Welcome to Higby: A Novel

I loved this book. The people you meet in Higby are eccentric and charming and wonderful. The introductory biblical quotations for each chapter are a real treat and must be reread after finishing the chapter for full appreciation.

The Labor Day weekend of 1993 finds the residents of Higby, Mississippi seeking happiness though everyone looks for this mythos differently. Teenage Clint and his minister father have not recovered from the death of Clint's mom nor do they share their feelings of doubt and struggles with struggles with their beliefs. That changes when Clint falls from a water tower luckily into a swimming pool and dad meets the massage parlor owner.Carmen Valentine trips over a crack but does not break her mother's back. Instead she badly peeled her face's epidermis. She follows up this scrape by plowing into the pickup of Euless, who had stopped to help an Alzheimer's victim.Euless and Marci, the girlfriend of his roommate Stewie, shared intimacy. However, Marci has since found Jesus, but not in Euless' bedroom. Euless worries that there is something wrong with him when he feels the hots for Carmen. Meanwhile Stewie and Marci reconcile passionately while alas a cult kidnaps poor Talitha. Labor Day in Hixby is like any other day in a town where bedlam is the norm even for those who try to strictly adhere to the Word.WELCOME TO HIXBY is a tremendously amusing look at the Southern lifestyle through a series of interrelated stories. The book is not an anthology as incidents in one-segment impact events in another. Fans will enjoy the antics of the eccentric while praying this does not happen to me. The use of biblical quotes are not chapter gimmicks but instead add to the overall flow that makes this book feel like a novel whose theme is enjoy life by finding God in your own way.Harriet Klausner

Mark Dunn's new book is the perfect antidote to winter chill. Curl up with it in front of a fireplace while a blizzard rages outside, and watch it warm your heart and cheer your soul. Set in a small town in the Bible Belt south, the book traces the lives of several characters, including a despondent minister, a sagacious masseuse, the local male heartthrob and several cultists, over a Labor Day weekend. Stereotypes quickly fade in the author's able hands, as he weaves a tale of his characters' endearing foibles and takes the plot round some unexpected twists and turns. There are some absolutely hilarious passages, written with a deadpan humor that had me laughing out loud in the middle of the night. The book is in many ways richer than the author's award-winning "Ella Minnow Pea", and demonstrates Dunn's extraordinary versatility as a writer - the subtext is more subtle, the humor more biting, the author's command of setting and tone more skilled. Well done!

I loved this book! Having grown up in the south, I halfway expected to be insulted by the portrayal of yet another southern Mississippi town, but boy was I wrong. Dunn does an excellent job of developing characters that are quirky, sometimes unpredictable, yet quite endearing and I found myself getting emotionally attached. At the same time, I found myself laughing out loud at certain passages and reading them twice. Dunn's ability to describe his characters and their unique views of the world is delightful and I found this to be one of those rare books where you are never tempted to skim because each sentence has been so lovingly constructed. I highly recommend!

Torrid sex in an abandoned dental chair. A risky escape from a brainwashing cult. A sexy BBW guardian angel doling out advice like candy. Sounds like a funny novel? It is, and Dunn brings a wonderfully whimsical attitude to this lighthearted story of cozy southern life. Virtually everyone in a single family is accident-prone, and the rest of the town talks about how stupid or feeble they must be to get themselves into such messes.Across town, the newly born-again Christian Stewie Kipp revives a romance with his longtime girlfriend Marci in a vacant dentist's office. Most of the people inside this story are still trying to make up their minds on whether they love beer or each other more. I vote they love the beer, but Dunn doesn't let them say. The strength of this book is how well the author conflates lives and personalities with ease and without falling into tired stereotypes. This book flies by when you're reading it and reading it a second time allows you to laugh at things you didn't catch the first time. Spend a weekend with it and you won't regret it!