Joe Jones: A Novel (Paperback)

by Anne Lamott (Author) "THE WINTER RAINS ARE OVER..." (more)
Key Phrases: red velvet crown, duck cup, Joe Jones, Eva Deane, Anne Lamott (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Lamott has written before about copingwith death in Hard Laughter , with life in Rosie. But Joe Jones is about nothing else; coping seems to fill the hearts and minds of the characters at Jessie's Cafe, and it certainly dominates their epigrammatic, italic-studded conversation. Not that theirs isn't a lot to cope with. Louise, cook and philosophical earth mother, pines for Joe, the faithless lover she sent away, and he, a hypochondriacal drifter, longs for her. Willie, Jessie's gay grandson, loses a lover to a distant job and his grandmother to heart failure. And those are only their current trials. Lamott's spare prose can sing, but here it too often sounds forced. "Life is hard and then you die," as these characters note more than once, is too trendy and insubstantial a framework for the fine work Lamott can do. Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Joe Jones is Anne Lamott’s raucous novel of lives gathered around Jessie’s Cafe, "a restaurant from another era, the sort of broken-down waterfront dive one might expect to find in Steinbeck or Saroyan." Jessie, "thin, stooped and gorgeous at seventy-nine," inherited the cafe years before and it has become home to a remarkable family of characters: Louise, the cook and vortex, "sexy and sweet, somewhere on the cusp between curvaceous and fat"; Joe, devoted and unfaithful; Willie, Jessie’s gay grandson, ("I thought he just had good posture," said Jessie); Georgia, an empress dowager who never speaks; and a dozen others all living together in the sweet everyday. Lamott’s rich and timeless themes are also here: love and loyalty, loss and recovery, staying on and staying together, the power of humor to heal and to bind. Out of print for fifteen years, Joe Jones is a novel of hilarity and joy

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First Edition edition (August 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593760035
• ISBN-13: 978-1593760038
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #108,350 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imperfect world -, November 3, 2003

By	Mary K. Emmrich (Morocco, IN United States) - See all my reviews

Anne Lamott captures imperfect people in our imperfect world beautifully in this novel. Readers who think Lamott has left them bereft of plot aren't paying attention. The title character's imperfections construct the plot for us. This books is about loving someone despite it all.
Joe Jones is flawed, and does not realize his shortcomings, making those that genuinely care about him the central characters. I found great strength and hope in Louise - she was more physically and spiritually beautiful by the end of this novel than I ever expected. Louise also teaches us by example. Faith and inner strength are not attributes bestowed one time that last forever. They falter, need to be replenished, and are questioned daily, hourly for each of us. I think we forget that sometimes.
I always find guidance in Lamott's writings - snippets and phrases that bolster me and comfort me. "Joe Jones" is no different - the memorable phrase from this being "It's just so time-consuming being me."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a wonderful book, another gem for the collection, November 27, 2003

By A Customer

In the introduction, Lamott thanks Jane Vanderburgh(sp?) for lending an editing hand to Joe Jones, published a long time ago. Having read the original and liked its quirky, flawed movements, I am now absolutely savoring this rewrite. It is a full novel, rounded and studded with unforgettable characters like the elderly Jessie (the car driving scene - the long one - isi sidesplittingly funny), the romantic but wise Lou, and of course the charming and lovely young Willie, whom we all know out there somewhere, the eternal boy-man. Oh it's all pure delight. Fey to the naysayers! A perfect read for the intelligent reader who doesnt need a Hollywood plot or a pat ending. I will not,howvever, be satisfied until Anne writes a sequel to Rae's character in Rosie. We need the Rae book, Annie! We honestly do. All hail Lamott, writer for women (and men) who think.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A real mess, worth reading, but not worth buying, June 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Joe Jones (Mass Market Paperback)

Even the author acknowledges this as her sloppiest published work. The characters themselves are the sort of lovable, messy types Anne often writes about. The problem is the lack of structure in this wildly uneven work. It has a plot, sort of, but even after you get to know the characters, and watch them do their thing, you have little insight into why. If you're a fan, find it in a library and read it for completeness, but don't bother buying it.