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The Vignettes of Jod: An American Story

by Shippinbow

472 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0288; ISBN 1-4120-2460-9; US$36.89, C$47.00, EUR30.55, £21.17

This is one of the most visual stories ever told and one you will want to read again and again.

Read more!

About the Book      About the Author      Book Reviews      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

From Faith Home where four brothers were separated as wards of the state to Clear Lake Reformatory for Boys with its tyranny and brutality.

Through the Gypsies and the Bootleggers' camps.

Out of the backwoods of the terre bonne on a mighty float of wood to the Atlantic, and on to the decks of the Molly B where I was called with great respect, the young gentleman.

This is a unique adventure and the voyage of a lifetime.

I'd take it today with the opportunity.

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About the Author

What once, Yesterday, was my despair,
The agonies of my life,
Today, 'tis my future,
Tomorrow, 'tis my glory!

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Book Reviews

"...This is a captivating story of survival against all odds. Shippinbow weaves a very entertaining tale reminiscent of some of Twain's classics. The book includes vivid detail told from the first person point of view and you can see and understand some of Jod's motivations that cause him to be the way that he is. Each word will entice you to read the next and you are almost unaware that you are turning the pages of a book as the scenes melt together with no wasted detail. There are a few pages with drawings of the characters or certain events and places - as if you are truly reading from a journal.I would most certainly look forward to reading the rest of this "journal" and I am wholeheartedly intrigued by the plot and storyline.

"Shippinbow's American Story should most certainly be an American Classic. If you liked the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, then, you will truly LOVE the adventures of Jod..."

Reviewed by: Tyrone Vincent Banks

For the complete review, please go to http://betsie.tripod.com/literary/id178.html

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Excerpts

Foreword

Perhaps, there is nothing that can free the burdens of a man so much as the relating of those hidden experiences locked deep inside, like pain, that once released, give the inner self a sense of its dignity and purpose never before realized. In telling his stories based on his life experiences, Shippinbow has found the assurance of his purpose in the excitement and the enthusiasm that has come in realizing his stories through the written word.

In this work, his first literary statement of man's principles, in his colloquial vain, with frankness and with humor, Shippinbow shows the underlying reasons for his orphaned boy's anger that fired the determination that drove him to face "a hard and cruel world" on his own. It is the fiery character of the young Jod, his determination, his courage and joie de vivre that are the strength, the bulwark of this story of survival with its heartfelt joys and deep sorrows that must touch the hearts of all those who read it.

J.Y. Boileau

from "The Awakening"

One time when we run away from that Faith Home, it's kind'a pourin' rain. Boy, it's miserable. We get on one of these old roads and have no idea on earth where we're at, and all of a sudden, we're on this sandy riverbank down this ol' bayou when we come to a divide and don't know which way on this bank to go.

"I'll know which way I'm goin'. Come oen, this way!" I cry out.

My brother, Pete, and these other three kids with us, all about the same age: four, five, six years old, they all say, "How do you know?"

I knew, only, that I had to get away from there, driven by fear, a fear magnified by the visions of the orphan trains of the early thirties I'd seen on the news real at the Saturday Matinee, "The Eyes and Ears of the World," trains filled with thousands of unwanted and abandoned youth of the depression from the big cities of the East that were herded like cattle to the farmlands of the mid-west, sisters and brothers torn apart, picked, one, by this farmer here, the other by that farmer there with a swift indifference to their needs or desires to be together. Out of that fear came a determined voice with my need to pick that trail away from Faith Adoption Home, "I'll know!"

When the lightning flashes, all of a sudden, we think we see the old hobo. "Look!"

"Yah," Pete said.

"Let's catch 'im! He'll know which way ta go!"

Now, we run and we run till we're just plumb run out when, at the top of a sandy trail, I see a shed, so we duck inside. Damn, it was all right. In the shed there was some hay and a settin' chicken. We boys shoved that chicken off the nest. Had all them eggs. Got us an old milk pail, built a fire and boiled them eggs and some corn we found around there.

Ah, it was nice.

You know how yu'll huddle around a fire when yer kids. It's all so scary the things you talk about and yer a little scary, anyway, so, I say, "It'll be all right. That ol' hobo, he'll be back.

He'll see our fire and he'll come back," and I have a feelin' he's close by.

So, we kept waitin' and we all fell asleep

from "The Woodrift"

The anger and the defiance of my beginnings, and the courage and determination that came from those experiences, the determination to be free and away from Baylund and Texas was, like the surviving on the woodrift, of some hand and some eye greater than mine. I wanted the knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to survive, and the woodrift gave me the opportunity to use that innate human knowledge that we all possess. I saw with an inner eye. I was blissful in my surroundings, and in a constant state of activity to make my situation more pleasant. I was generated with a monstrous amount of ideas, the dreamy thoughts of youth, the activities of the young with the demands of our life, the assembling and the gittin' together, the heating and the fixing, the taking care of, the doctoring and the looking after. When the puppies came, I had so much responsibility and every day, I'd mark on my calendar what happened during the day. Ah, it was a very interesting life as we drifted and made our way and the bells of civilization and humanity never rang.

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Catalogue Information

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