With Wonderdog, Inman Majors brings us the unlikely Dev Degraw, son of the iconoclastic governor of the state and former child actor on the historically bad television drama "Bayou Dog." Dev inhabits Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama, ferocious wiener dogs, butter-eating contests, jackleg lawyers, and one-eyed stalkers. It's in this funky Southern milieu that Dev moves among the denizens of Tuscaloosa's local watering holes, the political bigwigs of the state capital, and the sundry elements of B-movie Hollywood.

As the story unfolds, Dev is trying his underachieving best to stay out of his father's heated bid for re-election, as well as a co-star's incomprehensible plans to organize a "Bayou Dog" cast reunion. Fortunately for the reader, his efforts to remain uninvolved in the political fray and as far away as possible from his TV alter ego are foiled by one comic entanglement after another: star-crossed love affairs, a halfhearted legal practice, and an ex-wife dating a male cheerleader. As he tries to rectify past glories with more recent foibles, we come to know the Dev who, knowingly or unknowingly, gets thrust upon a career path that will at last begin to define him. The result is a tour de force of American revelry.

Written with verbal energy, lyricism, and a knife-sharp eye for comedic detail, Wonderdog is a hilarious Dr. Frankenstein concoction of Henry the IV, Kingsley Amis, and John Kennedy Toole. But Inman Majors has created a comedy all his own, one that springs from a love of human speech and compassion for the minor geniuses in the dusty corners of life. Here, with Wonderdog, Majors sets out to examine the comic vagaries of the human condition. What he ends up with is a wholly original work of fiction, breathing new life into the Southern comedy along the way.

"After its catchy opening sentence — 'Like everyone else in the world I am a lawyer' — Major's second novel loses its snap. The plot chronicles the descent of Dev Degraw, an attorney from Tuscaloosa, Ala., who's washed up at age 33. His career is in meltdown, his marriage is deep-sixed, he owes money all over town and his thirst for alcohol easily trumps any desire for rescue or redemption. His life now consists of a few coherent moments inside liquor-soaked days, moments he spends in two main pursuits: trying to avoid getting sucked into his father's gubernatorial re-election campaign and finding a way to skip the cast reunion of an awful television show, Bayou Dog, he acted in as a child. He's also trying to stay one step ahead of a client whose case he completely botched. That client finally catches up to Dev and gives him what he deserves. Majors (Swimming in Sky) does a very good job of creating a character in a tailspin. There are moments of some poignancy, particularly with Dev's five-year-old daughter, as well as many clever one-liners ('She has summer teeth. Summer there, some ain't'). But Dev's self-pitying ways get tiresome, and the plot — what there is of it — is so weighed down by page after page of drunken quasi-comedy that it almost becomes unintelligible. Agent, David McCormick." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

A new, hilarious Southern comedy by the author of "Swimming in Sky" is the wry story of Dew Degraw, the Alabama governor's son, divorced father, practical joker, and former child star.

"Wonderdog reads as if narrated by the ne'er-do-well, incorrigible, and brilliant wastrel cousin of Walker Percy's Binx Bolling. But Inman Majors has a brilliant voice all his own--cockeyed, very funny, and deeply cognizant of the tender mercies. This book's a hell of a read. I loved it."

- Brad Watson, author of The Heaven of Mercury

"Inman Majors shows why politics will drive a governor's ex-spouse into hiding in a house trailer, and their wiseacre son crazy. A knowing and funny book."

- Ann Richards, former governor of Texas

"Wonderdog reads like Charles Portis cross-pollinated with full-tilt Barry Hannah, but Majors's voice is his own, and his picaresque tale of Dev DeGraw and his adventures among the various highlifes and lowlifes of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, linger in the mind long after the last page is turned."--William Gay, author of The Long Home and Provinces of Night

"Wonderdog is a hilariously unruly novel in the fine tradition of Padgett Powell--smart, Southern, inventive, and mean. Majors has written a seriously funny book."

- James Whorton, author of Approximately Heaven

"I ventured a cautious nose between the covers of Wonderdog, and immediately this voice, this outrageous voice, reminded me, for some reason, of Old Jones in A Confederacy of Dunces. Maybe I shot a look over my shoulder a time or two--okay, maybe I gawked--at the characters parading by, but I wasn't about to get up until the crazy tale was told."

- Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park and editor of Stories from the Blue Moon Café

A hilarious southern comedy, and the wry story of Dew Degraw, the Alabama governor's son, divorced father, practical joker, and former child star.

Inman Majors is the author of the novel Swimming in Sky. He lives in Tullahoma, Tennessee, with his wife, Christy, and their two children.