Calling [Hardcover]

Joe Samuel Starnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2005

Evoking visceral images such as a fire-and-brimstone preacher ranting and a deep-voiced deejay spinning country music and reading the local news of fish fries, car wrecks, and church bake sales, this tale digs beneath the surface of the Southern Baptist Church, commercial radio, and small-town manhood. Seated next to each other on a bus headed out of Las Vegas, Southern Baptist preacher and radio evangelist, Ezekiel Blizzard Jr., and country-western deejay, Timber Goodman, would not initially appear to be birds of the same feather. Yet as their ride through the desert progresses, and their hardscrabble stories of childhood, drinking, drug use, gambling, radio, religion, and even violence in the "Christ-haunted South" unfold, they discover their unusual mutual quests for redemption.

"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. Their individual stories are spun in rich, evocative prose that takes the reader into a world of radio evangelists who fall far short of practicing what they preach. Just when we think we understand these sinners comes a shocking denouement that makes us wonder if it's only coincidence that we meet the significant people in our lives. This is one of those novels that resonates long after the final page," said Alice Elliott Dark, author of "In the Gloaming," a short story selected by John Updike for the Best American Short Stories of the Century, and the novel Think of England.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Starnes has written an entertaining and sometimes transcendent Southern Gothic novel worthy of his literary forebear, the late Larry Brown." —Rain Taxi

"A top-notch novel in the tradition of Harry Crews...big plot turns that will keep readers turning pages." —Athens Banner-Herald

"A hard-to-put-down tale...made me think of a Frederick Buechner work, but edgier."  —The Charlotte Observer

About the Author

Joe Samuel "Sam" Starnes has worked in newspapers and public relations in Athens, Milledgeville and Atlanta, Georgia; Bradenton, Florida; Houston, Texas; and New York and New Jersey. He lives in Verona, New Jersey and teaches writing at Seton Hall University and Montclair State University. He was born in Anniston, Alabama and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia. He earned a journalism degree from the University of Georgia in and an M.A. in English from Rutgers. He attended the 2005 Sewanee Writers Conference at the University of the South.

An earlier novel that remains unpublished won an honorable mention in the 2002 Florida First Coast Writing Conference Novel Contest. He has had short stories and poems published in The Newark Metro, Stillpoint and The Old Red Kimono. He won three writing awards from the Associated Press and three from the Georgia Press Association from 1988-1994.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Jefferson Press (September 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 097189745X
• ISBN-13: 978-0971897458
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,515,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Alabama and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia but I have lived in New Jersey and Philadelphia for the past decade. My first novel, Calling, was published in 2005. NewSouth Books will publish Fall Line, my second novel, in November 2011. I've had journalism appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post and various magazines, as well as essays, short stories, and poems in literary journals. I am a graduate of the University of Georgia and Rutgers University in Newark, and was awarded a fellowship to the 2006 Sewanee Writers' Conference.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a fantastic ride!, September 28, 2005

By 

David H. Ebenbach - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Calling (Hardcover)

Calling is a great read. Starnes deftly interweaves two stories of rising and falling fortune, two stories of men who struggle with morality and purpose and their own bad habits, and the stories are so engrossing that you just don't want to put the book down. Starnes not only knows the voice and character and heart of the South -- something he demonstrates in every paragraph -- he also knows how to tell a tale.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The next Larry Brown., October 1, 2005

By 

Kevin M. Catalano - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Calling (Hardcover)

Joe Samuel Starnes' Calling takes the reader into the dirty South beautifully and unflinchingly, reminiscent of Harry Crews' Feast of Snakes, and Larry Brown's Father and Son. Like Brown and Crews, Starnes is an exact detailist, compelling the reader to taste the "boiled crabs dusted in cayenne pepper" and the cold, bitter sips of young Timber's first beer, for example. Starnes also dares to liken religion with sexual awakening (his novel often blurs antitheses, like sin and salvation, flesh and spirit, protagonist and antogonist), as the following baptismal scene elegantly conveys:

Little Zeke had been just another sixteen-year-old small-town country boy until Sally Claxton went under that water in a flowing, white robe. When she came up-her drenched black hair pulled back, her opalescent skin moist, her dark eyes illuminated by a glint of sunlight, the wet robe clinging tight to her thin waist and long slender legs, her dark nipples stiff and visible through the linen-he knew he would go into the water and baptize her kind one day.

The final, climactic scene of Calling is more shocking and intense than any I've ever encountered in fiction, a scene that stays with you weeks after putting the book down. Starnes portrays the grit of the world with such authenticity, you can almost imagine the red, Georgian clay under the fingernails of his writing hand-or at least, feel it under your own.

As lovers of fiction know, Larry Brown passed away suddenly this past year, leaving his fans bereft of his extraordinary work. However, Joe Samuel Starnes provides us with hope as a writer talented and capable enough to pick up where Brown left off.

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest Southern Literature, July 31, 2011

By 

kguyton - See all my reviews

This review is from: Calling (Hardcover)

I am no more than an English teacher of young minds. I have no insight as to whether Samuel Starnes will be the next Brown or Faulkner. I can say with great certainity that this novel dusts off the cobwebs of old southern literature and gives it a new shine and twist. It's captivating, soul searching, and brutally honest. Calling takes away the magnolias and mint juleps typical of the south and replaces them with red clay and whiskey of the 'dirty south'. There will be a day when Starnes's books are placed on the lists for "Great Southern Literature"! Truly a classic in the making!