Congratulations to Rhonda Lomazow, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s by Tiffany Midge.
This week’s giveaway is for King of the Mississippi by Mike Freedman. I loved Freedman’s debut novel School Board and blurbed it by saying its main character Tucker “Catfish” Davis, high school senior and aspiring politician, was “one part Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, one part Hazel Motes from Wise Blood, and several parts Willie Stark from All the King’s Men.” King of the Mississippi looks equally wicked-good and sits near the summit of my current to-be-read pile. None other than the legendary Tim O’Brien (The Things They Carried) had this to say about the new novel: “I have trouble expressing the sheer joy of reading King of the Mississippi. Not only is this book funny, but it is serious funny, angry funny, insightful funny, wise funny, and just plain old-fashioned funny funny.” Keep scrolling for more information on the book and how to enter the contest...
King of the Mississippi is an incisive, uproarious dissection of contemporary male vanity and delusion, centered around a “war” for dominance of a prestigious Houston consulting firm. On one side of the conflict is Brock Wharton, an old money ex-jock whose delight in telling clients to downsize is matched only by his firm conviction that people like himself deserve to run the world. On the other is Mike Fink, a newly hired wily former soldier trying to ride his veteran status to the top of a corporate world that lionizes “the troops” without truly understanding them. Brock and Mike are mortal enemies on sight, bitterly divided not only by background and class but by diametrically opposed (yet equally delusional) visions of what it means to “be a man.” And as their escalating conflict spirals out of control, it will take them all the way from the hidebound boardrooms and gladiatorial football fields of Texas to the vapid and self-serving upper echelon of Silicon Valley, to the corporatized battlefield of Iraq, all the while serving as a ruthlessly funny takedown of the vacuity and empty machismo of corporate life and alpha-male culture in modern America. Devastatingly witty, unapologetically scathing, and ultimately surprisingly moving, King of the Mississippi marks the arrival of a unique and scintillating new voice in American fiction, one that boldly punctures the myths of American manhood like no one has since the heyday of The Bonfire of the Vanities and American Psycho.
If you’d like a chance at winning King of the Mississippi, simply e-mail your name and mailing address to
Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. Please include your mailing address in the body of the e-mail. One entry per person, please (or, two if you share the post—see below). Despite its name, the Friday Freebie remains open to entries until midnight on Nov. 7, at which time I’ll draw the winning names. I’ll announce the lucky reader on Nov. 8. If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email. Your e-mail address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book). P.S. Since I’m downsizing my own book collection, I’ll occasionally toss an extra book into package. If you aren’t interested in reading the extra “Freebie,” please consider donating it to your local little free library.
Want to double your odds of winning? Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter. Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.
No comments:
Post a Comment