Meet Peter Joseph, aka Peejoe, a wide-eyed believer in the unbelievable, raised by his Meemaw in Pigeon Creek for a good part of his life. But it was his aunt Lucille who raised him for the better. And it all happened during that summer everyone was driven crazy in Alabama, with Lucille at the wheel.
It's 1965, and no force on earth can come between Hollywood and Lucille Vinson, Alabama's answer to Veronica Lake. (Just ask her.) Even if it means killing her husband, stealing a Cadillac, hijacking her nephew, and catching a few hours of sleep at eight-dollar motels. But how do you become a movie star when you're on the run for murder? Lucille's got a plan. Not to mention a tank full of gas, a hopped-up sense of liberty, and her number one fan, Peejoe, by her side. It was a darn good week for Lucille. But for Peejoe, it would be the journey of a lifetime. . . .
Family tumult and nationwide social unrest converge to shake the world of 12-year-old orphan Peejoe Bullis in the summer of 1965, "when everybody went crazy in Alabama." This wise, funny novel by the author of Tender opens as Peejoe's relatively tranquil life with his grandmother is jolted by the arrival of his Aunt Lucille, who is on her way to Hollywood to become a star after poisoning her husband (in the first of the book's many violent images, she pulls the dead man's severed head out of a tupperware container). Peejoe and his older brother Wiley move on to their Uncle Dove's home in Industry, Ala., where racial conflict brings frightening bloodshed as well as oratory from George Wallace and Martin Luther King Jr. Meanwhile, on the road and in California, the newly emancipated Lucille brings every ounce of her desirability and determination to bear on her quest for stardom. Childress tells his story through the masterfully crafted voice of the adult Peejoe reminiscing from his home in present-day San Francisco. He depicts each character with convincing detail and all the vividness of childhood memory; there is magic in his mixture of humor and pathos, boyish candor and time-earned understanding. The narrative has a unique gentleness that tempers even the most extreme horrific or comic events without dismissing or oversimplifying them. Terrible crimes go unpunished, and good people face tragedy--not always nobly--but this remains a tale of laughter and great hope, one not easily forgotten. Literary Guild featured alternate. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
The year is 1965. The place is a small town in the deep South. Having murdered her redneck husband, Lucille drops her six kids off at her mother's and heads for Hollywood to audition for a part in The Beverly Hillbillies . Now that his grandmother has others to care for, 11-year-old Peejoe goes off to live with an uncle a few towns away. The story is told in parallel narratives (first person as Peejoe relates his own life, third person as the boy learns about Lucille, his enthralling aunt), a structure that does not usually lend itself to audio. Here, however, it works perfectly. This wonderfully tragicomic tale records various attempts at freedom: Lucille kills her husband in "self-defense" because he's been killing her for 13 years, while Peejoe becomes embroiled in the civil rights struggle and its various murders. With gentle, self-mocking humor, this coming-of-age novel describes memorable people, in a vivid time and place. Highly recommended despite a contrived ending. - Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Mark Childress is the author of seven novels: GEORGIA BOTTOMS (coming from Little, Brown in February 2011), ONE MISSISSIPPI, GONE FOR GOOD, CRAZY IN ALABAMA, TENDER, V FOR VICTOR, and A WORLD MADE OF FIRE.
Born in Monroeville, Alabama - the same town Harper Lee wrote about in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Childress is one of three sons of Roy and Mary Helen Childress. Roy was a salesman for Ralston Purina, so the family moved a lot growing up: Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, and Louisiana were some of the stops along the way.
Childress attended Clinton (Miss.) High School and the University of Alabama, where he studied fiction writing under Barry Hannah and Carole Johnson. He worked as a staff writer for the Birmingham (Ala.) News, and was Features Editor of Southern Living magazine and National Editor of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution before becoming a full-time novelist.
His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Times of London, San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday Review, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Travel and Leisure, and other national and international publications.
"Tender," a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection, was named to several Ten Best of 1990 lists, and appeared on many national bestseller lists. "Crazy in Alabama," a featured selection of the Literary Guild, has been published in eleven languages and appeared on many bestseller lists and Ten Best of 1993 lists. "Crazy" was named The (London) Spectator's "Book of the Year" for 1993 and a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year," and was on the Spiegel bestseller list in Germany for 10 months.
"One Mississippi" was a BookSense Notable Book of the Year, nominated for SIBA Book of the Year,and appeared on the "hot summer book" lists of Good Morning America, People, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, O: the Oprah Magazine, and the New York Public Library. The paperback edition is now in its seventh printing.
Childress has also written three picture books for children, "Joshua and Bigtooth," in 1992, "Joshua and the Big Bad Blue Crabs," 1996 (both from Little, Brown), and "Henry Bobbity Is Missing And It Is All Billy Bobbity's Fault," (Crane Hill Publishers, 1996).
He wrote the screenplay of the Columbia Pictures film "Crazy in Alabama," directed by Antonio Banderas, and starring Melanie Griffith, an official selection of the Venice and San Sebastian film festivals in 1999.
Childress is now working on his eighth novel and a film project. He lives in Key West, Florida.
Your homework for tonight: Drop everything and read Crazy in Alabama! This is such a great book -- much better than the movie. Mark Childress's carefully drawn characters come alive in these pages. Aunt Lucille will amaze you will all the nutty things she does. And Peejoe's story will have your heart breaking.
It all starts when Aunt Lucille and her six children come ambling up the driveway of her mother's house early May 1965. She's killed her bullying husband and stashed his head in a Tupperware bowl (with a Press-and-Lock seal that really works!), and now with him out of the way, she's free to pursue her dream: to become an actress. Leaving her children with her mother, Lucille has zoomed off to Hollywood, evoking suspicion and evading arrest at every turn.
Twisted into this story is another tale told through the eyes of 12-year-old Peejoe. He and his brother, Wiley, spend the summer in Industry, Alabama with Lucille's brother, Uncle Dove. As the county coroner and local funeral director, Dove has quite a busy summer ahead of him -- when Industry opens up their new "whites only" municipal swimming pool and the entire town takes a tragic turn.
Crazy in Alabama is both riotous and rollicking as well as a sad reminder of the Civil Rights Movement and its history. Lucille's adventures will have readers laughing out loud as suppressed feelings awaken in her on her journey across the country. And the view through the innocent eyes of Peejoe will have readers wondering why all life's answers can't be so simple. An action-packed novel and one that won't be forgotten! Has all the qualities of a quirky southern tale that will amuse you and move you.
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'Crazy in Alabama' is one of those unique novels that comes along every once in awhile, and just makes you grin and shake your head in amusement. The book focuses around 2 characters, Peejoe, and his unique aunt Lucille. Lucille, frustrated with the boring life she's leading, decides to run off to Hollywood to become a movie star, and there's only one thing stopping her: her abusive husband Chester. So she puts rat poison in his coffee, and decides to take his head along as a keepsake. Meanwhile, Peejoe, usurped from his grandma's house by Lucille's brats, is in the middle of a race war with his brother and Uncle Dove, all the while worrying about Lucille and what will happen if she's caught. 'Crazy in Alabama' is one-of-a-kind, showing us the ugly side of the South, and just how far people will really go to get what they want.
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A reviewer cited on the back cover of this novel calls it "a combination of Thelma and Louise and To Kill a Mockingbird, and that's about right. Beginning in 1965 in the tiny town of Pigeon Creek, Alabama, a single explosive event scatters the characters and sends the story in two directions at once. Twelve-year-old Peejoe (short for Peter Joseph) and his brother are sent to live with their Uncle Dove, a mortician in nearby Industry, while their Aunt Lucille takes off for Hollywood, chasing her dream of landing a starring role on "The Beverly Hillbillies". While Peejoe witnesses both sides of the civil rights movement, right in his own backyard, Lucille seeks the freedom she never had as a frustrated housewife. As the two stories alternately diverge and intertwine, often hilariously, Childress still manages to present an important social commentary.
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