Having spent most of his life medicated, electroshocked, and institutionalized, Jerome Coe finds himself homeless on the coldest night of the century—and so, with nowhere else to go, he accepts a ride out of New England from an old love's ex-girlfriend. It doesn't quite work out, but he makes it to New Orleans, and a new life—complete with a bandaged hand, world-champion grilled-cheese sandwiches, and only the occasional psychotic break. Things get better, and then, of course, they get worse.
From a writer who's worked as a debt collector, book restorer, toilet scrubber, and door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman, and filled with a cast of Crescent City denizens that makes for one of the most vivid ensembles since Toole's Confederacy, Bill Cotter's debut novel is, we think, funnier and more exciting and just generally better written than any other book or movie or theatrical production you'll see this year.
"Fever Chart is not about the destination so much as the reckless, driving-with-your-knees journey, and Jerome Coe is an antihero for the ages."
—Texas Monthly (click here to read the whole review)
"Jerome Coe is a troubled young man who leaves behind the mental hospital he occasionally finds himself in to take an exciting romp through the same New Orleans that played so centrally in John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces. While Ignatius Reilly and Jerome would probably ignore each other if they passed on Bourbon Street, there is little doubt that they inhabit the same city, a baroque mess of a place, inhabited almost entirely by strange grotesques. Coe’s misadventures make for a lively, engaging read, that is funny as well as poignant. In a series of flashbacks, Cotter allows us cunning insight into the mind of Jerome Coe and the circumstances that led him to the mental hospital. A fun, engaging read that will satisfy anyone left wanting more of New Orleans after encountering Confederacy."
—Nate Campbell, Pop Damage
“Bill Cotter’s Fever Chart proves there is still fresh wit and fierce life in the American tongue. Read this book." —Wells Tower
“As a blurber I am required to say ‘Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Thomas Pynchon’ or ‘George Saunders meets Mickey Spillane.’ But the truth is I’m not sure who’s meeting whom. All I know is they’re meeting on a teacup ride in a seedy amusement park, a teacup ride that has miserably failed its inspection, making the experience pleasantly familiar but alarmingly skewed, full of fun but deadly dangerous. You’ll be dizzy when it’s over if it doesn’t fly apart and chop your head off. But the ride is worth it.”
—Jack Pendarvis
Bill Cotter recently wrote up his suggested soundtrack for this book in the New York Times.
Click here to read Bill Cotter's own account of his other life as a rare books dealer in his hometown of Austin, Texas.
And here is an interview with the author by Australian magazine The Blacklist.
