Synopses & Reviews
"With winning wit and compassionate, delightful prose" (Publishers Weekly), Jason Headley tells the story of a young man trapped in a small West Virginia town. Enormously likable and a habitual screw-up, Eric Mercer has settled into a sometimes raucous, underachieving life in his one-stoplight hometowna life cobbled together from his part-time activities as bartender at the American Legion, assistant mortician, and father to his beloved 5-year-old daughter, Tess. Tess seems to be the main reason smart, talented, twenty-four-year-old Eric is staying in town, though her mom, a centerfold-quality beauty, would have it otherwise. When Jill, the lost love of his life, returns to Pinely in the same week that the town goes nuts in preparation for the high school football team's Big Game, life unexpectedly shifts into high gear, and Eric must blunder his way toward enlightenmentfast. Authentic and refreshingly unpredictable, Small Town Odds is written with an acute sense of place and character reminiscent of Richard Russo.
Review
"Headley has been compared with Richard Russo, and the reasons are evident....A graceful entrance into the world of fiction." Library Journal
Review
"[A] sweet, candid tale about finding contentment when life doesn't go as planned." Booklist
Review
"Small Town Odds is a rich and wonderful novel aobut the most universal of human concerns how we pursue a sense of self in a world that is beyond our control. This is a brilliant debut by an important young writer." Robert Olen Butler
Review
"The sweep of folly through a young man's life is a classic American theme, and Small Town Odds enriches that literary tradition with unexpected tenderness and decency. Jason Headley is a truly giften storyteller." Bob Shacochis
Review
"Pinely, West Virginia, has one stoplight. It also has one funeral home, a bar, a jail, two really pretty women, and the young male hero who spends and misspends his time among all of them. Small Town Odds is a lively, wry, and moving novel that puts the author on the shelf with Tony Earley and Kent Haruf." John Casey
About the Author
Jason Headley grew up in West Virginia and moved to San Francisco in 2000, where he played in a rock band and worked as an advertising copywriter. This is his first novel.