Modern Baptists

I'm a voracious reader, but I rarely RE-read books. (You know how it is--so many books, so little time.) Still, I've re-read this novel over and over. Simply put, it's extremely funny, impeccably written, and contains some of the most vivid characters you'll find anywhere. My advice to those considering this book: read the first ten pages or so. If you're drawn into the story and/or find yourself laughing like a crazy person, then you know this is the book for you. If these things DON'T happen to you, well, I'm sure you're got good taste in some other area of your life. :) Really, if you're a fan of good fiction, you should give yourself the opportunity to experience the unsung, underrated James Wilcox, and this book is the best beginning.

Where has this author been all my life? Or, maybe a better questions is, where have I been? "Modern Baptists" was the first Wilcox novel I have ever read, and now I want to read them all. Deft, comic, eloquently spare prose, and hilarious on every page. With writing that includes lines like "I'm just here looking at the opera," (paraphrased - but it's close) I'm ready to read the whole Wilcox oeuvre!

James Wilcox is the best author you have never heard of. His novels are comic masterpieces. MODERN BAPTISTS remains his best but NORTH GLADIOLA, PLAIN AND NORMAL, and GUEST OF A SINNER are all quite good. But if you read POLITE SEX or SORT OF RICH, you will be amazed by the way he balances hysterical comedy with dramatic pathos. In a perfect world his novels would be read by millions and he would have the status of a Phillip Roth or a John Updike.

I love James Wilcox, he is an amazingly insightful writer who can be wildly funny without ever resorting to caricature or hyperbole. Modern Baptists is great, but North Gladiola is better--unfortunately it is out of print. Mr. Wilcox is really writing one huge novel, characters and situations from other novels are alluded to in passing in what is a meticulous and thoroughly realized fictional town. If I could, I would move to Tula Springs, maybe take one of those apartments above the Sonny Boy department store...Mr. Wilcox deserves a wider audience, and he deserves to become more than 'sort of rich' to borrow one of his titles, from his amazing work. Quick everyone, tell Oprah...

James Wilcox is at his best in Tula Springs, and Modern Baptists, his first, may be his best work overall. While dealing with family conflicts and the convolutions of sex in a humorous way, Wilcox says more about being human in 20th Century America than many other writers do in page upon page of dense, analytic musings. Hey, if we can't laugh at the absurdity of our lives, what's the point?