Have You HeardHave You Heard
Fueling the rumors surrounding Jerry's little lapse of decorum are a chorus of narrators - ladies of his hometown, Branch Creek, who had befriended Jerry and tutored him in the domestic arts when he was left motherless at seven and at the mercy of a hopeless father. Assorted relatives and acquaintances, not to mention gawkers and busybodies, put their two cents in to relate - what? The truth of how a kind, sensitive, seemingly apolitical friend and neighbor was compelled to attempt this mad act? Or a story altered by each person's prejudice for or against Jerry? Finally, in the book's most galvanizing moment, we hear from Jerry himself. Confined in a miserable prison cell, he touches on everything from that hard, motherless start of his on a tenant farm to the far-off, glamorous adventures he once experienced among the gilded and gawdy of Manhattan. Who he really is turns out to be more of a surprise than anything else he has done.
The questions at the heart of Anderson Ferrell's novel are reverberating ones: how do we tell a story when the truth of it is too big for the facts that support it, and above all, how - not why - do we love what we love?
In the tradition of the great Southern storytellers, Have You Heard explores a small town torn apart by scandal.
Author of two critically acclaimed novels, Anderson Ferrell is back with this sprawling, atmospheric tale of the American South. The attempted murder of a right-wing North Carolina senator throws a sudden media spotlight onto the alleged would-be assassin - Jerry Chiffon, who just happened to be sporting a red ladies' suit, a wig, and a fake Chanel purse at the time - and onto Jerry's tiny hometown of Branch Creek, N.C. As three separate narrators relate slightly differing versions of the story, the pieces start to come together. What really happened? How could a beloved, albeit slightly odd, boy come to such an end?
Darkly funny and full of heart, Have You Heard reveals a world that, despite all its particularities, feels like home.
In the tradition of the great Southern storytellers, Have You Heard explores a small town torn apart by scandal.
Author of two critically acclaimed novels, Anderson Ferrell is back with this sprawling, atmospheric tale of the American South. The attempted murder of a right-wing North Carolina senator throws a sudden media spotlight onto the alleged would-be assassin - Jerry Chiffon, who just happened to be sporting a red ladies' suit, a wig, and a fake Chanel purse at the time - and onto Jerry's tiny hometown of Branch Creek, N.C. As three separate narrators relate slightly differing versions of the story, the pieces start to come together. What really happened? How could a beloved, albeit slightly odd, boy come to such an end?
Darkly funny and full of heart, Have You Heard reveals a world that, despite all its particularities, feels like home.
In the tradition of the great Southern storytellers, Have You Heard explores a small town torn apart by scandal.
Author of two critically acclaimed novels, Anderson Ferrell is back with this sprawling, atmospheric tale of the American South. The attempted murder of a right-wing North Carolina senator throws a sudden media spotlight onto the alleged would-be assassin - Jerry Chiffon, who just happened to be sporting a red ladies' suit, a wig, and a fake Chanel purse at the time - and onto Jerry's tiny hometown of Branch Creek, N.C. As three separate narrators relate slightly differing versions of the story, the pieces start to come together. What really happened? How could a beloved, albeit slightly odd, boy come to such an end?
Darkly funny and full of heart, Have You Heard reveals a world that, despite all its particularities, feels like home.
Three separate narrators tell differing versions of a story when the media's attention is thrown on Jerry Chiffon, a suspected assassin, and his small North Carolina hometown after the attempted murder of a senator.
In the tradition of the great Southern storytellers, Have You Heard explores a small town torn apart by scandal.
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- New York : Bloomsbury : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2004.
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