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Title: a fairytale for slow children
Review: After reading Tony Earley's story collection Here We Are in Paradise, I expected a clever and cleverly written first novel, not terribly deep but entertaining. Instead, Jim the Boy is a bland and episodic and schmaltzy tale that never rings true. The book tries so hard to be heartwarming and simple that only a child could take it at face value, and a child that knows nothing about life--and certainly not life in the depression South. A startlingly unambitious and self-congratulatory book, filled with nostalgia for a place that never existed. I can't think of a supposedly literary book with less in it. The prose is supposed to be understated and poignant, but there's nothing underneath it. Jim the Boy is the literary equivalent of The Emperor's New Clothes, and makes the reader ask: what happened to the guy that wrote "Charlotte"?
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