Small Town Odds

Twenty-four-year-old Eric Mercer is a good guy, but he copes with the disappointments of a life that hasn't quite gone according to plan by drinking too much. Weekdays find him working two jobs--assisting alternately at a bar and a funeral home--and sharing in the task of raising his five-year-old daughter, who lives full-time with her mother. Weekends he is more often than not drunk and belligerent to the point of exciting police attention. Jason Headley's debut novel follows Eric's life in the present, a chapter a day, through one unusually eventful week, from a Sunday morning hangover endured in the local jail to the following Saturday, when everything--and nothing--has changed. The seven chapters devoted to Eric's present are interspersed with chapters detailing slices from his past: his liberation of a Playboy Magazine from someone's stolen stash when he was twelve; the big game against his town's arch-rivals that Eric won more or less single-handedly during his senior year; the birth of his daughter. Gradually the pieces of Eric's life, related out of sequence, recombine to explain the mystery of his character: how a top student, a hero on the gridiron, a man whose innate goodness is plain to see--despite the darker side that reveals itself when he drinks--how such a man came only seven years after his high school triumphs to be squandering his life in a kind of hopeless holding pattern. Jason Headley's Small Town Odds is an elegant, gorgeously written novel. And it is well plotted, the various elements of Eric's quiet drama lining up as they are meant to and leading inevitably to the book's denouement, but not in such a way that one notices mid-read what the author is doing. Only afterward does one appreciate the story's structure, how a funeral and a football game and the baggage of Eric's past lead finally to resolution. Like Richard Russo, the Pulitzer-winning author of Empire Falls with whom he has been compared, Headley offers readers a charming exploration of life in small-town America, where the cast of characters tends to remain unchanged, and people bump into one another's lives at various points, passing time together and sharing histories and resentments: the sort of aging that makes for complex relationships. And like Richard Russo, Headley is able to create from these elements some very fine fiction indeed. Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Live in Ancient Greece

I knew nothing about this book when I first heard about it. My English teacher had gone to school with Jason Headley and said he'd be home in April and would like to speak with kids that read it. Since I love to read, I decided to go ahead and give it a try, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. It turns out that this is a really GREAT book! I loved it, totally couldn't put it down! I loved how Jason described the Ohio Valley, I knew the places he was talking about & I thought that was really neat! This book is a great read about small town life, lost love, and changes life brings to the plans you've made for yourself. I would definately recommend this book to anyone!

I read this story in it's rough draft version and found it enjoyable but confusing.After purchasing the book and reading it again, I am delighted.It is a "lite" read that will make you laugh,cry,and think.You may even want to move to a small town and amuse yourself with odd jobs,centerfold beauties,and the ritual of small town funerals.

Headley's book provides a humorous, insightful look at one time high school football and academic star (Eric Mercer) struggling to make his way in a life that shouldn't be. His plans to leave his small WV town for college and opportunity elsewhere (along with his high school sweetheart) are shattered after an indiscretion with the local beauty leaves him sans sweetheart, and with a daughter that he loves, but wishes had never been born. We follow Eric, now in his mid twenties, as he struggles to be a father to his daughter, and find his way in life - while haunted by the memories of his past and the thoughts of what should have been his future. The author deftly toggles between the present and the past to show how Eric landed where we find him now. This poignant story of different kinds of love, and lust, will ring true with the reader who can relate to seeing things evolve when life doesn't go according to plan. And who can't?

This is one of those books you just can't put down. I was taken back to my small hometown and loved the images that the book brought to life. This all too often fact is that those high school heroes have a difficult time transitioning into "real life", what ever that is. Look out Pat Conroy, Jason Headley has left his mark and I'm anxiously awaiting ro learn more of "Eric's" life with Tess.