"Johnson''s writing is often brilliantly comic, and Braggsville is a welcome new kind of southern novel." - Time magazine, Top 10 Books of 2015 "A partial list of great American writers whose names came to mind as I was reading T. Geronimo Johnson''s new novel, Welcome to Braggsville : Tom Wolfe, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, H.L. Mencken, Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, Norman Mailer and Ralph Ellison, Ralph Ellison, Ralph Ellison. Johnson''s timely novel is a tipsy social satire about race and the oh-so-fragile ties that bind disparate parts of this country into an imperfect and restless union. It''s an ambitious book that not only wants to say something big about America, but aims to do so in a big American voice that contains multitudes . [It''s] Confederates in the Attic meets A Confederacy of Dunces .
The novel ends with a tour-de-force riff on black history, which, Johnson writes, ''in its myriad inversions, loops, whorls, coils, corkscrews, spirals; from slavery to Jim Crow to the Carceral State [is] the helix that stitches the U.S. of A.''s social DNA.'' Welcome to Braggsville isn''t quite Invisible Man or White Noise , but it gets within hailing distance of their heights. It''s as American as chattel slavery and Lenny Bruce Lee." - Maureen Corrigan, NPR''s Fresh Air "[ Welcome to Braggsville ] flirts with stereotypes, lingers in the familiar, then pivots to afford the characters their humanity . Reading this novel is not unlike listening to an erudite satirist play the dozens in a marathon performance .
But the satire leaping off these pages is not hate, nor the dead-end cynical variety that withers with a sneer. Here, the observations have too much wit and knowing, the characters too much soul, for Johnson''s story to feel trapped in callow hipster irony . Organic, plucky, smart, Welcome to Braggsville is the funniest sendup of identity politics, the academy and white racial anxiety to hit the scene in years . [Johnson] knows just which dark corners to expose, which cultural buttons to push, which ironies to illuminate and how to whirl an affecting yarn all the while." - New York Times Book Review "A stunning achievement with no clear literary precedent. Welcome to Braggsville . is one of the most searing, shocking looks at racial issues and campus activism in a long time." - Men''s Journal, Best Books of 2015 "The most dazzling, most unsettling, most oh-my-God-listen-up novel you''ll read this year is called Welcome to Braggsville .
T. Geronimo Johnson plays cultural criticism like it''s acid jazz. His shockingly funny story pricks every nerve of the American body politic . Welcome to Braggsville . It''s about time." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post "Audacious, unpredictable, exuberant and even tragic, in the most classic meaning of the word . A heady mix of satire and hyperbole. At times, Welcome to Braggsville reads like a literary hybrid of David Foster Wallace and Colson Whitehead.
" - David Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A rollicking satire . Radical, hilarious, tragic, and all too relevant." - O Magazine "The unsettling racial satire America needs right now . Johnson turns this tale of a misbegotten college student protest of a Civil War reenactment into a subtle exploration of identity, personal narrative, collective narrative, racism, academic elitism and far more. [B]y turns silly, somber and sharply satirical . Welcome to Braggsville doesn''t offer easy polemic or easier sentimentality, but a deep dive into the American race problem as muddled, terrifying, and absurd as the reality." - Huffington Post "Full of virtuosic sentences and coruscating satire . a brilliant and necessary read.
" - Buzzfeed Books "The academic world has long been an easy punching bag for much of the American public, but rarely has there been a moment where it has seemed so ripe for satire. Enter T. Geronimo Johnson and his biting, clever novel, winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, which cuts to the core of hypocrisy in those ivory towers. Following four Berkeley students bent on a bit of guerrilla theater at a Civil War re-enactment in Georgia, Johnson never runs out of targets for his satirical pen, from Old South apologists to solipsistic students in the grip of self-righteous political correctness." - The Daily Beast, Best Fiction of 2015 "There were a lot of wonderful novels about race and social justice in America, but this stuck with me the most, in part because of its audacious premise--college students brimming with privilege and information decide to stage a mock lynching in a Southern town, with catastrophic results--but also because of the bone-deep truth of Johnson''s satire of academia, which seemed to ring more true as the year progressed." - Sarah Weinman, Publisher''s Lunch, Favorite Books of 2015 "Satire of the sharpest sort and effectively upends each and every one of the stereotypes with which we''re all familiar. Nobody is safe from Johnson''s brilliant words, and while the end result can be an at times unsettling look at our society and its many, many flaws, it is also a wholly necessary one.
" - Brooklyn Magazine, Best Books of 2015 "This shockingly funny story, longlisted for the National Book Award, pricks every nerve (on both sides) of the American body politic." - Kansas City Star, Best Fiction of 2015 "Southern Gothic meets West Coast political correctness with hilarious results in Johnson''s new satirical novel. An odyssey through Waffle Houses, evangelical churches and backyard barbecue''s ensues, with attitudes about everything from race to social media getting skewered." - New York Post "As daring a literary high-wire act as has come along in some time. This is literary showmanship at its most provocative and daring. And one of the most daring things about the novel is that it''s frequently and unabashedly funny . [Johnson] possesses a satirical gaze that is as merciless as it is meticulous: He misses nothing. [A] volatile mix of stinging satire, linguistic pyrotechnics and heartbreaking narrative.
" - San Francisco Chronicle "Johnson dresses his social criticism in lively, colloquial writing . On one side he depicts a reactionary South unwilling to fully reckon with its history and terrified of the slightest outside scrutiny. But his sharpest elbows are reserved for left-wing academia, which, despite its air of moral superiority, leaves its charges haplessly unable to comprehend the world outside the cloister of the classroom." - Wall Street Journal "Johnson is a fearless writer, and Welcome to Braggsville is one of the most provocative, daring novels we''ve seen in a while. An unsettling story that forces us to examine our own prejudices and what, if anything, we''re doing to make America more tolerant." - Chicago Tribune "You must read T. Geronimo Johnson. He is awesome.
" - Sherman Alexie " Welcome to Braggsville is a comic, rollicking, and biting story about the cultural clash between the rural South and a bastion of contemporary politically sensitive liberalism." - Christian Science Monitor "Amusing . unpredictable. An ambitious book, and [Johnson] handles with aplomb the complexities of growing-up, with its cumbrous transitions. Despite the story''s dark turn, there''s humor in the wonder of oracular pronouncements." - Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Stunning and poignant . Johnson''s novel may not have the answer to the problems he''s addressing, [but] it''s clear that he''s asking the right questions." - LA Review of Books "Ghastly and funny and gloriously provocative .
Johnson''s prose is by turns scathing dark humor, soaring lyricism, and a quietly devastating analysis of every species of injustice. The result is a kind of mind-melting poetry--a linguistic electroconvulsive therapy for the reader. This book will wake you up!" - Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author of Swamplandia! "Transcendence is what Geronimo Johnson achieves in this remarkable novel. Every racial assumption is both acknowledged and challenged in ways at times hilarious, at other times poignant. Welcome to Braggsville is ambitious, wise, and brave." - Ron Rash, bestselling author of Serena, finalist for the PEN/Faulkner "Johnson spares no faction in his biting indictment of American society, a sprawling tapestry of different styles as complex as the issues he explores. Funny and wrenching, this coming-of-age story leaves one reeling but satisfied." - Shelf Awareness, Starred Review "Geronimo Johnson is a fearless and driven young writer of dazzling gifts.
His books map American multiculture as a poignant and twisted human comedy in which nobody comes out clean. surprising, heartbreaking, tragicomic, and deeply disturbing." - Jaimy Gordon, National Book Award-winning author of Lord of Misrule "Four college students'' attempt to protest Southern folkways goes awry in a novel that blurs the line between academic satire and social realism . A rambunctious, irreverent yet still serious study of the long reach of American institutional racism." - Kirkus Reviews "In exuberant prose, Johnson takes aim at a host of issues, gleefully satirizing political opportunists, social media, and cultural mores.