About Calling

Calling is a powerful novel, one that features two men from the South—both much damaged by heredity and experience.  Ezekiel Blizzard Jr. and Timber Goodman seem to be cut from different fabrics, but they ultimately understand how much they share.  They meet on a long bus trip between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.  Starnes’s adept use of the journey motif and a colloquy between the two provide apt vehicles for this novel of personal disclosure, tragedy and tentative redemption for at least one of the men.  The influence of Larry Brown, to whom Starnes dedicated the novel, is apparent in Starnes’s concern with the perennial struggle between good and evil.  Zeke Blizzard also shares much with several of Flannery O’Connor’s ruined preachers, most notably Asa Hawks in Wise Blood. --Jean W. Cash, author of Flannery O'Connor: A Life and Larry Brown: A Writer's Life.

“Joe Samuel Starnes has crafted a beguiling, often hilarious tale of two American seekers who end up finding truths they hadn't imagined on a bus ride through the desert. Their individual stories are spun in rich, evocative prose that takes the reader into a world of radio evangelists who fall far short of practicing what they preach. Just when we think we understand these sinners comes a shocking denouement that makes us wonder if it's only coincidence that we meet the significant people in our lives. This is one of those novels that resonates long after the final page.”    — Alice Elliott Dark

"Starnes has written an entertaining and sometimes transcendent Southern Gothic novel worthy of his literary forebear, the late Larry Brown." — Rain Taxi

"A top-notch novel in the tradition of Harry Crews...big plot turns that will keep readers turning pages." — Athens Banner-Herald

"A hard-to-put-down tale...made me think of a Frederick Buechner work, but edgier." — The Charlotte Observer

“Joe Samuel Starnes is an engaging and exacting storyteller. His novels are full of colorful characters and settings and intriguing situations. Having the eye of a journalist and the voice of a poet, Starnes is doubtlessly destined to become a writer readers will love.” — Anthony Grooms