Welcome to Higby is the critically acclaimed second novel by Mark Dunn

Mark Dunn

Mark Dunn is an American author and playwright. He studied film at Memphis State University followed by post-graduate work in screenwriting at the University of Texas moving to New York in 1987 where he worked in the New York Public Library whilst writing plays in his free time.Among the...

 published in 2002 by MacAdam/Cage

MacAdam/Cage

MacAdam/Cage is a small publishing firm located in San Francisco, California. It was founded by David Poindexter in 1998. As of 2003, it published around 30 to 45 titles per year, primarily fiction, short story collections, history, biography, and essays, and had twelve employees...

. and dedicated to his twin brother Clay.

Plot introduction

The novel concerns the interconnected lives of the inhabitants of Higby, a fictional town in northern Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, during the Labor Day

Labor Day

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...

 weekend in 1993. Five separate stories lines are woven together featuring 25 main characters which include the Revd. Oren Cullen, struggling to cope with the death of his wife and behaviour of his son Clint (who starts the weekend by falling off a water tower) who is drawn to the manageress of the local massage parlour and Talitha Leigh, kidnapped by an extremist vegan cult and renamed 'Blithe'.

Reception

• A review from The Independent
  The Independent
  The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
  
  says the novel is 'undemanding but often hilarious', 'a cross between John Irving
  John Irving
  John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
  
   and the Coen brothers
  Coen Brothers
  Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers...
  
  '.
• Publishers Weekly
  Publishers Weekly
  Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
  
  describe it as a 'witty and intricate book', 'both laugh-out-loud funny and sweetly touching','Dunn, a playwright, has a wonderful ear for dialogue; his rich and enticing prose, elegant structuring and wonderful attention to the smallest of details make this novel a delight.'
• Leif Enger
  Leif Enger
  Leif Enger is an American author who wrote the novel Peace Like a River.Enger was born in 1961 and raised in Osakis, Minnesota. Since his teens, he wanted to write fiction. He worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio from 1984 until the sale of Peace Like a River to publisher...
  
   compared the book to Modern Baptists by James Wilcox
  James Wilcox
  James Wilcox is an American novelist and a professor at LSU in Baton Rouge. James Wilcox worked at Random House and Doubleday in New York after graduating from Yale...
  
   and Texasville
  Texasville
  Texasville is a 1990 American drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich. It is a sequel to The Last Picture Show, and based on the novel Texasville by Larry McMurtry....
  
  by Larry McMurtry
  Larry McMurtry
  Larry Jeff McMurtry is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas...