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Tax-exempt? Reader's Guide | A Cry of Angels It is the mid-1950s in Quarrytown, Georgia. In the slum known as the Ape Yard, hope's last refuge is a boardinghouse where a handful of residents dream of a better life. Earl Whitaker, who is white, and Tio Grant, who is black, are both teenagers, both orphans, and best friends. In the same house live two of the most important adults in the boys' lives: Em Jojohn, the gigantic Lumbee Indian handyman, is notorious for his binges, his rat-catching prowess, and his mysterious departures from town. Jayell Crooms, a gifted but rebellious architect, is stuck in a loveless marriage to a conventional woman intent on climbing the social ladder. Crooms's vision of a new Ape Yard, rebuilt by its own residents, unites the four-and puts them on a collision course with Doc Bobo, a smalltown Machiavelli who rules the community like a feudal lord. Jeff Fields's exuberantly defined characters and his firmly rooted sense of place have earned A Cry of Angels an intensely loyal following. Its republication, more than three decades since it first appeared, is cause for celebration. Jeff Fields was born in Georgia and attended high school in Elberton, which inspired the fictional setting for A Cry of Angels. He currently lives in Atlanta. After working for many years in television and radio, Fields now writes full-time. September 2006 ISBN 0820328480 paper • $19.95 392 pp. • 6 x 9 in."Heartwarming . We find ourselves wondering why delightful novels like this aren't written anymore, and grateful that this one has come along to fill the void." —Time Magazine"A flooded-with-life novel with a story to tell and characters to be cherished . . . replete with love, adventure, loyalty, pride, laughter, and violence . . . with a tremendously satisfying climax!" —Boston Sunday Globe"Warm . fine . brilliant . a triumph! The characters are larger than life . the plot roars into high gear immediately and races through twists and turns that leave the reader gasping . an enormously comforting novel!"-New York Times Book Review "A Cry of Angels has sparkle, gusto, pathos, comedy, and drama . written with an expertise that must be ranked among the finest!"-Chicago Sun-Times "A Cry of Angels is thoroughly delightful and the best pure fun a novel has given me for some time . the little town and its people are completely alive!"-Washington Post "A humdinger . even better than To Kill a Mockingbird . funny, touching, and gripping."-Chicago Daily News "Memorable . A Cry of Angels will continue to live in the reader's imagination long after the story is over!"-Literary Guild Bulletin "Very, very hard to put down . exceptionally well written, thoroughly touching."-Newsweek "Because Jeff Fields has the gift of making the people of Quarrytown come alive-has compassion-has a touch of the poet in his singing prose-the book is a wonder and a joy."-Christian Science Monitor "Once you read the first few pages of Jeff Fields' first novel-you suspicion rightly that it's a good book with reminders of that Mockingbird which was never killed or quite equaled, of Larry McMurtry and of John Weston. In other words one which is firmly based in the reality of a small town in the South where there are a variety of local characters-Characters-and a few others trying to escape the conditions of loneliness, prejudice and suffering some of which is all their own. . . . The scene is Quarrytown, Georgia but it could be any Southern town with sites you'll recognize from the back porch to the cemetery. Jeff Fields is a generous, comic, genuine writer with a lot of humanity left over."-Kirkus Reviews"A hell-raising, rib-tickling, page-turning triumph ... [A] highly accomplished first novel."-Raleigh News and Observer |
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