The Quail Who Wears the Shirt - by Jeremy T Wilson (Paperback)

About the Book

"Tuesday night is trivia night, a night for produce market owner Lee Hubbs to swing by the bar with his cop friend, a night to down a few shots and avoid all the folks who ve mysteriously been turning into quails. It s a night to kick back and maybe get some action on the side from his employee/girlfriend before heading home to his wife and kids. But this Tuesday s different. An argument with the girlfriend, a little unintentional vehicular homicide of an unsuspecting cyclist, and the next thing you know, Lee s life s upended like a bushel of rotten peaches. Well, mostly upended. Because when you re a fine upstanding citizen, and your victim is a quail-human ne'er-do-well who won t be missed by society, who s to say what s right, really?"--

Book Synopsis

Tuesday night is trivia night, a night for produce market owner Lee Hubbs to swing by the bar with his cop friend, a night to down a few shots and avoid all the folks who've mysteriously been turning into quails. It's a night to kick back and maybe get some action on the side from his employee/girlfriend before heading home to his wife and kids.

But this Tuesday's different. An argument with the girlfriend, a little unintentional vehicular homicide of an unsuspecting cyclist, and the next thing you know, Lee's life's upended like a bushel of rotten peaches. Well, mostly upended. Because when you're a fine upstanding citizen, and your victim is a quail-human ne'er-do-well who won't be missed by society, who's to say what's right, really?

Jeremy T. Wilson's The Quail Who Wears the Shirt is a magnificent Southern-fried meditation on guilt and karma, a fantastic and truly memorable work about the lies we tell ourselves and the truths that seep through despite our best efforts, a darkly comedic satire as strange and surreal as an onion pie.

Review Quotes

"Jeremy T. Wilson's delightfully imaginative The Quail Who Wears the Shirt is part redemption tale and part funeral for white Southern masculinity. Entertaining, and at times disturbing, The Quail delivers one hilarious scene after another. Lee Hubbs, for all his misdeeds, managed to win me over, in no small part because of Wilson's exuberant prose, deft characterization, and comic timing. Wilson brings the absurd and the mundane together, driving the story towards a finale you won't want to miss."
-- Rachel Swearingen, author of How to Walk on Water

"Jeremy T. Wilson's witty, dark novel reads like a head-on collision between George Saunders and Erskine Caldwell, and yet is its own totally unique thing. The Silly-Putty reality of Charity, Georgia--somewhere near the crossroads of Hell, Hope, and the Twilight Zone--is as closely observed and palpable as the weight of an onion pie or the soft crunch underfoot in a house infested with ladybugs. You'll find Wilson's surreal vision of Central Georgia, sometimes brutal sometimes unexpectedly wise and tender, but always--always--smart, and savagely funny. A terrific book."
-- Man Martin, author of The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome and three-time winner of the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Literary Fiction

"Jeremy T. Wilson's The Quail Who Wears The Shirt is so freaking good, so full of precise Chekhovian moments that tilt toward the strangeness and bleakness of everyday life, all while being deeply generous toward its characters. Also? Hella funny. There's so much to love here, but what I love most of all is Wilson's attention to our shared world, so that we leave this novel with a new appreciation for yellow bicycles + styrofoam cups full of Diet Mountain Dew and Vodka + funeral homes + Erich Segal's Love Story+ Subway subs + Neil Young + Otis Redding + people--those closest to us and those we only know glancingly. This novel is a wonderful reminder of how we're all living delightful and harrowing sagas, and how lucky we are to be in the same universe. Read the book. Be the quail. Wear the shirt."
-- Juan Martinez, author of Extended Stay

"A jaunty, magical realist tale...Reminiscent of Chris Bachelder's fun satires...this is an
engaging tale of self-realization..."
-- Booklist

"The Quail Who Wears The Shirt is delightfully strange yet it's grounded in sharp observation of ordinary life, rendered in a wonderfully funny, laconic, charming voice."
-- Dan Chaon, author of Sleepwalk

"I had a blast following Lee Hubbs around in Jeremy T. Wilson's wild and hilarious The Quail Who Wears the Shirt. What's the next step in human evolution? Wilson knows--it's absurdity. This is a bright, sharp, X-Acto knife of a book."
-- Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive

About the Author

Jeremy T. Wilson grew up in the South but now lives near a great lake. He is a former winner of the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and the Hessman Trophy, presented by legendary principal Durward U. Hessman to the fifth grade student who could eat the most corn. He is the author of the short story collection Adult Teeth; his work has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, The Florida Review, Jet Fuel Review, The Masters Review, Sonora Review, Third Coast, The Best Small Fictions 2020, and other publications. He prefers pie over cake, bourbon over scotch, and R.E.M. over U2.