Flying Shoes - Softcover

Like all great stories from Mississippi, Flying Shoes never proceeds in a straight line. It twists and turns in order to notice what matters most in life, and then delivers us to exactly where we need to be. Those of us who have waited a long time for this book celebrate its arrival. (Ann Patchett, author of THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE and STATE OF WONDER)

Lisa Howorth's dazzling verbal wit almost stops you in your tracks while you are flying along in this delicious prose. It is a scream--also heartbreaking, saucy, sassy, poignant, and triumphant. Mary Byrd is a bold, kooky, quirky character I won't forget. It has been a long time since I read a novel with such charm, generosity, humor, daring, and brilliance. It is just splendid. (Bobbie Ann Mason, author of IN COUNTRY and THE GIRL IN THE BLUE BERET)

Lisa Howorth's Flying Shoes braids a love knot of new South, old South, and haunted South that catches at the reader's heart, even as the humor and sadness of her rollicking prose has us slipping off our own shoes and moving to the music of her voice. Flying Shoes is exhilarating and brave, full of love and grief and the journeys we all make from past to present. (Jayne Anne Phillips, author of QUIET DELL and LARK AND TERMITE)

Flying Shoes offers a well-done portrait of a girl who survived a horrific tragedy and emerged in middle age with her empathy, sense of generosity and ability to forgive intact. (Washington Post)

A potent mix of Southern melancholy and charm . . . Flying Shoes luxuriates in life's messiness--eccentric friends, freakish weather--and its sadness, too . . . A-. (Entertainment Weekly)

Howorth writes with real flair . . . A memorable mosaic of a place, a time and a good-hearted woman at midlife, facing crises old and new. (Associated Press)

[A] buzz-worthy debut. (Booklist)

Flying Shoes, the delicious first novel from Lisa Howorth . . . [is] funny, character-driven storytelling with crackling dialogue. (starred review Shelf Awareness)

Lisa Howorth's bittersweet debut novel, Flying Shoes, is more about faith, human endurance and Southern traditions than it is about the abduction and murder of a 9-year-old boy . . . The real journey we take in this giddy, bighearted lifeboat of a novel is not toward death, but a wild ride into the irrepressible life that goes on in spite of it. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

An entertaining, and enlightening journey along the interconnected lives of a distinctive cast of characters. (Daily Beast)