''Modern Baptists'' is the

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

by American author James Wilcox, and his best known work. It was published in 1983.

Plot introduction

Set in the fictional town of Tula Springs, Louisiana, the novel concerns middle-aged bachelor Bobby Pickens, the assistant manager of Sunny Boy Bargain Store and his half-brother F.X. A former actor and cocaine dealer, F.X. has just been released from

Angola Prison The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"Sutton, Keith "Catfish".Out There: Angola angling. ''ESPN Outdoors''. May 31, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. ...

and moves in with Bobby, his presence throwing all Bobby's foibles into sharp relief, leading to mistaken identity, romantic entanglement and a nervous breakdown, climaxing in a Christmas Eve party in a cabin on a poisoned swamp.

Reception

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...

commented, "...James Wilcox has made a tale that is realistic and fantastic, painfully comic, and, in a strange way, psychologically penetrating….There is no writer exactly like him. He is an original." On the front page of ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

Anne Tyler Anne Tyler (born October 25, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published twenty-four novels, including '' Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant'' (1982), ''The Accidental Tourist'' (1985), and ''Breathi ...

wrote, "Every reviewer, no doubt, has methods for marking choice passages in a book. Mine is a system of colored paper clips; yellow means funny. ''Modern Baptists'' should be thick with yellow clips on every page, but it does even better than that. While I was reading it, I laughed so hard I kept forgetting my paper clips. Mr. Wilcox has real comic genius. He is a writer to make us all feel hopeful."

Walker Percy Walker Percy, OSB (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, '' The Moviegoer'', won the Nat ...

called this same novel, "a beauty."

Recognition

''Modern Baptists'' has been included in

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

's ''

The Western Canon ''The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages'' is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as ce ...

'' and listed in '' GQ's'' 45th anniversary issue as one of the best works of fiction published in the past 45 years. In 1998 in '' U.S. News & World Report''

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

counted ''Modern Baptists'' among her three "favorite works by unsung writers." In 2005 Modern Baptists was reissued in Great Britain in a

Penguin Modern Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the Wester ...

edition with an introduction by the novelist

Jim Crace James Crace (born 1 March 1946) is an English novelist, playwright and short story writer. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999, Crace was born in Hertfordshire and has lectured at the University of Texas at Austin. His n ...

References

{{reflist 1983 American novels Novels by James Wilcox Novels set in Louisiana 1983 debut novels