Things Undone

by Max Childers

A hilarious black comedy which lampoons the ways and means of Southern lawyers and televangelists, Things Undone has been compared to the classic, A Confederacy of Dunces, and is reminiscent of a Southern Gothic Inherit the Wind.

279 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[James W. Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Max Childers wrote three mind-bogglingly wonderful novels in the 1990s, set in the insane kudzu-covered gnat-infested breeding grounds for violence and religious and political insanity that is the Deep South. Every one is a masterpiece. His work has been compared by reviewers to Harry Crews, Evelyn Waugh, and John Kennedy Toole, and praised by the New York Times Book Review and other such sources.

To that mighty list of comparisons we might add Erskine Caldwell (when Caldwell is good), Charles Portis, the fabulous John Fergus Ryan, and anyone else who has written wildly funny wild stuff about the South.

Yeah, Max Childers is as good as any of them. The truth is, he is one of the best and funniest writers about the South ever, and thus one of the great comic writers of our time and any time. H.L. Mencken, America’s greatest critic, who had a lifelong love-hate relationship with the South, would have absolutely loved his books.

This here book is his first novel, published in 1990, and like the two that followed it, it is a flat-out wonder. Read it, or any of them, and be filled simultaneously with horror, awe, and convulsive laughter.

[🐴 🍖]

aaaaabsolutely phenomenal. as noted elsewhere, flannery, harry crews, john kennedy toole, my boy james fergus ryan all in the mix, however this is volcanically P.O.ed beyond what i associate w/ any of the above. disgust as rocket fuel. if you don't like it, go fellowship yourself