Crazy in Alabama

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Summary: I Have three words for you...
Review: READ THIS BOOK!!! Since Tom Robbins doesn't appear to be publishing a new book any time soon, Childress has fulfilled a void in my life. Crazy in Alabama is the Pringles of the literary world: Once you pop, you can't stop. From the first page to the last, Childress enraptures you with his colorful characters and their realistically out of this world experiences. Lorena Bobitt, you could learn a thing or two from Lucille Vinson. Just like a good little addict, the day I finished Crazy in Alabama I went out a scored another Childress fix. So far, Gone for Good does not dissapoint.

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Summary: Crazy in Alabama is the ride of your life
Review: The characters in this story are so believable while doing unbelievable things. Truly an amazing work, brought off with brilliance. Funny and touching, this is a quick read because it's impossible to put down. Highest recommendation.

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Summary: I read it on a flight from LA and laughed all the way home
Review: When you begin reading this story you begin to think how bizarre and where did this author come up with this idea. But Lucille takes you from one end of the country to the other with her tupperware container and you laugh all the way with her. You find yourself sympathizing with her and her need to find a meaning to her life. All the while shocked by what she carries with her. A bookstore owner in San Francisco recommended it to me to read on the plane home four years ago. I have since bought copies for my Mother, sisters (all 5) and my son's and we are agree it is the best and funniest book we have ever read. How original Mark Childress is!! I continue to look for books to match the humor but have yet not happened upon it!!

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Summary: Oprah depression backlash
Review: I'm the manager of a bookstore. What I see are lots of Oprah depression backlash books right now. Books like this one, the Ya-Ya Sisters and Crazy Ladies by Michael Lee West are fighting to keep the women of the world out of depression clinics. This is a wonderful, strange, funny book. Any book where you get to meet MLK and the cast of the Beverly Hillbillies can't be all that bad. Right? An odd amalgam of Thelma & Louise and To Kill a Mockingbird (as the book says itself). I couldn't put it down. I'm selling them by word of mouth. Get your tupperwear ready before you purchase it (and don't forget to burp it). A male from Michigan.

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Summary: Once I started I could not put it down
Review: This is a must read! My sister reccommended it. She said it was great! Well, she under rated it! It is wonderful! Can't wait for the movie!!!!!

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Summary: Compelling story, very entertaining
Review: This book is very fun to read. Even though it is a quick read, there's plenty of depth to the characters and the two plots. It's a form of literature that leaves you smiling and then after you've put the put the book down makes you think about its significance.

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Summary: Alchemy in Alabama by Childress the Wizard.
Review: 'Crazy in Alabama' is my first Mark Childress book, and I've got to tell you: I'm hooked. Here Childress has given us parallel stories, ripping good yarns both, which are more similar than one might judge at first glance. The first is the story of a murder and it's aftermath, a flamboyant tale with one of the most unforgettable characters to come out of Southern literature in a long time, Lucille Vinson. A sort of manic Scarlett O'Hara with an attitude, Lucille is determined to change her life, for better or worse, and find the freedom she's dreamed of all her life, letting us know right from jump that as God is her witness, she'll never eat humble pie again. I won't reveal the details of the story because Childress has taken such care to startle and amaze us, but I will say that he has created in Lucille a delicious, sexy, raucous naif, absolutely depraved and absolutely innocent at the same time. She takes us on a wild ride through her own private wonderland, and we both believe and relish every over-the-top minute. The civil rights struggle in the South gives Childress his second story, and here he has borrowed liberally from actual events: Governor Wallace standing in the doorway at the University of Alabama blocking the registration of its first black students, the famous Selma marches, and Bull Connors' outrages in Birmingham. Somehow, however, Childress has made these stories, now transferred to Industry, Alabama, smaller and less sensational, allowing us to see the subtle grays we could never perceive in the black and white of the headlines of that time. While no apologist for the immoral offenses of those who resisted so violently the inevitable tide of southern history, Childress shows us the hearts and souls of these villains, changing our knee-jerk hatred to a melancholy and compassionate pity. This is an act of alchemy that not even 'To Kill a Mockingbird' could achieve, a story whose resonance echoes throughout Chidress'novel. How are these ostensibly disparate tales similar? Both are stories of characters who grasp for a dreamed of life: of fabulous stardom, of racial justice, of white supremacy's orderly comfort. Both question the whole notion of right and wrong, of guilt and retribution, of heroism and cowardice. And both tell us that life is a wild and crazy turn on the roller coaster, not just in Alabama, but in the mirror of the heart. Don't miss this book. It will, I think, eventually be seen as one of the great literary works of this decade.

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Summary: the funniest, most touching, undeniably addictive novel ever
Review: I have read this book 3 times and bought at least a dozen copies to give to every Southern woman I know. Lucille is the most hilarious, loveable, recognizable character to ever live on the pages of modern fiction. I've sent it to friends in Australia who have passed it around until they had to send for another less worn copy! What a wonderful gift...Mark Childress is my hero.

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Summary: I loved it!
Review: I started this book at 5 pm one evening and didn't put it down until I finished it. I wanted to know what the characters were going to do next. I really enjoyed it!

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Summary: It's a story you'll never want to end
Review: This book, hopefully soon-to-be-movie (bought by Warner Bros--and I'm sure they're taking their time), was one of the funniest, heart-renching, outrageous books I've ever read. I actually did not want to finish the book because I didn't want the story to end. The ironic differences between Lucille and PeeJoe's lives intertwine, but yet are divided into 2 separate plots that eventually collide into an unassuming ending. I highly recommend reading this before it's ruined in a movie.