Georgia Bottoms (31 page)
Authors: Mark Childress
—Kendal Weaver, Associated Press
“A lively adventure story about a woman who’s gotten herself into a large mess (or three) and is largely responsible for arranging her own rescue…. Georgia is outsized without being a cartoon, and she lives within the literary tradition of Southern spitfires without being limited by it. The novel is full of broadly funny scenes.”
—Linda Holmes, NPR
“In
Georgia Bottoms,
you will meet the most hilariously dysfunctional bunch of characters to come down the literary pike in years. Try to stop laughing!”
—Fannie Flagg, author of
I Still Dream About You
“Georgia Bottoms is the blond, beautiful Southern belle next door. As the central character in Mark Childress’s new novel, she is the center of attention…. Childress, an Alabama native, brings the same humor and flair for drama to
Georgia Bottoms
that made his novel
Crazy in Alabama
such a hit. He is a master of penning dialect, especially when it’s south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Georgia’s Southern accent floats off the page, making
Georgia Bottoms
a quick, entertaining novel for Childress fans and new readers alike…. This is a must-read, y’all.”
—Lizza Connor Bowen,
BookPage
“A sparkling novel…. Mark Childress once again proves himself the master of American comic fiction.”
—Janet Fitch, author of
Paint It Black
“This is Mark Childress’s finest novel. I adore Georgia Bottoms, novel and character. Her story is funny, smart, serious, and engaging, beginning to end. A must-read.”
—Lynn Freed, author of
The Servants’ Quarters
“Sashaying through Childress’s newest, the titular
Georgia Bottoms
is a dead ringer for Scarlett O’Hara, from the way she charms the pants off every man in her small town of Six Points, Alabama, to the creative ways she contends with the loss of her family’s fortunes…. One of the most irresistible liars to ever whip up a batch of pimento cheese sandwiches, the irreverent Georgia allows Childress to poke delicious fun at a number of sacred cows, from Rosa Parks to Southern Baptists to
9
/
11
… with an incomparable ear for dialogue and heaps of sexy slapstick.”
—Gina Webb,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“This is Mark Childress’s seventh novel, and it is a doozy. The simple act of reading
Georgia Bottoms
releases tension; buttons are undone, shoes kicked off—man, is it hot. Georgia Bottoms is not perfect, but she is fun to be with.”
—Susan Salter Reynolds,
Los Angeles Times
“Childress is a wickedly clever and humorous fiction writer, and this novel is a delight…. In the Alabama novels of Mark Childress, as in those of his friend Fannie Flagg, very little—including a person’s public sexual orientation—is exactly what it seems.”
—Don Noble,
Tuscaloosa News
“This new Childress tale captures Southern culture at its mint julep best: the interiors, what the people wear, how they speak. Georgia is a thirty-four-year-old free spirit, but he has some incredibly insightful things to say about aging and what it means to do the right thing. Georgia Bottoms isn’t stingy with her heart or her money. The end of the story has kept me smiling for weeks.”
—Alyne Ellis and Allan Fallow,
AARP
“Childress is sassy magnolia lit’s Truman Capote—sharply observant, unrelentingly honest, and downright hilarious—and his Georgia peach is the freshest bad girl to rise from the South since Scarlett O’Hara.”
—Washington Examiner
“The title of this novel from Childress refers to a person rather than to a place—and what a memorable character she turns out to be.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Imagine if Scarlett O’Hara was a twenty-first-century character who wore lemon patent leather Manolo Blahnik heels. The Civil War is over but civil rights are still a work in progress, and instead of Tara, there is Six Points, Alabama, where she lives in her ancestral home, which has seen better days. To keep up appearances, she has turned to the world’s oldest profession—not that she would ever call it that. Georgia Bottoms is that heroine.”
—Liane Hansen, NPR
Weekend Edition
“Mark Childress writes the funniest outlandish characters in Southern fiction, from the Tupperware-toting murderer Lucille in
Crazy in Alabama
to Georgia Bottoms, a fine, upstanding church lady in Six Points, Alabama, who sells sex on the side.”
—Atlanta
“Childress again brings to life that most elusive of all women—the Southern belle—and he shows his creative and imaginative skills for combining the hilarious and the heartfelt to reveal the inner secrets of Southern womanhood.”
—Sharon Galligar Chance,
Las Vegas Review-Journal
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“Ingenious and surprising…. A deeply knowing novel—progressive, certainly, and at times quietly, thrillingly strange.”
—Meg Wolitzer,
New York Times Book Review
Back Bay Books • Available wherever paperbacks are sold
A Conversation with Mark Childress
Questions and topics for discussion
Praise for Mark Childress’s Georgia Bottoms
Also Available from Back Bay Books
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2011 by Mark Childress
Reading group guide copyright © 2012 by Mark Childress and Little, Brown and Company
Cover design by Ploy Siripant. Cover photograph © fStop / Wildcard Images, UK. Cover © 2012 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
First e-book edition: February 2011
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-316-12196-5