Jujitsu for Christ

Fiction & Literature, Coming of Age, Literary
Cover of the book Jujitsu for Christ by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello, University Press of Mississippi
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jack Butler, Brannon Costello ISBN: 9781617037399
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi Publication: January 16, 2013
Imprint: University Press of Mississippi Language: English
Author: Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
ISBN: 9781617037399
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Publication: January 16, 2013
Imprint: University Press of Mississippi
Language: English

Jack Butler's Jujitsu for Christ--originally published in 1986--follows the adventures of Roger Wing, a white born-again Christian and karate instructor who opens a martial arts studio in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, during the tensest years of the Civil Rights era. Ambivalent about his religion and his region, he befriends the Gandys, an African-American family--parents A.L. and Snower Mae, teenaged son T.J., daughter Eleanor Roosevelt, and youngest son Marcus--who has moved to Jackson from the Delta in hopes of greater opportunity for their children.

As the political heat rises, Roger and the Gandys find their lives intersecting in unexpected ways. Their often-hilarious interactions are told against the backdrop of Mississippi's racial trauma--Governor Ross Barnett's "I Love Mississippi" speech at the 1962 Ole Miss-Kentucky football game in Jackson; the riots at the University of Mississippi over James Meredith's admission; the fieldwork of Medgar Evers, the NAACP, and various activist organizations; and the lingering aura of Emmett Till's lynching.

Drawing not only on William Faulkner's gothic-modernist Yoknapatawpha County but also on Edgar Rice Burroughs's high-adventure Martian pulps, Jujitsu for Christ powerfully illuminates vexed questions of racial identity and American history, revealing complexities and subtleties too often overlooked. It is a remarkable novel about the civil rights era, and how our memories of that era continue to shape our political landscape and to resonate in contemporary conversations about southern identity. But, mostly, it's very funny, in a mode that's experimental, playful, sexy, and disturbing all at once.

Butler offers a new foreword to the novel. Brannon Costello, a scholar of contemporary southern literature and fan of Butler's work, writes an afterword that situates the novel in its historical context and in the southern literary canon.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Jack Butler's Jujitsu for Christ--originally published in 1986--follows the adventures of Roger Wing, a white born-again Christian and karate instructor who opens a martial arts studio in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, during the tensest years of the Civil Rights era. Ambivalent about his religion and his region, he befriends the Gandys, an African-American family--parents A.L. and Snower Mae, teenaged son T.J., daughter Eleanor Roosevelt, and youngest son Marcus--who has moved to Jackson from the Delta in hopes of greater opportunity for their children.

As the political heat rises, Roger and the Gandys find their lives intersecting in unexpected ways. Their often-hilarious interactions are told against the backdrop of Mississippi's racial trauma--Governor Ross Barnett's "I Love Mississippi" speech at the 1962 Ole Miss-Kentucky football game in Jackson; the riots at the University of Mississippi over James Meredith's admission; the fieldwork of Medgar Evers, the NAACP, and various activist organizations; and the lingering aura of Emmett Till's lynching.

Drawing not only on William Faulkner's gothic-modernist Yoknapatawpha County but also on Edgar Rice Burroughs's high-adventure Martian pulps, Jujitsu for Christ powerfully illuminates vexed questions of racial identity and American history, revealing complexities and subtleties too often overlooked. It is a remarkable novel about the civil rights era, and how our memories of that era continue to shape our political landscape and to resonate in contemporary conversations about southern identity. But, mostly, it's very funny, in a mode that's experimental, playful, sexy, and disturbing all at once.

Butler offers a new foreword to the novel. Brannon Costello, a scholar of contemporary southern literature and fan of Butler's work, writes an afterword that situates the novel in its historical context and in the southern literary canon.

More books from University Press of Mississippi

Cover of the book James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Transformed by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Tupelo Man by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Shreveport Sounds in Black and White by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Sullivan's Hollow by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Faulkner and Print Culture by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book The High-Kilted Muse by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Across the Creek by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Dining with Madmen by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Understanding Chronic Pain by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Scotty and Elvis by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Faulkner and the Craft of Fiction by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
Cover of the book Voice of the Leopard by Jack Butler, Brannon Costello
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy