Junior's Leg: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ken Wells (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2001

Fifteen years after he tormented fellow students at Catahoula Bayou School, Junior Guidry is broke, drunk, one-legged, and living in a wreck of a trailer on the edge of a snake-infested swamp. He's survived an oil-rig accident that would've killed most men but, with the help of a good lawyer, made him rich instead. But he's squandered his fortune on drink, blackjack, womanizing, and brawling, leaving a wake of wrecked cars and friendships, not to mention lost or stolen wooden legs. Then the mysterious Iris Mary Parfait enters his life. She's on the run from a tragic childhood and a bad, bad man. When news reaches Junior that a bar owner with Mob connections has posted a $100,000 bounty on Iris's head because she knows too much about him, Junior realizes he could regain his fortune—but at what cost?

Narrated in Junior's unvarnished voice, Junior's Leg takes the reader on a singular journey through the mind of a troubled man. It is at turns unsettling, ribald, sexy, and poignant—a bold stroke of storytelling that ultimately plumbs the possibilities of love and redemption, even for as unlikely a candidate as Junior.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wall Street Journal scribe Wells's semisequel to his first novel, Meely LaBauve, is a zesty, Cajun-flavored bouillabaisse of gritty melodrama, warts-and-all character study and old-fashioned morality tale. It can be abrasively entertaining, and demonstrates the author's considerable flair for offbeat Bayou-country characterization. Unfortunately, too many mismatched genre elements and a heavily predictable, almost schematic "road to redemption" story line scar an otherwise promising sophomore outing. Narrated by Joseph "Junior" Guidry, an embittered, boorish former roughneck who lost his left leg in a freakish drilling-rig accident, the novel paints a chronically self-destructive man's ever-so-gradual journey toward moral and spiritual self-improvement. Junior is a memorable creation, an inveterately nasty, unabashedly cynical recluse who tosses off quips about how he won't take any breakfast he can't drink, and who even considers tossing his prosthetic leg at a well-meaning interloper on one occasion. He's undeniably crude, bad-tempered and ignorant, but his self-mocking sense of humor and no-nonsense attitude make him a perversely sympathetic character, vaguely reminiscent of some of James Ellroy's or James Lee Burke's more likable losers. Into his barren, loveless life comes Iris Mary Parfait, an ethereal mystery woman fleeing a violent past, who turns lost-cause Junior into her pet project. Of course Junior and Iris Mary fall in love; and, of course, Iris Mary's ostensibly dormant past blazes back into life, plunging the two into a corrupt world of crooked cops, shady lawyers and urbane Mafia dons. If only Wells had been able to decide exactly what kind of book he wanted to write, this could have been a full-on winner. As it is, its piquant and pugnacious analysis of its protagonist's deeply flawed character is ultimately tarnished by a series of trite confrontations with scowling, textbook villains and by Junior's rushed, unrealistic and oversimplified romance with the too-perfect Ms. Parfait. Agent, Joe Regal of Russell Volkening. 6-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this vivid, spicy work, Wells returns to the Bayou country setting of his first novel, Meely LaBauve. Junior Guidry is a three-time loser well on his way to drinking himself into oblivion when a young woman named Iris Mary Parfait arrives at his trailer on the edge of the Great Catahoula Swamp. As Junior recounts some of the details of his sordid past, he learns from the ghostlike Iris Mary, an albino, that she is on the run. They soon find out that they have more in common than they first suspected in a tale ultimately involving attempted murder, rape, pornography, crooked police, and organized crime, Louisiana style. As this web of evil is about to close in around them, Junior summons new-found strength and almost reluctantly finds himself acting heroically when he realizes that his brief relationship with Iris Mary has already started to change him. Characters and events from the previous novel figure into the various twists that resolve the story. The energy levels off in the book's latter half, but Wells knows the lingo and rhythms of Cajun language and culture as only a native can, and his depiction of the lowlife Junior and his twisted psyche is gritty and humorous. Recommended for all fiction collections. Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 274 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (August 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375505261
• ISBN-13: 978-0375505263
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,624,914 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ken Wells, novelist and journalist, grew up in a beer-drinking family deep in South Louisiana's Cajun bayou country. His father was a part-time alligator hunter and snake collector and his mother a gumbo chef extraordinaire. Second of six sons, Wells began his journalism career covering car wrecks and gator sightings for the weekly Houma, La., Courier newspaper.
He has gone on to an illustrious career: a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the Miami Herald; editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects for Page One of The Wall Street Journal where, over a 24-year period, he also roamed the globe covering the first Persian Gulf War, South Africa's transition to a multiracial democracy and many other stories. He has since worked as senior editor for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine and is now an editor-at-large for Bloomberg News, writing and editing longform narrative journalism for Bloomberg's projects and investigations team.
Wells is the author of four well-received novels of the Cajun bayous: Meely LaBauve (a 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book); Junior's Leg (2001); Logan's Storm (2002); and Crawfish Mountain (2007).
He has also penned two non-fiction books: Travels with Barley: a Quest for the Perfect Beer Joint (2004), a travelogue through America's $75 billion beer industry; and The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous, a story of blue-collar heroism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Pirates, published in September 2008 by Yale University Press, was nominated for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize and won the Harry Chapin book award in September 2009.
His fifth novel, Rascal, a Dog and His Boy, will be published by Knopf-Random House Young Adult in September 2010. He is currently working on a memoir.
Wells lives in New York City, where he continues on his quest to find the Perfect Beer Joint and dabbles in his hobbies that include photography and song-writing. He often wishes he were fishing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a one-legged bad-assed Cajun Job, August 28, 2001

By 

Eric P. Duplantis (Louisiana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Junior's Leg: A Novel (Hardcover)

Borrowing from such varied sources as the Bible to Shakespeare to Buddhism to the Dukes of Hazard, Ken Wells' wandering tale of a one-legged bad-assed Cajun Job has more twists and turns than a crooked Louisiana bayou. The story opens with Junior Guidry in an almost fully deserved state of self-inflicted woe. He's a drunk, he's mean, he's stupid, and ..... he knows all of these things but just doesn't care. He's a hard man not to hate. Then, an angel-woman appears and, surprise, she saves him. But wait, is she an angel-woman or a devil-woman? Is she going to save him, or deliver him to hell? A motley crew of ner-do-wells, crooked lawmen, honest lawyers and saintly women populate Mr. Wells' south Louisiana swamps. Junior's Leg takes you places you have never seen and introduces you to people you have never met; and, if you have a lick of sense, never want to visit and never want to meet. But, that's what books do. You can safely see inside a most interesting place. Like in his earlier book "Meely Labauve" Mr. Wells will slip you a few lessons of life if you are not careful. In a reappearance, a grown-up Meely Labauve gives us great instruction: "People can change, though I have to say that, what I know of honest change, it's a rare commodity--in fact, pretty close to a miracle. Still, I do believe it's possible under certain circumstances for people to redeem themselves. Even someone like you, Junior. Even you." You'll have to read Junior's Leg to find out if Junior really does change.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literature as entertainment, August 16, 2001

By 

Jack Patterson (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Junior's Leg: A Novel (Hardcover)

I loved Ken Wells's first book, "Meely LaBauve," and was surprised and somewhat troubled that his new book was about the obnoxious bully in "Meely," Junior Guidry. However, Wells won me over in the first few chapters. The story is told through Junior's voice and as a character study, Junior is riveting. The plot is rich with surprises and well paced. Yes, Junior's a drunk and foul-mouthed, but he's also funny and insightful about his own predicament. Junior knows, in the book's parlance, that he's "screwed the pooch" in his relationships, jobs, etc. He vividly tells you, with a kind of mordant glee, how he squandered his insurance settlement from a lawsuit over the loss of his leg in an oil-rig accident. He takes you on his the honeymoon of his misbegotten second marriage to a Cajun honky-tonk angel. (Wells, as he demonstrated in "Meely," knows how to write a sex scene.) A lot of this is laugh-out-loud funny. Wells, though, is a canny writer. His rehabilitation of Junior, through the ministrations of a good if beleaguered woman, is artless. He deals with serious issues in the book--class, race, honor, loyalty--yet Junior's Leg is never ponderous or preachy. It's almost as if Wells is some weird hybrid writer. Junior's Leg is heftier than, say, a Grisham courtroom thriller, but more accessible than, say, Faulkner, though it has elements of both. Or put another way, nobody I know writes quite like him. Beyond that, Junior's Leg exudes a wonderful sense of place--Wells's swampy sector of the Louisiana oil patch seems as exotic as the moon. Do yourself a favor and take this book to the beach. And buy one for your best friend while you're at it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yippee! Another book in the Meely LaBauve trilogy, August 29, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Junior's Leg: A Novel (Paperback)

Junior Guidry, the creepy bully from Meely LaBauve (2000), takes the lead in this book, which takes place 15 after ML ended. Now sporting a wooden leg, Junior is more despicable than ever, a drunk who finds himself taken on as 'a cause' by Iris Mary Parfait. Herself on the run from the law after she killed a dude in self-defense, she starts trying to get Junior to mend his ways. When he discovers he can get some cash by turning her in - but realizes he might be falling in love with her - things get mighty complicated.
Full of Cajun dialect, humor, honest, and most of all compassion, Junior's Leg is a worthy step-brother book to Meely LaBauve.