective father.

"In The Baker's Boy Barry Kitterman gives us a haunting of the most universal kind: the ghost is a man's mortal past, which tears through the veil of memory to demand a reckoning. Tanner, like all of us, struggles to make a whole person out of his broken parts, and how he succeeds makes for a touching read."--Monica Wood, author of Any Bitter Thing

"Not since Lord of the Flies has a book haunted me like this. With his heartbreaking story of the boys of Belize, Kitterman hits the writer's sweet spot."--Paula Wall, author of The Wilde Women

"The Baker's Boy could be thought of as a Peace Corps novel on the Huck Finn/Moby Dick model--boy goes out into the world, finds difficulty--but that would ignore its particular excellences. Kitterman writes a fine quiet prose and presents us with idiosyncratic characters we learn to cherish and root for. A splendid work."--William Kittredge, author of The Willow Field

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A gripping novel that held my interest and admiration from beginning to end." -- Richard Selzer, author of Letters to a Young Doctor

"An electric novel that compares to great expatriate novels like Graham Greene's The Quiet American." -- David Bradley, author of The Chaneysville Incident

"You find out who you are in times of crisis. Almost always the discovery is not what you expected. The Baker's Boy, like much of Joseph Conrad's work, is about the pain of such revelation and its continuing effect on one's life. A strong and haunting debut novel by a fine writer." -- Rick DeMarinis, author of The Year of the Zinc Penny

About the Author

BARRY KITTERMAN has lived and taught in Belize, China, Taiwan, Ohio, and Indiana. The fiction editor of Zone 3 Magazine, he has had stories published in many literary venues, including The Long Story, Cutbank, California Quarterly, and Carolina Quarterly. He currently teaches at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife Jill and his children Ted and Hannah.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press (April 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870745204
• ISBN-13: 978-0870745201
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,824,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must. For True., April 24, 2008

By 

Tyler Moore (Clarksville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Baker's Boy: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is wonderful! I could not put it down! The writing is excellent. The story is smart and compelling. Well, the stories, really. There are many stories and there is one story. Like the summary says, there's the story of Tanner Johnson in Middle Tennessee, trying hard to avoid wondering whether or not he should straighten his life out, and there's the story of Tanner Johnson in Belize, trying hard to avoid wondering whether or not he should straighten his life out. Within these larger arcs are small moments of Tanner falling in love, learning how to be a teacher, being told by a beautiful woman that there are enough boys in the world and he should learn to be a man. You will laugh out loud. You will feel like you're going to cry, and then you might cry. You will want the story to keep going, want Tanner to keep talking because what he does best is tell a story, though he always doubts whether he's telling it right. And that's another story. The story about doubt and how it doesn't go away. How you have to feel it and be good anyway.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, May 3, 2008

By 

Mary E. Coenen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Baker's Boy: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was in the Peace Corps-Belize with Barry Kitterman. He completely captures the experience .... and the pain, anguish, remorse .... and good stuff we all left with when we went home in yhr 70's and tried to adjust to "real life." I was captivated by this book from beginning to end.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Frustratingly Real Characterizations..., June 15, 2008

By 

Keith R. Jarvis "GreenMan1966" (Antioch, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Baker's Boy: A Novel (Hardcover)

Kitterman has written a character in Tanner Johnson that is very much like a real person - frustratingly real. There are many times throughout this book that I wanted to give him a stern talking-to at the least - and maybe shake him by the shoulders until he'd come to his senses.
Circumstances in the story finally force him to wake up to his grandiosity and self-absorption. Gluttonous in his misery and confusion, Tanner is so locked in his past that he seems almost wholly unable to relate to people in the present.
Kitterman has written a rambling story that bounces back and forth from the present to the past as quickly and erratically as Tanner's ability to stay in the present is easily distracted into fond reminiscing or dreaded remembrance.
Overall this is a book that's hard to put down after the first few chapters have been absorbed - and one that gets under your skin as the tension builds. I won't say more because I don't want to give away too much - but enjoy the read!