Fiction, Fiction Subjects

One Mississippi

Name: One Mississippi
Author: Mark Childress
ISBN: 9780316012126

by Mark Childress

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Overview

"There is nothing small about Childress's fine novel. It's big in all the ways that matter - big in daring, big in insight, and big-hearted. Really, really big-hearted." -New Orleans Times-Picayune

This exuberantly acclaimed novel by the author of the bestselling Crazy in Alabama tells an uproarious and moving story about family, best friends, first love, and surviving the scariest years of your life.

You need only one best friend, Daniel Musgrove figures, to make it through high school alive. After his family moves to Mississippi just before his junior year, Daniel finds fellow outsider Tim Cousins. The two become inseparable, sharing a fascination with ridicule, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and Arnita Beecham, the most bewitching girl at Minor High. But soon things go terribly wrong. The friends commit a small crime that grows larger and larger, and threatens to engulf the whole town. Arnita, the first black prom queen in the history of the school, is injured and wakes up a different person. And Daniel, Tim, and their families are swept up in a shocking chain of events.

"Wise, riveting, hilarious, painful, gentle, and ferocious, One Mississippi is a wonderful read." -Anne Lamott

"A Tilt-a-Whirl that flings the reader from comedy to calamity. . . . Childress is a fabulist in the manner of John Irving." -Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"By turns rollicking and troubling, as provocative as it is droll, One Mississippi is about as easy to resist as a riptide. This critic's advice is to go with its powerful flow." -Raleigh News & Observer

Synopsis

"Wise, riveting, hilarious, painful, gentle, and ferocious, One Mississippi is a wonderful read." -Anne Lamott

"A Tilt-a-Whirl that flings the reader from comedy to calamity. . . . Childress is a fabulist in the manner of John Irving." -Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Publishers Weekly

When his father is relocated from Indiana to Minor, Miss., in 1973, 16-year-old Daniel Musgrove finds himself a classic fish out of water. At Minor High, the Midwestern teenager finds a kindred spirit in wiseacre Tim Cousins, whose motto is "Everything is funny all the time." The two indulge their love of Sonny and Cher, get recruited by a local Baptist church to perform in an amateur musical called Christ! and endure the bullying of football star Red Martin. When, on prom night, the boys accidentally run over Arnita Beecham, a beautiful, popular black girl, the boys flee, letting Red take the fall. Arnita wakes from her coma believing she's white and promptly falls for Daniel-which makes Tim extremely jealous and puts their coverup at risk. Childress's comic tone and well-written adolescent confusion make his late shift into darker territory jarring, and readers might not follow him all the way to his violent destination. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Mark Childress

Mark Childress was born in Monroeville, Alabama. He is the author of five previous novels and three books for children. He has lived in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, California, Costa Rica, and currently lives in New York City.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Childress's (Crazy in Alabama) absorbing and offbeat novel follows events in the life of young Daniel Musgrove as his family relocates to rural Mississippi. Daniel begins his junior year in high school, a stranger in a strange land, but quickly befriends a local alienated youth named Tim Cousins. The two boys share some typical and funny high school experiences. But there is a darker side, starting with a strange accident after the prom involving the homecoming queen, and even though they are not really at fault, they implicate themselves by saying nothing when the school bully is blamed. Tim is comfortable with their silence, but Daniel feels guilty. Although the boys remain friends, Daniel comes to suspect that something is seriously abnormal about his friend. The book climaxes in a Columbine-like scene wherein Tim goes berserk with rifles in the school and Daniel attempts to act heroically but is not enough of a hero to save his two closest friends. Serious issues of race, identity, and loyalty are raised, and tragic and violent events occur, but the author retains a surprisingly light touch in this highly engaging read. Recommended for popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/06.]-Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Just as Daniel Musgrove is about to enter 11th grade in the early '70s, his father moves the family from Indiana to rural Mississippi. A few months later, Daniel's older brother, and best friend, joins the Army, and Daniel finds a new best friend, Tim. Both boys are bright, witty, and living with secret demons. Chief among Daniel's is his father, a bully and a coward. When Tim and Daniel double date for the junior prom, the teens have an accident on the way home and cause the prom queen to fall off her bike and hit her head. Childress's inspection of race relations-among schoolmates, adults, and lovers-builds from this point: the prom queen of the newly integrated high school is black, but the injury leaves her believing that she is white. The boys hang the accident on a bullying football player, but the girl's mother knows Daniel was involved and uses that knowledge to gain power over him. Tim's secret begins to erupt during the summer, although Daniel, preoccupied with his obligations to and feelings for the prom queen, misses warning signs. Childress doesn't twist the plot so much as he unravels its threads with realistic deliberation, diverting attention from Tim by spotlighting Mr. Musgrove's literal home destruction, then swinging the focus back in time to catch Tim in his last furious act. Authenticity demands some brutal scenes and rough language, and a loaded interlude with Cher Bono. This is Daniel's story, so many of the minor characters are one-dimensional, just as they would be in his perception.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Racism, teenage lust and the burdens of friendship complicate a young man's life in the Deep South of 1973. When his salesman father is transferred to a small town in Mississippi, Daniel Musgrove knows, with his Indiana accent, that he will have to fight hard to fit in. He lucks out his first day of high school when he meets Tim Cousins, a lanky, sardonic classmate. The two become inseparable and even take a pair of sisters to the junior prom, where controversy ensues when school beauty Arnita, who is black, is voted prom queen. Later that night, Tim and Daniel see her riding her bike home in an agitated state, and she is accidentally struck by Tim's car. The two panic and flee the scene, stopping to call an ambulance for the unconscious girl. Arnita survives, but has no memory of being hit and for some reason believes herself to be a white girl named Linda, with tragicomic results. Feeling guilty, Daniel starts helping out around her parents' home and spending time with the confused, but undeniably lovely, girl. Nature takes its course and he falls for her, while trying to keep his role in her accident a secret. Their interracial romance is met with predictable disapproval and causes a rift between Daniel and Tim, who tries to come between the lovers. What happens next is a violent culmination of frustrated desire and revenge, implicating both boys. Childress (Crazy in Alabama, 1993, etc.) creates a believably flawed hero in Daniel, a basically good kid capable of cowardly and selfish acts, but goes too far in the shocking final scenes. Tim's transformation from witty outsider into a black-clad high-school avenger feels jarring next to the kitschy southern nostalgia trip that makes upmuch of the story. A coming-of-age tale whose shift in tone impairs its flow.