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A brilliantly observed, hilarious and poignant social satire. Wilcox's Tula Springs novels (there are six and characters overlap) have the narrative litheness of an Armistead Maupin and the piercing tragi-comic insights of Edith Wharton. No scandal has ever rocked Tula Springs, Louisiana, like the discovery one morning of a dead body sprawled beneath L. D. Loraine's window. No matter that L.D. is 91 and nearly bedridden - the evidence clearly points to him as the murderer of the nasty Mr Versey, his lackadaisical home attendant. Before justice can be done however half the staff of City Hall, a suspicious old curmudgeon of a judge, a home ec teacher, an uninspired dentist, the principal of a disreputable school, several adulterous housewives and even Miss Undine's living room are implicated... Standing firmly and stubbornly at the centre of the action is the great niece of the accused, Olive Mackie. Outraged on learning that she too has been drawn into the case she decides that desperate action is called for and heads out to restore her reputation and to singlehandedly set things straight in the beleaguered town.

Ethyl Mae Coco's rambling Victorian home on North Gladiola -- the Main Street of Tula Springs, Louisiana -- is the only residence left at the business end of town, but it's a hotbed for chaotic comedy. Mrs. Coco, aged fifty-seven and feeling somewhat left behind herself, directs her considerable energy into keeping those around her in line -- her remote, obsessively bargain-hunting husband; members of the Pro Arts Quartet chamber music group, which Ethyl Mae aspires to turn into an accomplished cultural jewel; her six unruly grown children, none of whom keeps the Catholic faith to their staunch convert mother's satisfaction; and the other assorted, eccentric, and endearing people of Tula Springs. Nothing is simple -- or quite as gossip portrays it -- in Tula Springs, but after all upheavals and sunders pass, this wired family and community remain strongly connected.

Universally and repeatedly praised ever since it first appeared in 1983, Modern Baptists is the book that launched novelist James Wilcox's career and debuted the endearingly daft community of Tula Springs, Louisiana. It's the tale of Bobby Pickens, assistant manager of Sonny Boy Bargain Store, who gains a new lease on life, though he almost comes to regret it. Bobby's handsome half brother F.X. -- ex-con, ex-actor, and ex-husband three times over -- moves in, and things go awry all over town. Mistaken identities; entangled romances with Burma, Toinette, and Donna Lee; assault and battery; charges of degeneracy; a nervous breakdown -- it all comes to a head at a Christmas Eve party in a cabin on a poisoned swamp. This is sly, madcap romp that offers readers the gift of abundant laughter. Modern Baptists was included in Harold Bloom's The Western Canon, in GQ magazine's forty-fifth anniversary issue as one of the best works of fiction in the past forty-five years, and among Toni Morrison's "favorite works by unsung writers" in U.S. News and World Report.

The fourth novel in 4th Estate's Wilcox revival, a revival which has been received with universal enthusiasm: 'With a keen eye for the weirdness of ordinary lives and an easy style somewhere between Armistead Maupin and Ann Tyler, Wilcox looks set for similar success.' GQ Gretchen Peabody, fortyish and only just a bit dowdy, has decided to abandon the comforts of Manhattan for a new home in Tula Springs, Louisiana, having been swept off her feet by Frank Dambar, a fetching widower she has happened upon in a New Orleans souvenir shop. What she finds there, however, is a state of affairs to which only James Wilcox could do justice. While Gretchen is baffled by the small town's provincialism, it pales next to the weird household her new husband has assembled, which includes a handyman/mystic and his arthritic niece, and a stolid Teutonic housekeeper determined to keep the first Mrs Dambar's memory alive. Just as Gretchen begins to wonder whether so unusual a marriage has been a mistake, fate again intrudes... Wilcox's brilliantly comic vision is matched by a profoundly affecting regard for his characters - qualities that mark his maturity as a novelist and confirm his standing among the classic American humorists.

An astute and comical dissection of the culture wars-by the author of the much-loved Modern Baptists For More Than twenty years, James Wilcox has been cherished by reviewers and readers alike as one of the most talented American humorists. Since his classic Modern Baptists (picked by Harold Bloom as one of the few contemporary novels in his Western Canon), Wilcox has been charting the intricate spiritual topography of the South with inimitable wit and empathy. His "real comic genius" (Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review) has never been so brilliantly deployed as in this hilarious look at the peculiarly American cultural divisions of our times.

Lloyd Norris is slouching towards middle age. Recently out of the closet, he knows it's time to devote himself to finding the love & companionship that have long eluded him. But his search is complicated & the result is a dizzyingly funny book about the awesome power of our need for connection.

"It is 22 cats that drive the dazzlingly handsome Eric Thorsen to distraction and into the apartment -- if not immediately the arms -- of Wanda Skopinski, the rather mousy woman he meets at church when she thrusts a lesbian romance novel upon him. The stench from downstairs drives him from both his rent-controlled apartment and his complacency as a not-quite-successful piano teacher. In his sixth novel, James Wilcox moves beyond the modern South he has etched so vividly and amusingly in the past to take on Manhattan. But somehow he manages to bring the city down to size.... The book is filled with as eccentric an array of characters and as much gentle kinkiness as any small-town chronicle.... A winning and consistently entertaining story." -- Vogue

From the war torn battlegrounds of Iraq to the halls of power in Washington D.C., M-16 Agenda follows one man's rise to the heights of political power, as he struggles to live up to the promises he made to his fellow soldiers, his family, and himself.

A candidate for the office of Superintendent of Streets, Parks, and Garbage, middle-aged matron Olive Mackie of Tula Springs, Louisiana, finds her political aspirations thwarted when her ninety-one-year-old Great Uncle L.D. comes under suspicion for murder. Police don't believe that L.D.'s home-care attendant would commit suicide by jumping from a second-floor window -- but Olive, who has heard her uncle demonstrate his excellent memory by reciting important dates in history over and over, thinks he would. Before justice can be done, half the staff of City Hall, a home ec teacher, an uninspired dentist, the principal of a disreputable private school, and several adulterous housewives are implicated in James Wilcox's spectacular plot. His third Tula Springs novel, Miss Undine's Living Room is not only a masterful comedy, exuberant and irreverent, but also a deeply felt examination of the education of the mind and the spirit.