Customer Reviews

Gods In Alabama

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(53)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Gods in Alabama starts off with a bang. For those of you in a reading slump, just pick up this book and read the first page and see if you aren't pulled into to this interesting story.

Summary, no spoilers:

This is the story about Arlene Fleet, who had fled her hometown of Possett Alabama and has lived in Chicago for the last 10 years.

Arlene has vowed never to return to Possett because of something that happened there, and she has made promises to God (i.e. she won't lie, she won't have sex, etc.,) if God enables her to keep her "crime" hidden.

To her great frustration, Arlene finds that she has to return to Posset both to face her past, and to introduce her boyfriend Burr to her her bigoted family (Burr is black and a northern Baptist, Arlene is white and southern Baptist.)

The book is well written, and a real page turner. There are many laugh out loud funny lines, and it's one of those books you can easily read from start to end in one sitting.

Saying all this, I was somewhat disappointed in this novel. Even though I really liked these characters, for some reason, they all just didn't ring true to me. Perhaps some of the characters seemed a little too stereotyped, or parts of the book were a bit rushed.

I would still recommend this book. It has a lot to say about memory, and the price we pay for keeping our silence. It is entertaining, and has a TERRIFIC finish, which is something pretty rare nowadays.

Fiction has had much to say about Southern women from Scarlet to the unbeatable Steel Magnolias. Authors still have much more to offer as we discover in this funny, touching debut novel by Joshilyn Jackson.

Georgia native Catherine Taber give an estimable voice performance as she narrates the story of Arlene Fleet, a gal who only wanted to see her hometown of Possett, Alabama, in her rearview mirror. On her way up North to college Arlene has a little chat with the Almighty in which she makes him three promises if He will only do one little thing for her - make sure the body of beefy high school footballer, Jim Beverly, is never found.

Arlene does a good job of forgetting Possett for ten years. She has become a teacher and a promising Ph.D. candidate with a steady black boyfriend, Burr. He's almost too good to be true, and Arlene never wants Burr to find himself at the mercy of her bigoted relatives.

But an unexpected and unwanted visitor throws a monkeywrench into her plans. Jim's former girlfriend shows up in Chicago after all these years, making it clear that Arlene must return to Alabama. With Burr at her side she heads South.

What she finds during her visit will surprise not only Arlene, but listeners, too.

- Gail Cooke

I could smell the snuff juice. The scenery in this book is so real that I could see the grease spattering from the frying pan. I literally devoured it in one day. Joshilyn Jackson has an amazing ability to turn a phrase. I kept finding myself thinking, 'Oooh, good one!' as I read. This book has everything going for it: humor, mystery, great characters, and writing that just flows.

In this book we get know Arlene whom has left Alabama 9 years ago after promising to give up fornication (as she politely puts it during prayers), to never tell a lie, and to never go back to the town she grew up in as long as a certain body was allowed to remain hidden. When she becomes convinced that the deal is off, she breaks all three of her promises, returning home with her boyfriend, fornicating on the way, and lying to her family that they're already married. The longer Arlene is home, she slowly begins to find out the truth about what happened all those years ago that forced her to leave home in the first place.

"Gods In Alabama" is a great read. The plot and its characters are involved on enough levels to keep one guessing and involved. Arlene/Lena is a puzzled character and Ms. Jackson keeps giving the reader various glimpses into her mind, memory and spirit to help us figure out the puzzle. Although the story went back and forth in time it was very easy to follow and understand. My one complaint would be that the last chapter tied the whole story up too fast. Other than that, it's a promising debut, and Jackson has the potential to become an significant southern author.

I didn't quite know what to expect from this book, I read the backcover quickly and thought I was in for a stereotyped relationship between Southern girl and black guy, and a difficult family. This book is so much more than that. Lena is a great heroine, and we embark with her on a story where she revisits and tries to make sense of her past and how she came to make some difficult decisions. We peel back the layers to understand the role of family, redemption, forgiveness, and how a set of circumstances can influence and impact Lena's and her family's life to such an extent.

This is a splendid story. Joshilyn Jackson is one very talented writer and I definitely look forward to reading more from her soon. Very very highly recommended.

If I'd had known what this book was about, I wouldn't have read it. I would have figured it was way too girly for a manly man such as myself. I mean, it's a book about Arlene Fleet, a female grad student in Chicago who never tells lies, doesn't have sex with her long-time boyfriend, and calls her family back home in Alabama every week but hasn't been back to visit them for ten years because of some incident in high school. OK, See? Half of the males who were reading this review have already nodded off or are desperately searching Amazon for books that involve spitting and/or explosions. I don't blame them. This stuff is fine for the ladies but . . . OK . . . I actually enjoyed it. I admit it. This is one of the best books I've read all year. It is often funny, in a Reese Witherspoon way, and there's a mystery. It's not a mystery that Crais or Coben would have written; there's no tough-guy, wisecracking detective; there's no sleuths at all, either amateur or professional; Jackson simply provides clues that allows the reader to try to deduce whether Arlene is a victim, a murderer, or something else entirely. And while Gods in Alabama is billed as a comic novel, there are portions that will bring tears to your eyes...OK, big mistake. I shouldn't have mentioned tears. There go most of the rest of the guys. If there are any real men left out there, it's a good book, see. Really. And I'm not a wuss. I'm not. I don't care what my wife says.

Arlene Fleet has been keeping her promises to God for twelve years and avoiding a visit home to Alabama for ten when a familiar face forces her to begin breaking those promises. And thus begins Joshilyn Jackson's debut novel, GODS IN ALABAMA. Those gods are the things that loom large in the southern imagination, like football and Jesus, and Jackson brings the new South to life with authentic dialogue, Arlene's perfect descriptions of her Aunt Florence, life in a small Alabama town, and the expectations of southern girls and women. The women in Arlene's life include her aunt, a mentally ill mother, and her beautiful cousin Clarice. All three still live in Alabama and eagerly await Arlene's arrival.

Arlene (Lena in her adopted town of Chicago) may have held to her dubious covenant with God, but she has spent the last ten years breaking some other rules that mystify and anger her family. Namely, not setting foot in her hometown and having the audacity to date a black man. Jackson handles the race and culture issues well and shows how much of the old South still lives in contemporary America, no matter how ordinary such relationships seem in the larger culture.

The wonderful thing about this southern story is that while Jackson shows the smallness of some of Arlene's family and neighbors, she doesn't demonize them or excuse their views. Through Arlene she takes them to task without giving the novel a preachy feel or overwhelming the theme of secrets and justice at the story's core. The secrets Arlene has kept all began in high school when she took action against a bully. She prays fervently that God keep the body hidden so she can go on with her life. Ten years after leaving Alabama, it seems God has let her down and she must decide who can handle her secret and how to keep herself from being convicted of murder.

Among Jackson's shining accomplishments is the strength of her characters' voices. Arlene and her boyfriend, Burr, are well developed without the reader spending very much time in their presence. And Jackson is adept at fleshing out characters with little time in the book, like Burr's mother, and making them unforgettable.

Arlene's troubles seem to deepen as she travels South and reveals to the reader and select members of her family why she has behaved so oddly and what secrets she holds. But Jackson allows the story to unfold slowly as Arlene unravels on her desperate trip home.

Even though Arlene gives up her secret --- to the reader at least --- early in the novel, Jackson's southern tale reveals more twists right until the ending. This is a promising debut, and Jackson has the potential to become an important southern author.

--- Reviewed by Bernadette Adams Davis

As before mentioned, this book is one that you just can't put down; I will be eternally grateful to Joshilyn Jackson for helping me endure a 2 hour stint while at Barnes & Noble Thomas train table the other week with my 3 1/2 year old son. Had I never opened her book, the gods of Alabama, I would have never been to do so otherwise. For the next day and a half I spent consuming this book, I think I only came up once or twice for air.

Likewise, the sassy Southern women characters in this book still stay with me, long after I put it down. Although I am strictly a native Californian, their catchy southern drawls are still ringing in my head.

From the opening sentence to the dramatic clinching ending, this story will move you, grab onto you, and permanently imprint itself onto your psyche.

This book is easy to read, yet the characters are complex and well developed. There is also a mystery that keeps the story moving nicely along with a great suprising and tender ending. Any Southerner will be able to easily relate to the characters, and Jackson has some good points about stereotypes in the South. She seems to accomplish admonishing the racist characters but also making them sympathetic.

While not a fan of Southern literature, I was pleasantly suprised when I picked up a copy of Jackson's debut novel, and found it intriguing, touching, and startlingly funny. Imbued with self conscious self-deprecating humour and a carefully paced, well-constructed storyline, Gods In Alabama manages to cross genre boundaries as a contemporary Southern novel for the generation trying so desperately to escape their familys' influences.

Arlene Fleet, a native of Possett, Alabama, has fled her hometown for Chicago, where she finds a fresh start and a new home. But when her past, in the form of an ex-classmate searching for a long-lost high school football hero, Arlene must return to the place she loathes to confront the past she thought she'd left behind.

Gods, full of unexpected twists, quirky humour, and touchingly real characters, takes hold and doesn't let go.

I picked up "gods in Alabama" at around 4:00 this afternoon, only planning to read the first couple of chapters before cooking dinner. Instead I had to force myself to stop long enough to cook and eat and then immediately went back to reading, and finished the book just a little while ago.

I loved the characters. Arlene has been described as rough-around-the-edges, but I felt great affection for her. Maybe that says something about me as much as it does her, but I found many things to admire about her. And many of the other characters are at once outrageously quirky and yet very true to the spirit of people I've known in the South (which includes most of my relatives and many of my friends!).

The plot kept me turning the pages, wondering what would happen next. It was complex without seeming contrived and some of the twists surprised me. I love when that happens. :-)

This book is a keeper that I'll definitely want to read again, and I'm already looking forward to Joshilyn Jackson's next novel.