Work Shirts for Madmen [Paperback]

Renegade artist Harp Spillman is lower than a bow-legged fire ant. Because of an unhealthy relationship with the bottle, he’s ruined his reputation as one of the South’s preeminent commissioned metal sculptors. And his desperate turn to ice sculpting nearly led to a posse of angry politicians on his trail. With the help of his levelheaded and practical potter wife, Raylou, Harp understands that it’s time to return to the mig welder. Yes, it’s time to prove that he can complete a series of twelve-foot-high metal angels—welded completely out of hex nuts—for the city of Birmingham. Is it pure chance that the Elbow Boys, their arms voluntarily fused so they can’t drink, show up in order to help Harp out in a variety of ways? And why did his neighbor smuggle anteaters into desolate Ember Glow? Is it true that there’s no free will?

 

If there is a fiction genre blending the riotous, bleary-eyed excess and absurdity of gonzo journalism with the rather earnest sensitivity of a John Irving hero—who always does right by his wife in the end—Work Shirtsbelongs to it . . . it’s a fun read . . . an adventure to be undertaken. —Newsweek

 

George Singleton writes about the rural South without sentimentality or stereotype but with plenty of sharp-witted humor . . . A raconteur of trends, counter-trends, obsessions and odd characters. —NPRMorning Edition

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You’d think that, being a saturated and memory-lost drunk, I would’ve been the one who stole the twelve snapping turtles, but it was my wife Raylou behind the entire operation, from original vision to relocation. I didn’t even l“I