The Paperboy
A Novel
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“An eerie and beautiful novel . . . Its secrets continue to reveal themselves long after the book has been finished.”—The New York Times Book Review
The sun is rising over Moat County, Florida, when Sheriff Thurmond Call is found on the highway, gutted like an alligator. A local redneck is tried, sentenced, and set to fry. Then Ward James, hotshot investigative reporter for the Miami Times, returns to his rural hometown with a death row femme fatale who promises him the story of the decade. She’s armed with explosive evidence, aiming to free—and meet—her convicted “fiancé.” With Ward’s disillusioned younger brother Jack as their driver, they barrel down Florida’s back roads and seamy places in search of The Story, racing flat out into a shocking head-on collision between character and fate as truth takes a back seat to headline news.
Now a major motion picture directed by Lee Daniels starring Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, David Oyelowo, and Macy Gray, with John Cusack and Nicole Kidman
Praise for The Paperboy
“Dexter is a writer who cuts to the bone. There is not a spare word in this searing tale. . . . A bravura performance by one of America’s most original and elegiac voices.”—People
“Hip, hard-boiled and filled with memorable eccentrics . . . The Paperboy burns with the phosphorescent atmosphere of betrayal.”—Time
“A wise and fascinating tale well told.”—Entertainment Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moat County, Fla., is located where the St. John's River flows north-a geographical rarity and, in literature, a signal that we've entered the strange and violent world of National Book Award-winner Dexter (Paris Trout). Narrator Jack James is the son of the Moat County Tribune's editor and publisher. While Jack's older brother, Ward, reports for the Miami Times, Jack has settled for a job delivering papers for the Tribune. But when Ward and his partner, evil dandy Yardley Acheman, come to Moat County to investigate the four-year-old murder of the local sheriff, Jack assists them in the inquiry. After a vicious beating by two sailors lands Ward in the intensive care unit, Yardley finishes the story without Ward and Jack, fabricating evidence to do so. Accompanying his traumatized brother Ward back to Miami, Jack takes a job as a copyboy at the Times. It isn't long, however, before Yardley's wrongdoing comes to light, generating more trouble for the Jameses. Dexter's writing is rock-solid, he offers acute observations about the nature of reporting and his grip on the Southern male psyche is unquestionable. The powerful thematic drive of Paris Trout is missing here, however, and the story line is so complicated that it loses focus and then almost peters out. But if this isn't Dexter's best, it's still a provocative offering from one of the most exciting novelists around. Major ad/promo.
