I've just finished reading the novel "The Ballad of Lee Cotton" by Christopher Wilson and want to write a review for the Fall into Reading Challenge. I hope all you Thursday Thirteeners will enjoy reading something about this novel and perhaps even be inspired to read it as well. So this week I'm writingThirteen Things about "The Ballad of Lee Cotton":
- Lee Cotton, the hero of this novel, is born in Eureka, Mississippi in 1950 just after a bull is found dangling from a tree forty feet up and before it rains bull-frogs. His birth is just as strange.
- His full name is Leifur Nils Kristjansson Saint Marie du Cotton.
- At a later stage he changes his name to Lee McCoy.
- He is a black boy with "buttermilk skin, azure-blue eyes, and straw-blond hair". Identity conflicts are present throughout.
- He lives through and is shaped by racial segregation and the Civil Rights movement.
- He also hears voices. A gift he maybe inherited from his voodoo practising grandmother in New Orleans.
- The plot is so weird and unusual I would love to write lots of details but I don't want to give anything away.
- The British author, Christopher Wilson, wrote this book from North London. He never visited the American Deep South but spent three months virtually there through the internet.
- "The Ballad of Lee Cotton"is just called "Cotton" in the U.S..
- This novel was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2005 and was described by the judges as "wholly original, utterly riveting and full of surprises".
- It really is surprising and very funny. Lee is such a sympathetic character, you can't help but like him and wonder what's going to happen to him next.
- This book is FUN. The plot is fantastically unrealistic but I never felt that it was too silly or unbelievable while reading.
- I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of weirdness!
11 comments:
You made it sound very interesting, without giving anything away. I am adding this to my 'to read' list now.
Happy TT
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You've motivated me to check into this book. Sounds interesting. And thanks for the suggestion for the Fall into Reading. Will they have it in 2008?
Ooh, now I'm feeling guilty for not having read more of my Fall Into Reading books...eek!
I love your review. I will now go put this on my list.
Happy Thursday!
Oooooh that book sounds like it's right up my alley. I don't mind weird at all! It's an original way to write a book review, although I do understand you hadn't intended it as such. I always get intimidated about writing them, so I think I'll b borrow that idea from you.
Wonderful TT, thanks for sharing!
Huh. Books are for reading...
Here I thought they were for stacking so high, making forts out of...
Just kidding :P As a book collector, I do intend to read each and every one. (I'll just have to live another century or so.)
Now, thanks to your points, I'll have to look for Cotton and add it to the piles & shelves.
Thanks for stopping by my TT too!
It sounds interesting!
What a cool idea---a T13 book review! You definitely did a good job of selling it to me---it sounds like it should go on my wish list AND my gift list!
BN-Politics
Sorry, but I don't know him.
Sounds very interesting book!
Happy weekend kate!btw,when is your BD?:)
It sounds really interesting--thanks for the description. I think I'll check it out.
I haven't read it yet, but I added it to my TBR-list!
Thanks for visiting my animated movies TT.
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