I met Tony Earley yesterday during the Festival of Southern Cultures at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Our group had the unique opportunity to sit with him once yesterday and once today and pick his brain about this book. It is a very amazing piece of literature, with metaphors hidden just below the rocky surface. His short stories include very insightful mantras...especially the ones about shooting the cat (not for cruelty, but out of pity) and hunting deer. I don't really know how else to describe this book, so all I can say is that you should buy it and read it as soon as possible! Also, he teaches at Vanderbilt University in Nashville if any of you go/are thinking of going there.

Tony Earley's book drew me in immediately...from the first page, the writing is captivating. As he walks the reader through his life from a prepubescent age until he becomes much of the man he is today, it is hard not to see his family, hear their laughter and their tears. His writing is easy to identify with...we all remember having emotions like those that he goes through. There is a face the reader can visualize for every character that appears. There is a voice for every person. This book is amazing.

In the first essay in this amazing book, Somehow Form a Family, Tony Early writes; "I wanted to tell her that no one in my family ever raised their voice while the television was on, that late at night even a bad television show could keep me from hearing the silence in my own heart." That sentence caused my own heart to stop for a second. I put the book down and returned to it the next day. Tony Early writes in simple, concise English. There are no glossy, shiny adjectives. Each word is exact and to the point and utterly perfect. Jim the Boy was one of my most favorite books last year. Somehow Form A Family will I think, become a fixture in my home. One to be read and re-read for years to come. I better get another copy!

The first story in this collection had me concerned-- various southern "stock" characters, an odd stream of consciousness narrative, flashbacks between modern absurdities and wrongs a generation ago. The story was readable, but I thought that I was reading yet another "southern boy writes about how odd his milieu is" collection. As the collection progressed, though, I came to see that Mr. Earley has a real talent for the story. He hits themes which are pretty well travelled in short stories these days--"accepting less in life, but wanting more", "the things we say, the things we can't say", but his prose style is fresh, and his sense of a good story is impeccable. Sometimes I feel that his plots try to "touch the bases" of a "proper" short story, when in fact he should just let his narrative genius flow. This is a very worthwhile book to read, quite an entertainment. Mr. Earley can write comic scenes, but this is no simplistic set of comic stories. This is a set of good yarns by a modern storyteller.

These delicate short stories tell harrowing tales of love and loss with something rare in modern literature - absolute respect for the characters and the reader.

I'm really looking forward to Tony Earley's novel that contains some of the characters from the last three stories in this collection.

Bill

I couldn't believe it when I heard this wonderful book is out of print!! How could we let this happen? Surely we could have found a spot on our bookshelves, one space between all the fluff for this priceless and rare book. A book that should teach us all a lesson. Treasure a gem if you find it, keep it somewhere safe, because you might find you've kept something even more valuable than you ever thought. I'm glad I found this particular gem of a book before the presses stopped. And Mr. Earley? How about just one more. I've saved a place on my bookshelf.

From what I had read about this book, I expected an instant classic that would live up to its inspiration, Huck Finn. Though I enjoyed the book's leisurely pace and solid writing, I found it somewhat ordinary. The actual events are captivating as we witness the young protagonist who gains an extra digit (turns 10) as the book opens experience his childhood. We learn before the book starts that his father died before he was born, so he lives with his mother and 3 uncles (her brothers) who never married. I enjoyed the opening chapters in which Jim goes out into the field with his uncles to try his hand at hoeing, only to find out that it's much harder than he thought. This, and the other central incident involving his friendship with Penn and a brief encounter with Ty Cobb were the highlights of the novel. It's very readable and does give a well-rendered view of growing up in a small, rural American town. I just felt that there was still too much distance between Jim and the reader to really get inside the character the same way we do while reading a book like Huck Finn. A very good novel, but a few steps short of great.

"Jim the Boy" is one of the most simply, yet beautifully crafted novels I have read in quite a while. One one level it may seem to be somewhat simplistic and a quick and easy read. However, the skilful and artistic author has in fact written a deep and emotionally moving novel about the depression-era childhood of a fatherless boy under the care and guidance of his mother and three uncles. I confess to reading this only because it was the featured novel at my book club this month, but am so very glad that I did. I found it fascinating to see how Jim's uncles guided him through life's sometimes hard-learned lessons with both toughness and compassion. I look forward to my group's discussion later this week.

I can't begin to figure out how Mr. Early could understand what it was like to live on a farm in the mid-south in the early 1/3 of the Twentieth Century. But, not only did he understand - he understood well enough to tell this compelling story from the point of view of a young boy. Buy this book. You won't reget it. Make sure you put your name on it, because you will want four or five people to read it and it will get passed around. My only comment is that the black characters in this book come off as benevolent and kind and slightly less than real: Almost ghostly. However, that is how a sheltered ten year old might see those who weren't part of his everyday life. The sunny life of this young boy is always edged by the harsh reality of adult life. Illness, death, violence towards people and animals and the reality of winning often isn't really winning in life. I hope Mr. Early continues with his novella output. I found his book of short stories to be disappointing and thus was glad to read "Jim" - It's nice when literary and popular opinion merges like a jetstream over one good book.

It's been a while since I read this, and this is just my opinion, but I was disappointed with this one. I'd read the 1990, 1991, and 1992 editions previously, and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

I have read probably, (literally) 100 anthologies of short stories and this is the best I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Admittedly, Best New Stories from the South is my favorite yearly anthology. It presents the most consistent quality of stories each year. This is the best that I have read. Each story is powerful and distinct from the others. To me, the mark of a good short story is when you must put down the book after finishing it and think. Every story in this collection is that good. This book, hopefully, will hook you on the series.