Book Review of Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson

Aug 7, 2010
Andree Lachapelle

Joshilyn Jackson's Backseat Saints - Photo courtesy Hachette Book Group

"Gods in Alabama" author Joshilyn Jackson's new novel, "Backseat Saints," is an action-packed romp through the darker side of love, marriage, and family.

From the first line of Joshilyn Jackson’s new book, Backseat Saints, the reader is drawn into Ro Grandee’s mad world, full of heartache and marital unrest. We are on her side, no matter what happens next.

Adventures of a Desperate Housewife

We follow Ro (Rose Mae) Grandee as she “borrows” a neighbour’s car, takes her Pawpy’s old .45 from its hiding place and plans her husband’s demise – going as far as feeding him a sinful last meal of fat-laden eggs and biscuits that in itself is a death sentence.

Suddenly filled with excitement and a dark trepidation at the thought of Thom Grandee getting his comeuppance, we also fear for Ro’s own future. We feel her plight: our heroine becomes every woman who has ever battled an abusive husband.

More than curiosity, it is readers’ immediate empathy for Ro that pushes them to keep turning pages. Not so much to find out what happens next, but to make sure that should help be needed, someone will be there to help Ro along in her demonic but all too necessary mission: to kill her abusive and destructive husband.

Joshilyn Jackson and the Reader as Confidante

In Backseat Saints, Joshilyn Jackson has managed a literary tour de force: to make readers care – deeply, and from the very start – about a character that has yet to be described. Whether or not Ro Grandee is good or bad, right or wrong, is irrelevant: we know that Thom Grandee is a bastard, and that is enough.

From the beginning of the novel, even while knowing nothing of Ro’s personality and motives, trust is established: this is an earnest woman – “a good wife most times” – pushed to the limits of human endurance, a desperate woman willing to listen to anyone who will tell her what she needs to hear. And what Ro Grandee needs to hear is validation for the terrible acts in which she is about to take part:

“I’d lived with Thom Grandee long enough to recognize the truth, no matter how it came.” (Backseat Saints, page 3.) In this case, the truth comes to Ro in the form of a gypsy woman handing her a Stephen King book borrowed from a public library.

Colourful Imagery and Clever Storytelling

Backseat Saints is at once caring, dark, passionate, and cheeky – much like Ro Grandee herself. Lovers of literature will be delighted by Joshilyn Jackson’s colourful imagery and gift for good old-fashioned storytelling, while those who enjoy modern fiction with a bite will take great delight in her clever turn of phrase and fast-paced narrative.

About the Author

Thirty-something writer Joshilyn Jackson ( Gods in Alabama; Between, Georgia; and The Girl Who Stopped Swimming) lives in a semi-rural area outside Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two children. Backseat Saints is her fourth novel.

Sources

To find out more about Joshilyn Jackson, visit the official Joshilyn Jackson website to read the author’s blog. For more information on Backseat Saints, visit the Hachette Book Group online.