Most Popular Books by Mark Childress

Mark Childress''s novel, Tender, is a little more than just a fine novel; it is a big, all-American, Technicolor dreamboat of a book, as vital and as intense as anything I''ve read in the last ten years. The legend is familiar to everyone who cares about pop music and rhythm and blues, but Mark Childress has invested it with an eerie mystery-train vitality that is only available to the talented novelist. There''s something else as well; this is the first novel I''ve ever read in my life which is more inside rock and roll than about it; through the eyes of Leroy Kirby, Mark Childress has made the mad early days of rock and roll seem not just comphrensible but inevitable. Beneath the cool prose line of this minimalist epic there is the same raw and feverish drive that propelled the early rockabilly stars as they created a new kind of music. Childress''s understanding and love of this new music lends Tender the sort of piney woods authenticity I associate with such American classics as Elmer Gantry and All The King''s Men. If you care about rock and roll, Tender is going to knock your socks off. This is a great novel, and as Childress documents the meteoric rise of his talented child-monster-prodigy, Leroy Kirby, he never misses a beat. -- Stephen King

A bestselling author "eloquently addresses racism . . .adolescent love, family dysfunction . . .with plenty of wit and insight" in this coming of age novel ( Booklist ). 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. "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 "Daniel[''s] . . .innocence wins the reader''s heart in this story of complicated betrayals." — The Washington Post

Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist Southern belle. Nobody realizes that the family fortune has long since disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs an alternative, and discreet, means of income. In Georgia''s case it is six well-heeled lovers -- one for each day of the week, with Mondays off -- none of whom knows about the others. But when the married preacher who has been coming to call (Saturdays) decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia must take drastic measures to stop him. In George Bottoms, Mark Childress proves once again his unmistakable skill for combining the hilarious and the absurd to reveal the inner workings of the rebellious human heart.

Until he discovers the one little catch: he can never leave. ...

Novelist Mark Childress ("Crazy in Alabama,""GeorgiaBottoms")happened to be born in Monroeville, Alabama

"If you''ve forgotten the thrills and chills of child''s play, the incendiary imagination of adolescence, Mark Childress''s second novel -- a speeding bullet of a book -- will ignite your memory. In this adventure story the hero, Victor, is sublimely lost, a celebrated ragamuffin like Huck Finn or one of Peter Pan''s lost tribe." -- Marianne Gingher, New York Times Book Review "A crackling good adventure is tough to pull off, but Mark Childress has done just this and he''s done it brilliantly. From his lyrical opening passages, which evoke the softness of adolescent innocence, right up through his explosive finale, he never lets us come up for air. And we never want to. Think of the Hardy Boys if you will, but also think of Harper Lee, and early Capote. This is a yarn spun with poetry. This is storytelling at its best." -- Peter Buckley, Vogue "The whole ''great watery plain of Mobile Bay'' is a world the author and his gangly hero know with a strong and lovely intimacy." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

A man who can’t pronounce “anonymous” In high office, seems rather ominous. We don’t have to get all Deuteronomous: Brains and power are rarely synonymous. "I love every word Mark Childress writes, including this new compilation of his great political writing. He is brilliant and hilarious. " – Anne Lamott "You, sir, are a libtard!" – Glenn Beck New York Times bestselling author Mark Childress was like many liberal Americans whose life veered off the tracks as Donald Trump rose to power. In his day-by-day journal, Childress tirelessly pursues the funny side of America’s descent into Trumpism. From Viet Nam to New Orleans to the Women’s March and beyond, the author spins variations on all the absurd, ridiculous, head-exploding, enraging, unbelievable moments of the Trump Years. The book includes photos, tweets, teets, doggerel, lyrics, fake news, and all manner of hijinks, twaddle, & flimflammery. If Trump & Company drive you crazy, but you''re almost ready to laugh - this is the book for you.

Mark Childress is is an artist, with an ear comparable to Eudora Welty''s, which to me is the highest praise one can give. I haven''t read a Southern novel since Losing Battles that has given me such pleasure. -- Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird The sense of reality with which Childress imbues his characters and their situation is remarkable. He has the true novelist''s ability to commit himself entirely to the people and events he envisions, and this is rare; the reader is certain at all points that the author is not playing with the subject, but writing from deep within it. A truly outstanding book is the result. -- James Dickey A World Made of Fire is earthy, adroit, moving -- an excellent novel by a writer of great promise and talent. -- Jesse Hill Ford Mark Childress is a young novelist who has written a memorable story out of the land and people of the Deep South that throughout its length is constantly intruguing with unexpected innovations. The ever-present undercurrent of mystical events will probably startle many readers by arousing and bringing forth unfamiliar emotions. -- Erskine Caldwell A wonderful and powerful novel...Childress''s debut in the world of fiction is a cause to be celebrated; he is the real thing. -- Pat Conroy Mark Childress''s new-fashioned saga is full of delicate electricity and raw power. -- Barry Hannah This is a damned fine story. There is more here than story, though. This baby resonates. Mark Childress is a writer of almost uncanny stylistic ability and clear vision. His eye for detail is extraordinary. It makes you want to holler Oh yeah! like a guy who''s gotten religion at a riverside camp meeting. It''s close; it''s luxurious in its rightness; it fulfills the central demand of art...to make us see more in what we always thought we were seeing. -- Stephen King A haunting first novel...There is a clear light of genuine story-telling talent shining through it all. -- Library Journal In an impressive debut, Childress has produced a spellbinding tale in the Southern gothic tradition. A writer of poetic acuity, he evokes the atmospher of a small Southern town and brings its inhabitants to life through their colorful, softly cadenced speech. Childress''s remarkable command of language -- he uses imagery with sensuous skill -- his sure sense of plot, fueled by mysticism and mystery, and most of all, his beautifully nuanced depiction of Stella''s coming of age, will keep readers enthralled. -- Publishers Weekly That rarest of finds, an unsentimental coming-of-age story, A World Made of Fire is also an engrossing mystery. Wrapped in its tale of voodoo and midnight rides is a detailed bestiary of human emotions and behaviors. San Francisco Chronicle Mark Childress''s first novel is a complex allegory of pagan magic and Christian retribution... Mr. Childress writes his haunting novel with poetic cadences in brief, intense chapters. He is an author of imagination. Stella''s coming of age in grief and loneliness is drawn wtih graceful authenticity. -- Valerie Miner, The New York Times Book Review A startlingly original first novel. Not only do a great many marvelous things happen, they do so in a time and place so untapped that Childress is able to claim the territory as his alone. He has marked himself, at the tender age of twenty-six, as a major new fictional voice. -- Bruce van Wyngarden, Saturday Review

The tale of Peejoe, an orphan boy who comes of age during a racially restless summer in the Alabama, and his aunt Lucille, who jumps at the chance to escape her life for a role on the "Beverly Hillbillies."

Joshua sets off to deliver a huckleberry pie to his grandmother and he and the pie are kidnapped by a mob of mean-tempered crabs.

In this fantasy tale Billy Bobbity banishes his brother from their messy room but soon regrets his action and begins the search for the missing Henry.

The tiny shiny baby alligator Joshua brings home from a day fishing grows into a big alligator whose future must be decided.

The thrilling finale to the instant No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller A Fate Inked in Blood. The stunning first edition hardcover will feature foil page edges, a custom-stamped case, and a premium dust jacket!