How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things: A Novel [Paperback]

Joe Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 2004

In the waning days of one of the most unrecognized American exoduses of the twentieth-century, millions of broken people have left the strip mines of Appalachia in search of better things. In 1961, two of these yearning souls—Dahlia Jean Coker, the teenage daughter of a sluttish mother and a deadbeat Daddy, and "Twitch," an ex-con descended from the legendary outlaw Younger clan—are looking for their own ways out. After a botched robbery by Twitch, Dahlia takes the lead—with Twitch's loot and his teenage son—while the old man gives chase, with revenge in his heart and Dahlia's mother by his side. Through the South, and finally on to a Key West reeling from the Bay of Pigs debacle, the chase is at once thrilling, heartbreaking, murderous, dark, and hilarious. Along the way, readers encounter a snake-handling evangelist, determined civil rights activists, equally determined Klansmen, and the unfortunate wife of an adulterous NASA scientist. Battling a Tennessee flood of biblical proportions and a looming Florida hurricane, Dahlia, Twitch, and their improbable traveling companions all land up at Dahlia's daddy's houseboat. The final showdown, with a fortune and dreams of a better life at stake, will have readers marveling.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The adventures of a plucky, restless 16-year-old in 1960s Appalachia come to life in Jackson's heartfelt, meandering first novel. Tenacious, outspoken Dahlia Jean Coker knows there's more to life than a dead-end waitress job and her "death by boredom" existence in Wattles, Tenn. When the diner she works in is robbed by a father and son team, Dahlia spots her opportunity and steals off with the brawny son, Cole Younger. Cole's father, Twitch, is left behind, boiling with resentment and a desire for revenge, but Dahlia and Cole are armed with cash, young love and wild abandon. They set off on a whirlwind chase across the South, with Twitch and Dahlia's wacky, duplicitous mother, Burma, close behind. Dahlia and Twitch adroitly alternate as narrators, and both provide thrilling commentary when a massive flood threatens the region and sends all parties careening across Tennessee, landing them face to face with the Ku Klux Klan, civil rights activists and Freedom Riders. In their search for Dahlia and Cole, Twitch and Burma get into plenty of trouble of their own, though love isn't in the cards for them. After a few revelations, second thoughts and an elated arrival in Key West, Dahlia and Cole meet a teenaged Cuban refugee named Rebeca, and all set sail to return her to her homeland. Though the story is told with zest and brims with drawling dialogue, the overload of frenzied escapades may wear some readers out, though others will appreciate Jackson's range and determination.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Jackson (Leavenworth Train, 2001) moves far away from his usual focus on the factual and semifactual in this long, strange trip of a novel, set in the chaotic South of the 1960s. Reading like a collaboration between Dorothy Allison and Carl Hiaasen, the story begins in Wattles, Tennessee, when a man and his son enter a local diner where the restless Dahlia Jean Coker, age 16, is working as a waitress. They intend to rob the place, but by the time the dust clears, the older thief, Twitch, is unconscious, and Dahlia is heading south in a stolen pink Cadillac with Twitch's dreamy son, $100,000 hidden inside of a moose's head, and a plan for finding her estranged father. Obstacles such as love, her mother, snakes, floods, Klansmen, freedom riders, and the very angry Twitch soon derail her plans, though, and the novel quickly turns into a picaresque jumble much like its title--rambling, convoluted, and darkly funny. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st Carroll & Graf Ed edition (February 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786712848
• ISBN-13: 978-0786712847
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,664,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Looking for the better things, May 18, 2004

By 

kristen kirk (Chesapeake, Va United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things: A Novel (Paperback)

The cover of Joe Jackson's new novel and its name -- How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went On to Better Things -- leave prospective readers curious, breathless and a bit guarded.
There's an adventure to be witnessed here, the title obviously says.
And it's going to be a long one.
But, given the fact that someone is leaving the "Great State" of Tennessee and going on to "Better Things," and that "someone" seems to be a seductive, shapely young woman with a soft spot for big, pink cars, one wonders if the adventure is going to be a hokey, overdone and never-arriving coming-of-age tale?
The first few chapters do little to calm fears of melodrama.
The 16-year-old heroine, Dahlia Jean, lives in a Tennessee town called Wattles. It's a name one simultaneously makes fun of and feels sorry for as the image of its synonym, Waddles, sticks in the mind:
See the penguin, rocking side to side, struggling to move forward?
See the young woman, placating Mama, Boyfriend-wanna-be and Boss, struggling to move forward?
Mama's in bed, nursing supposed injuries sustained when two strangers threw her from a truck she had not-so-innocently stepped into. ("She gave a detailed description of those drivers -- too detailed, in fact, for family consumption -- in the Wattles Daily Optic," says Dahlia.)
Boyfriend-wanna-be, fond of watching drive-in movies and grabbing Dahlia's knee, drives a "glued-together truck" and has a "lump in his britches...early in the morning."
Boss owns the diner where Dahlia took over Mama's waitress job. He lusts after alcohol and Dahlia, but loves the wife who left him for another man.
The day of September 21, 1961appears to be more of the same: "Someone had run over a guinea hen at the entrance of the square, and somehow I identified," says Dahlia. "The poor thing lay in the road and twitched, not quite dead."
To make the dreary days bearable, Dahlia dreams about Jesse James robbing her town bank. As he turns to leave, she shouts "Take me, too!"
"He plucked me off my feet and plopped me behind him in the saddle. We rode west, past Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, over the Mississippi, through the Ozarks and onto the plains. I wrapped my arms about his waist and held on. As I dozed and dreamed of freedom, the blood sang in my veins."
Then suddenly Dahlia's daydream turns dark: A figure appears in the distance and strides toward her and her bandit.
He has a gun.
The make-believe foreshadows the heroine's fate and the book's over-the-top encounters.
As night has fallen on Sept. 21, Dahlia and her boss are robbed by two men driving a pink Cadillac convertible. Twitch, the senior of the two and the father of the younger, Cole, spent time in jail with the boss' former business partner. He's been told the boss has hoarded big money for years, and he's come looking for it. If no one's going to tell him where to find it, he'll just have to shoot Dahlia.

Suddenly Dahlia is like Nancy Drew. She figures out her boss' hiding place, gets the money (after a good fight), and convinces Cole to leave with her instead of Twitch.
The chase is on: Twitch, with Mama and Boyfriend-wanna-be in tow, goes after Dahlia and Cole, and the police go after Dahlia -- thinking she's a robber and murderer.
Dahlia and Cole quickly become lovers, and while they don't always manage to stay one step ahead of their pursuers, they do slip through their fingers time and time again.
Along the way the two assist a wife who fears for her life, but do more harm than good. They join the Freedom Riders, but again do more harm than good. They're thrown in jail, washed away in a flood, photographed for a newspaper and, later, on her own, Runaway Dahlia reluctantly offers tutelage to a junior runaway.
Plus more.
In the meantime, Twitch, who alternates with Dahlia in narrating the story, robs a bank, coaches a chicken in a cockfight, joins the Ku Klux Kan and falls for Dahlia's mother.
Plus more.
Late in the book, Twitch finally discovers the girl's destination: Key West, where her father is rumored to be. He left years ago, the day after he told Dahlia, "I'll never leave you, Princess."
Dahlia recounts the day in a half-page in chapter one. It's a touching scene with father and daughter fishing near a dam.
"The spray rolled over us like a blessing," she remembers. The father is concerned when the young girl asks if he's thinking of leaving.
"All adults had troubles, he said: Ours just happened to be a chronic lack of dough. Trouble was a normal part of life and the best course was to swim with it. He bent forward and looked in my face. 'What're these, tears?'
"'No Daddy, only spray.'"
Jackson, a five-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer from Virginia Beach, is at his best here and when writing about love in all its forms.
Twitch moves beyond caricature when he longs for Dahlia's mother: "I watched in horror as my hand reached up on its own to brush back her hair. I caught the traitor thing before it did much else..."
And when he reflects on parenthood: "The job is fairly easy at first -- you keep the brat in food and diapers, maybe a warm blanket, and most dads can handle this since there's not a lot of room for confusion. But when the kid grows up, it gets harder. You gotta teach him right from wrong. But how to do that, if you're not so sure yourself?"
Dahlia's mother becomes real as well when she shows her loving heart during her reunion with the man who left her:
"We really loved each other, didn't we, Burma," he says.
"She smiled, real sad. 'We did at first, that's true.'
'You think...maybe...Dahlia remembers?'
'I don't think she's ever forgotten,' Burma replied."
The characters of How I Left the Great State...want love, not adventure.
But Jackson largely suppresses their feelings with activity, and because of this, the book is best read as an extended screenplay -- perfect for a Memorial Day movie release and destined to become a summer blockbuster. Movie fans who shun emotions and soak up action would cheer on both hero and heroine and eagerly await the sequel.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very fun read!, February 25, 2004

By 

Marilinda S. Passon "Scubacat" (Kona, Hi United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things: A Novel (Paperback)

What a fun read! Jackson weaves a fast, fun story together with a cast of interesting and unusual characters to make a very entertaining novel. The story holds your attention right up to the surprise ending. Definitely a good choice when you want a book that you can climb into and escape everyday life for a while!

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ugh, no thank you!, February 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things: A Novel (Paperback)

Oh good- another girl-stuck-in-small-town dreams-big-escapes-with-dark-stranger book. Just what the world needs. This story has been done to pieces, by other, better writers. Blah blah diner robbery, money in a moosehead, Elvismobile blah blah blah coming of age. I found it very easy to put this book down and walk away.