Dunn misses the point with this pale imitation of a Fanny Flagg novel. Giving small-town southern folks quirky names doesn't give this story any real heart. It remains a slightly amusing jumble of fractured romances, misplaced passions, and dealing with loss that could have been set anywhere. ( )

Well-loved books from my past

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Book Description: Touchstone's trade paper edition has this description, which seems to me to give a better flavor of the book than MacAdam/Cage's short line:

Following the national success of Ella Minnow Pea, this second novel from Mark Dunn brings the same charm and love of good language to a small town in the South. A Robert Altmanesque comedy, Welcome to Higby follows the hilarious goings-on in a small town in northern Mississippi over Labor Day weekend. From mousy Carmen Valentine, whose guardian angel, Arnetta, gives her penny-pinching shopping tips, to addled old Hank Grammar, who preaches Jesus to his neighbors' pets, Higby's townsfolk have a knack for getting into -- and trouble getting out of -- outrageous situations. Blessed with an unerring eye for dead-on details, Dunn lovingly traces the eccentric and touching lives of his characters, offering an intelligent yet heartwarming vision of life in small-town America. Welcome to Higby is a Southern comical tale about simple dreams both realized and thwarted by all the complexities of the human heart.

My Review: Everything slips a bit with a sophomore effort. It just can't be as perfect as a first novel like Ella Minnow Pea was. But oh my gracious goodness me! If this is a sophomore slump, it's better than most writers' first novels.

What makes this story so satisfying is that the characters have such real, recognizable, and yet still over-the-top personalities. They aren't in any way caricatures. They are, at base, the people those of us who grew up in smaller towns around the country quite probably knew. Batty old bachelors? Everyplace has 'em, but in most big places there's no way to get to know them as well as one does when they go to your church, shop in the same market, have the same mechanic that you do.

Unrequited loves? Oh my heck, yes! We all know or know of one of those Grand Passions. In a smaller town, we all probably know of several, if only from high school. Dunn doesn't go the easy way around the subject here, and where it ends up is frankly a hoot.

Higby feels real. I love it. Not as much as I loved Nollop, but that's no knock on Higby, rather a further proof of Dunn's great capacity for creating delight through novel-writing. This right here? This is the sort of novel that makes the whole cultural phenomenon of fiction make sense to aliens. ( )

Summer just seems like the proper time to read quirky Southern-set novels, doesn't it? All I'd need is a mint julep and a funeral home fan and I'd be all set although this isn't exactly a mint julep type of book. Rather is is a small town, Bible Belt sort of book.

Higby, Mississippi may not be a hellfire and damnation kind of place but there is a clear demarcation between appropriate and sinful there as the various characters stumble towards redemption. Opening with local police pondering what drives young Clint Cullen to climb the old watertower regularly simply to sit above the town and then having him crash through the rusted railing, landing squarely in a neighboring pool, the reader knows this won't be your garden variety novel. It is people with a large cast of characters, each of whom is facing his or her own challenges, wondering which path to choose.

Stewie Kipp is a born again Christian whose ardent faith is driving away his fiancee, who mourns the good time days they used to spend together. Carmen Valentine is a retiring woman who is working up the courage to actually sit next to the man she'd like to date and whose hobby is crafting with dry spaghetti. Clive's father Oren is a preacher who is struggling with his own faith, with his relationship with Clive, and with his growing attraction to the massage artist whose establishment on the outskirts of town is dodgy. Euless Ludlam is a loyal employee, although a little slow, and is about to inherit a staggering sum of money. Talitha Leigh is all about a good time, whether that means drinking at a bar or going home with nameless men who is rescued/kidnapped one morning by a strange vegan cult intent on offering her a peace in captivity (and re-naming her the very ironic Blithe). And finally Tula Gilmurray keeps losing her beloved brother Hnk, both physically and mentally as he is fogged in the beginning stages of what would appear to be Alzheimer's.

As disparate as the characters seem, they are all intricately intertwined as only folks in a small town can be. Better yet, they are all well-fleshed out and individual characters who make entertaining reading. There is a lot of humor laced throughout this novel about the connections between people and between hearts. Each chapter's epigraph is a Bible verse that relates cleverly and directly to the action in the chapter. Having read Dunn's previous epistolary novel, Ella Minnow Pea, I was delighted to find that his ingenuity continues in new and different ways in this novel. Definitely clever and thoroughly entertaining, this was a delight to read. ( )

I've yet to meet a Mark Dunn I don't enjoy, although my favorite is still Ella Minnow Pea. ( )

One of the genre of books (like the Tall Pine Polka book I read a while back) set in a small town w/o much plot, but mostly designed just to introduce you to a wide range of eccentric small-town folk. This was mildly entertaining, with some superficial reflections on religion, but not very substantive. ( )