Synopses & Reviews
From the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of
Hold It 'Til It Hurts comes a dark and socially provocative Southern-fried comedy about four UC Berkeley students who stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment — a fierce, funny, tragic work from a bold new writer
Welcome to Braggsville. The City That Love Built in the Heart of Georgia. Population 712.
Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'aron Davenport finds himself in unfamiliar territory his freshman year at UC Berkeley. Two thousand miles and a world away from his childhood, he is a small-town fish floundering in the depths of a large hyperliberal pond. Caught between the prosaic values of his rural hometown and the intellectualized multicultural cosmopolitanism of "Berzerkeley," the nineteen-year-old white kid is uncertain about his place, until one disastrous party brings him three idiosyncratic best friends: Louis, a "kung fu comedian" from California; Candice, an earnest do-gooder from Iowa claiming Native roots; and Charlie, an introspective inner-city black teen from Chicago. They dub themselves the "4 Little Indians."
But everything changes in the group's alternative history class, when D'aron lets slip that his hometown hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, recently rebranded "Patriot Days." His announcement is met with righteous indignation and inspires Candice to suggest a "performative intervention" to protest the reenactment. Armed with youthful self-importance, makeshift slave costumes, righteous zeal, and their own misguided ideas about the South, the 4 Little Indians descend on Braggsville. Their journey through backwoods churches, backroom politics, Waffle Houses, and drunken family barbecues is uproarious at first but has devastating consequences.
With the keen wit of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and the deft argot of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, T. Geronimo Johnson has written an astonishing, razor-sharp satire. Using a panoply of styles and tones, from tragicomic to Southern Gothic, he skewers issues of class, race, intellectual and political chauvinism, Obamaism, social media, and much more.
A literary coming-of-age novel for a new generation, written with tremendous social insight and a unique, generous heart, Welcome to Braggsville reminds us of the promise and perils of youthful exuberance, while painting an indelible portrait of contemporary America.
Review
“Ghastly and funny and gloriously provocative....Johnson's prose is by turns scathing dark humor, soaring lyricism, and a quietly devastating analysis of every species of injustice. The result is a kind of mind-melting poetrya linguistic electroconvulsive therapy for the reader. This book will wake you up!” Karen Russell, bestselling author of Swamplandia!, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Review
“Transcendence is what Geronimo Johnson achieves in this remarkable novel. Every racial assumption is both acknowledged and challenged in ways at times hilarious, at other times poignant. Welcome to Braggsville is ambitious, wise, and brave.” Ron Rash, bestselling author of Serena, finalist for the PEN/Faulkner
Review
“Geronimo Johnson is a fearless and driven young writer of dazzling gifts. His books map American multiculture as a poignant and twisted human comedy in which nobody comes out clean. . . . surprising, heartbreaking, tragicomic, and deeply disturbing.” < b=""> Jaimy Gordon <> , National Book Award-winning author of < i=""> Lord of Misrule <>
Review
“Combines Ben Fountains steely political eye, Junot Diazs pop-infused dogma, and Toni Morrisons sense of social justice through historical reckoning. Big, shiny literary prizes were created for books like this one.” < b=""> Wiley Cash <> , bestselling author of < i=""> A Land More Kind Than Home <>
Review
“One of the most invigorating and least predictable novels of the year.” < b=""> Kevin Brockmeier <> , award-winning author of < i=""> The Brief History of the Dead <>
Review
“Combines the intellectual urgency of a satire with the emotional resonance of a tragedy. Welcome to Braggsville is as smart as it is subversive, and as bleakly hilarious as it is deeply necessary.” < b=""> Jennifer duBois <> , award-winning author of < i=""> A Partial History of Lost Causes <>
Review
“DeLilloesque for its orgiastic pop-culture roiling. This is a virtuoso performance by one of our strongest new voices.” < b=""> Richard Katrovas <> , award-winning poet and author of < i=""> Scorpio Rising <>
Review
“Brilliant, wildly satirical, and also deeply sobering. The story looms larger than life. At every turn, the impasses Johnson shows us are our own.” < b=""> Tess Taylor <> , award-winning poet and author of < i=""> The Forage House <>
Review
“Inventive, provocative, troubling, hilarious: its hard to sum up Welcome to Braggsville in any other way but to add the word “wildly” in front of each of these words.” < b=""> Robin Hemley <> , author of < i=""> Do-Over! <>
Review
“A riotous tour de force.” < b=""> Andrew Lam <> , award-winning author of < i=""> Birds of Paradise Lost <>
Review
“A rollicking satire....Radical, hilarious, tragic, and all too relevant.” O Magazine
Review
“Madcap, satirical, sometimes profane and uncanny....Welcome to Braggsville is a deeply pleasurable read for the sheer wonder of Johnson's prose, but a deeply disturbing read for the truth it reveals about us.” BookPage
Synopsis
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, MEN'S JOURNAL, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, KANSAS CITY STAR, BROOKLYN MAGAZINE, NPR, HUFFINGTON POST, THE DAILY BEAST, AND BUZZFEED
WINNER OF THE 2015 ERNEST J. GAINES AWARD FOR LITERARY EXCELLENCE
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of Hold It 'Til It Hurts comes a dark and socially provocative Southern-fried comedy about four UC Berkeley students who stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment--a fierce, funny, tragic work from a bold new writer.
Welcome to Braggsville. The City that Love Built in the Heart of Georgia. Population 712
Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'aron Davenport finds himself in unfamiliar territory his freshman year at UC Berkeley. Two thousand miles and a world away from his childhood, he is a small-town fish floundering in the depths of a large, hyper-liberal pond. Caught between the prosaic values of his rural hometown and the intellectualized multicultural cosmopolitanism of Berzerkeley, the nineteen-year-old white kid is uncertain about his place until one disastrous party brings him three idiosyncratic best friends: Louis, a "kung-fu comedian" from California; Candice, an earnest do-gooder claiming Native roots from Iowa; and Charlie, an introspective inner-city black teen from Chicago. They dub themselves the "4 Little Indians."
But everything changes in the group's alternative history class, when D'aron lets slip that his hometown hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, recently rebranded "Patriot Days." His announcement is met with righteous indignation, and inspires Candice to suggest a "performative intervention" to protest the reenactment. Armed with youthful self-importance, makeshift slave costumes, righteous zeal, and their own misguided ideas about the South, the 4 Little Indians descend on Braggsville. Their journey through backwoods churches, backroom politics, Waffle Houses, and drunken family barbecues is uproarious to start, but will have devastating consequences.
With the keen wit of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and the deft argot of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, T. Geronimo Johnson has written an astonishing, razor-sharp satire. Using a panoply of styles and tones, from tragicomic to Southern Gothic, he skewers issues of class, race, intellectual and political chauvinism, Obamaism, social media, and much more.
A literary coming-of-age novel for a new generation, written with tremendous social insight and a unique, generous heart, Welcome to Braggsville reminds us of the promise and perils of youthful exuberance, while painting an indelible portrait of contemporary America.
Synopsis
"Johnson's timely novel is a tipsy social satire about race and the oh-so-fragile ties that bind disparate parts of this country into an imperfect and restless union. . . . A tour-de-force riff on black history." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR'S FRESH AIR
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - WINNER OF THE 2015 ERNEST J. GAINES AWARD FOR LITERARY EXCELLENCE - LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post - Time - NPR - Huffington Post - Buzzfeed - Chicago Tribune - Men's Journal - Kansas City Star - Brooklyn Magazine - The Daily Beast - and more
From the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of Hold It 'Til It Hurts comes a dark and socially provocative Southern-fried comedy about four UC Berkeley students who stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment--a fierce, funny, tragic work from a bold new writer.
Welcome to Braggsville. The City that Love Built in the Heart of Georgia. Population 712
Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'aron Davenport finds himself in unfamiliar territory his freshman year at UC Berkeley. Two thousand miles and a world away from his childhood, he is a small-town fish floundering in the depths of a large, hyper-liberal pond. Caught between the prosaic values of his rural hometown and the intellectualized multicultural cosmopolitanism of Berzerkeley, the nineteen-year-old white kid is uncertain about his place until one disastrous party brings him three idiosyncratic best friends: Louis, a "kung-fu comedian" from California; Candice, an earnest do-gooder claiming Native roots from Iowa; and Charlie, an introspective inner-city black teen from Chicago. They dub themselves the "4 Little Indians."
But everything changes in the group's alternative history class, when D'aron lets slip that his hometown hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, recently rebranded "Patriot Days." His announcement is met with righteous indignation, and inspires Candice to suggest a "performative intervention" to protest the reenactment. Armed with youthful self-importance, makeshift slave costumes, righteous zeal, and their own misguided ideas about the South, the 4 Little Indians descend on Braggsville. Their journey through backwoods churches, backroom politics, Waffle Houses, and drunken family barbecues is uproarious to start, but will have devastating consequences.
With the keen wit of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and the deft argot of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, T. Geronimo Johnson has written an astonishing, razor-sharp satire. Using a panoply of styles and tones, from tragicomic to Southern Gothic, he skewers issues of class, race, intellectual and political chauvinism, Obamaism, social media, and much more.
A literary coming-of-age novel for a new generation, written with tremendous social insight and a unique, generous heart, Welcome to Braggsville reminds us of the promise and perils of youthful exuberance, while painting an indelible portrait of contemporary America.
About the Author
Born and raised in New Orleans, T. Geronimo Johnson received his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and his M.A. in language, literacy, and culture from UC Berkeley. He has taught writing and held fellowships — including a Stegner Fellowship and an Iowa Arts Fellowship — at Arizona State University, the University of Iowa, UC Berkeley, Western Michigan University, and Stanford. His first novel, Hold It 'Til It Hurts, was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Johnson is currently a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by T. Geronimo Johnson