The last book that moved me to tears was "To Kill a Mockingbird." The last book that made be laugh out loud was "A Confederacy of Dunces." I just whipped through 383 pages of brilliance in three days. I'm exhausted and exhilerated at the same time. This truly is the BEST book I have ever read bar none! I know that Columbia Pictures is releasing it this spring as a movie starring Melanie Griffith and directed by her husband Antonio Banderas. My Hollywood spies tell me this is going to be a GREAT movie -- the Martin Luther King/George Wallace scenes are thrilling and inspiring. Let's hope so! I think Griffith is the perfect choice for Lucille Bullis Vinton (a one-woman "Thelma and Louise"). Banderas is a long-shot as a director (you'd think an American-born director -- especially a Southerner -- would be the obvious choice, but maybe that would be a case of not seeing the forest for the trees). And what Robert Bloch/Alfred Hitchcock have done for showers, Mark Childress/Antonio Banderas will have done for Tupperware. (Better buy stock in Tupperware before the movie comes out, folks!) I can't give this book a higher recommendation!

A reviewer cited on the back cover of this novel calls it "a combination of Thelma and Louise and To Kill a Mockingbird, and that's about right. Beginning in 1965 in the tiny town of Pigeon Creek, Alabama, a single explosive event scatters the characters and sends the story in two directions at once. Twelve-year-old Peejoe (short for Peter Joseph) and his brother are sent to live with their Uncle Dove, a mortician in nearby Industry, while their Aunt Lucille takes off for Hollywood, chasing her dream of landing a starring role on "The Beverly Hillbillies". While Peejoe witnesses both sides of the civil rights movement, right in his own backyard, Lucille seeks the freedom she never had as a frustrated housewife. As the two stories alternately diverge and intertwine, often hilariously, Childress still manages to present an important social commentary.

Mark has a talent for writing prose that is simultaneoulsy thought-provoking and hysterically funny; his world is both authentic and bizzare. He is a master at capturing the experience of youth -- the combination of innocence and growing awareness that we all experienced in some form or another, and his narrative voice is so strong that you'll easily go along for the ride, forgetting you're laughing because one of the women carries around her husband's head in tupperware, or that the people you care about so much are only fabricated characters in a book. This is a highly enjoyable novel that weaves together the story of a woman chasing her dream of stardom with the story of a young boy growing up in the South during the height of the Civil Rights struggle. Besides being a great read, it raises thought provoking questions about how we have treated and continue to treat each other.

V for Victor was the second book I read by Mark Childress and I wasn't disappointed. Being from Alabama, I could definately relate to this 16-year old boy and his need for adventure. From the first moment to the last, I was enthralled by this book and the eye-popping adventures Victor experienced. Shouldn't everyone have a summer like this?

I loved the whole watery world of Mobile Bay, and so did my nephew, 14 years younger than I. I think this is one of the most accomplished, poetic adventure novels I've ever read. Victor and his buddy Butch are unforgettable. Definitely one of this author's best.

I was never a big Elvis fan, kinda before my time -- so i have to admit that i never knew much about his life or his music... well now i do! The start was ssslllooowww but it did pick up when he became a teenager- i read it 'cuz i LOVED Crazy in Alabama (by Childress) but honestly i was not impressed by this book, and the way it ended was so sudden. Guess i dont need to read up on Elvis (feel like i did). Read Crazy in Alabama, that is a great read!

What a rocking ride of a book! I have never been particularly interested in Elvis Presley, but this book swept me along because it is such a great story, so well told. Childress does not miss a beat and there is a beat driving it along. The Leroy Kirby character is fresh and very sympathetic. Childress captures the hot, fast blooming of a new sound and star perfectly. I'm sure it helps that even those casually acquainted with Elvis like myself can conjure some of the real life sound and look of the performances that Childress renders so convincingly, but I was impressed nevertheless. The author's song titles and lyrics, which shadow the real ones, are spot-on, and in several cases seem an improvement on the original. Downside? The story lost some of it's oomph towards the end. Of course, the tale is a carbon copy of much of the first half of Elvis' life [as I have learned by refering to Peter Guralnick's Last Train To Memphis (biography)]. Many small incidents and even place names are reproduced, along with the general outline. So there's a nagging feeling that the book should somehow be discounted a bit, with Childress just redressing a heavily borrowed story. But what a job he has done in creating a full-developed, unique character. Reading Guralnick's fine book, I find Leroy Kirby far more interesting. The power of good fiction! I also don't recognize the writing/writer here from the other novel I've read by Childress (V is for Victor - good, but Tender is much better.

Although I grew up in the 1950s, I was largely oblivious to the appeal of Elvis Presley, and I have never considered myself anywhere close to being a "fan" of his. However, Mark Childress completely absorbed my attention and sympathies in this immensely-readable narrative of a fictionalized Elvis. Permeating the initial parts of this novel is a sense of poverty, despair, and, ironically, hope. The young Elvis, disdained and forlorn, knows the solace of an overbearing, but loving, mother, and a sense of his own possibilities through his guitar. The rock star Elvis is overpowering..both in ability and character. I commented repeatedly to my wife that this book rolls at an incredible pace...and that a reader cannot help but be engrossed.

Since I loved Crazy in Alabama, I thought I would go back and read earlier novels by Childress. This was his first, and much different than I expected. The characters were much less defined, often to the point of being ambiguous, and the characters were used to create emotional states, or sensory images, rather than a fleshing out of real people. This novel was laden with allegories, metaphors, sensations, and juxtapositions that were often incongruous and disturbing. Heavy use of a very rural Creole and Cajun vernacular and frame of references which were often to the point of excess. I had trouble following dialogue because of the language.

Unlike Crazy in Alabama which was a funny, human (albeit implausible) adventure depicting the variances in human nature and a real sense of history and it's impact on our socio/cultural development, this novel was steeped in a surreal aura, almost out of time and place, with characters who were very disjointed and disturbed. There was nothing funny, and the storyline was not fluid. However, the author does show that he can create incredible imagery with words and sounds, and give you a sense of "being there" at a given moment. The images linger with you.

I can't believe that the reviewer below so totally missed the point of "A World Made of Fire." It's rather silly to criticize an allegory for being allegorical .... and to complain of the use of "Creole" and "Cajun" dialects in a novel very clearly set in Alabama shows us where he or she is coming from.

My advice to Childress fans: check out this remarkable first novel. It contains the seeds of nearly all his themes: tragedy, family, religion, and the supernatural. A wonderful book.