Country Music

C.W. Smith's Country Music is a raw comic romp that offers up a shrewd anatomy of sexual and social stances. It opens when Bobby Joe Gilbert, Hedorville's Bane to Virgins and Most Unlikely to Succeed, confronts an unwelcome question: "What are you going to do with yourself?" Desperate to escape his reputation and his limited world, he makes a stab at college, but the effort dissipates in endless pinball games and a stormy friendship with a lesbian who resists his sexual advances and penetrates his psychic defenses. He weds a gorgeous blonde who epitomizes his macho notions of womanhood, but the marriage soon goes sour. Warily, he returns to small-town Hedorville and to the same-old suffocating crowd - and also to his responsibility for the death of a girl who trusted him, the ugly secret he must face. The women in Bobby Joe’s life - Pinball Polly, his wife Ginger, and Nelda Sue, the girl he keeps coming back to - are deftly created characters. They and a host of others bring a whole world unforgettably to life. This ebook edition includes the author’s essay about working in Hollywood on the novel’s film adaptation. “Smith’s portrait of a troubled young man searching for himself he knows not where… is alive, funny, sad, and as real as it can be.” – Publisher’s Weekly

C.W. Smith's award-winning first novel, Thin Men of Haddam, established him as a novelist of power and compassion, and Country Music offers up a shrewd anatomy of sexual and social stances that extends the range and depth of his vision. Country Music opens when Bobby Joe Gilbert, Hedorville's Bane to Virgins and Most Unlikely to Succeed, confronts an unwelcome question: "What are you going to do with yourself?" Desperate to escape his reputation and the limitations of his world, he makes a stab at college, but the effort dissipates in endless games of pinball and a stormy friendship with Polly, a lesbian pinball addict who resists his sexual advances and penetrates his psychic defenses. He weds Ginger, a gorgeous blonde who epitomizes his macho notions of womanhood, but the marriage is doomed by her childishness and his inability to cope with the intricacies of love and sharing. Warily, he returns to Hedorville and to the same-old, same-old crowd - and also to his responsibility for the death of a girl who trusted him, the ugly secret he must face before turning to the future. The women in Bobby Joe’s life - Pinball Polly, his wife Ginger, and Nelda Sue, the girl he keeps leaving and keeps coming back to - are deftly created women. They and a host of others bring a world to life, while its creator rings changes on themes of sex, destiny, escape, and the complexity of human entanglements. This new ebook edition also includes an essay by the author about working in Hollywood on the film adaptation. “Smith’s portrait of a troubled young man searching for himself he knows not where… is alive, funny, sad, and as real as it can be. Bobby Joe’s thrashing around about himself and the way things are is country music in a new key.” – Publisher’s Weekly.

C.W. Smith is the author of nine novels, a collection of short stories, and a memoir. Aside from a long career in teaching, he has worked as a musician, a newspaper reporter, an oil field roustabout, a paper delivery boy, frame carpenter, and roofer. When he's not teaching and writing and reading, he likes to be in his kayak or on his bike accompanied by his wife, Marcia. He has twice received the Jesse H. Jones Novel Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; the Southwestern Library Association Award for Best Novel; the Dobie-Paisano Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of Texas; National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 1976 and 1990; the Texas Headliner's Feature Story award; the Frank O'Connor Memorial Short Story Award from Quartet magazine; the John H. McGinnis Short Story Award from Southwest Review; a Pushcart Prize Nomination from Southwest Review; Special Merit Award for Feature Writing from the Penney-Missouri Foundation; the Stanley Walker Award for Journalism from the Texas Institute of Letters, an SMU Research-Travel Grant, and an award for Best Nonfiction Book by a Texan in 1987 from the Southwestern Booksellers Association, and an award for Outstanding Book of the Southwest from the Border Regional Library Association. The Texas Institute of Letters named him a Lon Tinkle Fellow for "sustained excellence in a career," and gave him the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story of 2009. He belongs to PEN, The Authors Guild, Writer's Guild of America West, and the Texas Institute of Letters. The author can be contacted through his website: http://cwsmiththeauthor.com