Biloxi A Novel

Mary Miller seizes the mantle of southern literature with Biloxi, a tender, gritty tale of middle age and the unexpected turns a life can take. Building on her critically acclaimed novel The Last Days of California and her biting collection Always Happy Hour, Miller transports readers to this delightfully wry, unapologetic corner of the south—Biloxi, Mississippi, home to sixty-three-year-old Louis McDonald, Jr. Louis has been forlorn since his wife of thirty-seven years left him, his father passed, and he impulsively retired from his job in anticipation of an inheritance check that may not come. These days he watches reality television and tries to avoid his ex-wife and daughter, benefiting from the charity of his former brother-in-law, Frank, who religiously brings over his Chili’s leftovers and always stays for a beer. Yet the past is no predictor of Louis’s future. On a routine trip to Walgreens to pick up his diabetes medication, he stops at a sign advertising free dogs and meets Harry Davidson, a man who claims to have more than a dozen canines on offer, but offers only one: an overweight mixed breed named Layla. Without any rational explanation, Louis feels compelled to take the dog home, and the two become inseparable. Louis, more than anyone, is dumbfounded to find himself in love—bursting into song with improvised jingles, exploring new locales, and reevaluating what he once considered the fixed horizons of his life. With her “sociologist’s eye for the mundane and revealing” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books), Miller populates the Gulf Coast with Ann Beattie-like characters. A strangely heartwarming tale of loneliness, masculinity, and the limitations of each, Biloxi confirms Miller’s position as one of our most gifted and perceptive writers.

#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham returns to Mississippi in his most gripping legal thriller yet, the riveting story of two sons of immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Grisham’s trademark twists and turns will keep you tearing through the pages until the stunning conclusion. For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends, as well as Little League all-stars. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast.” Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. Keith went to law school and followed in his father’s footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father’s clubs. The two families were headed for a showdown, one that would happen in a courtroom. Life itself hangs in the balance in The Boys from Biloxi, a sweeping saga rich with history and with a large cast of unforgettable characters.

Documents governmental and political corruption in the Deep South through the story of a daughter who seeks justice when her parents are slain in Mississippi.

Discover more about Biloxi’s proud history as a maritime marvel and leader in America’s seafood industry. Predating even colonial America, Biloxi was established for its welcoming gulf shore both a home for traders and a beacon for explorers of the mainland. Geography made Biloxi a historic maritime hub of trade and travel; the seafood industry made it a vibrant, thriving community. Thanks to the efforts of a variety of diverse ethnic groups, Biloxi was dubbed the “Seafood Capital of the World” at the turn of the century. By the 1920s, there were more than forty seafood factories occupying two bustling cannery districts. Cajuns with deep ties to the region, industrious Croatian immigrants and hardworking Vietnamese émigrés all contributed to Biloxi’s seafood industry. Through the Civil War, devastating hurricanes and shifting economies, these hard-fishing families have endured, building Biloxi and forming its character.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb.... Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America. Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client—even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom... or cost them both their lives. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

"Confined to a wheelchair after a paralyzing injury, an Afghanistan War veteran endures a hardscrabble existence in his sister's ramshackle Mississippi home before spontaneously regaining his ability to walk, an apparent miracle that subjects him to scientific and religious debates and exposes his most private secrets."--

The second in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Neil Simon's trilogy which began with Brighton Beach Memoirs and concluded with Broadway Bound. When we last met Eugene Jerome, he was coping with adolescence in 1930's Brooklyn. Here, he is a young army recruit during WW II, going through basic training and learning about Life and Love with a capital 'L' along with some harsher lessons, while stationed at boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1943.

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.