Jones, J: Devil's Smokehouse

There were always two options: the closet or under the bed. In the 1960s, young Jenkins and his sister, Jill are trying to grow up in a dusty, hardscrabble area a few miles out from a one-stoplight town in the American southwest. It's a long bus ride through farmland to school where both children put on brave faces to cover up for the nights they suffer at the hands of their violent, alcoholic father, to whom they refer as the Devil. In his drunken rampages, he regularly beats Jenkins, Jill, and their mother, smashes up the shabby dwelling that serves as their home, and then retreats to his bedroom, his chamber of horrors. As they grow into adolescence, Jill copes by focusing on doing well in school so that she can get out as soon as she can, as Jenkins is sucked into a life of truancy and increasing violence. While contemplating eventual revenge on his father, Jenkins must decide how to handle people and situations whose evil and cruelty will test ordinary readers' imaginations. The realities of the lives of Jenkins and Jill are not unfamiliar to author Justin Jones, who has firsthand experience in the juvenile and adult justice systems. The Devil's Smokehouse is an unvarnished story of the ravages of rural poverty and an unsparing look at one boy managing to triumph against crushing odds. "A work of fiction inspired by the author's childhood, The Devil's Smokehouse is the inspiring, painful, exhilarating, disturbing, and at times hilarious journey of a child survivor. One who must cross a line in order to keep surviving. Jones weaves plot twists that are fantastical but believable, as only a survivor could." -Fury Young, founder of Die Jim Crow Records "It's a struggle to survive childhood, and that's the conundrum faced by Jenkins, the narrator of Justin Jones's coming-of-age mystery novel, The Devil's Smokehouse. Jenkins underrates the prevalence of evil in his hometown, an impoverished rural community in the middle of the country. Everyone knows everyone in this hamlet where even the local pervert's identity is an open secret. As he matures, Jenkins uncovers more dark secrets, learning that the twisting threads of big-city drug culture have a stranglehold on some local powerbrokers. Even his own road to nowhere takes an unexpected turn. The Devil's Smokehouse is a page-turner that is hard to put down." -Sue Hinton, retired English professor, Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC) "Justin Jones captures the raw essence of humanity in all its beauty and grit. Characters leap from the page with intensity, as they grapple with love, violence, loss, and redemption. Instantly compelling, Jones's writing is full of wisdom and depth as it goes to people's darkest struggles, and also their most glorious moments of triumph." -Royal Young, author of Fame Shark