Work Shirts for Madmen
A Novel
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A quirky tale of a hard-drinking artist by an author who "writes about the rural South without sentimentality . . . but with plenty of sharp-witted humor" (NPR Morning Edition).
Renegade artist Harp Spillman is lower than a bow-legged fire ant. Because of an unhealthy relationship with the bottle, he's ruined his reputation as one of the South's preeminent commissioned metal sculptors. And his desperate turn to ice sculpting might've led to a posse of angry politicians on his trail.
With the help of his sane and practical wife, Raylou, Harp understands that it's time to get his act together and prove that he can complete a series of twelve-foot-high metal angels—welded completely out of hex nuts—for the city of Birmingham. Is it pure chance that the Elbow Boys, with arms voluntarily fused together so they can't drink, show up in order to help Harp? And why did his neighbor smuggle anteaters into the desolate little South Carolina town of Ember Glow? Harp is drying out, but somehow being sober isn't making the world seem any less confusing . . .
"Engagingly comic . . . Singleton has a flair for capturing Southern eccentricity, and Raylou's imperturbable patience is just as funny in its way as Harp's self-loathing." —Publishers Weekly
"If there is a fiction genre blending the riotous, bleary-eyed excess and absurdity of gonzo journalism with the rather earnest sensitivity of a John Irving hero—who always does right by his wife in the end—Work Shirts belongs to it. . . . It's a fun read . . . An adventure to be undertaken." —Newsweek
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from Singleton (Drowning in Gruel) is an engagingly comic but finally underpowered study of Harp Spillman, a once busy avant-garde artist whose metal sculptures dot the cityscapes of the American South. Harp's heavy drinking has dead-ended his career; his existence is every bit as barren as the landscape of Ember Glow, the desolate patch of upstate South Carolina where he lives with his wife, an in-demand potter named Raylou. Harp gets the chance for a comeback when he is offered, on a tight deadline, a commission from the city of Birmingham. He dries out, and his AA buddies try to help, but sobriety and hard work do not necessarily make the world a less confusing place to him. Singleton has a flair for capturing Southern eccentricity, and Raylou's imperturbable patience is just as funny in its way as Harp's self-loathing. By the end, however, the book feels less like a cohesive novel than a collection of vignettes, some of which (particularly a late appearance by Harp's filmmaker-wannabe mother) seem gratuitous.
