"There is nothing small about Childress's fine novel. It's big in all the ways that matter - big in daring, big in insight, and big-hearted. Really, really big-hearted." -New OrleansTimes-Picayune

This exuberantly acclaimed novel by the author of the bestsellingCrazy in Alabamatells an uproarious and moving story about family, best friends, first love, and surviving the scariest years of your life.

You need only one best friend, Daniel Musgrove figures, to make it through high school alive. After his family moves to Mississippi just before his junior year, Daniel finds fellow outsider Tim Cousins. The two become inseparable, sharing a fascination with ridicule,The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,and Arnita Beecham, the most bewitching girl at Minor High. But soon things go terribly wrong. The friends commit a small crime that grows larger and larger, and threatens to engulf the whole town. Arnita, the first black prom queen in the history of the school, is injured and wakes up a different person. And Daniel, Tim, and their families are swept up in a shocking chain of events.

"Wise, riveting, hilarious, painful, gentle, and ferocious,One Mississippiis a wonderful read." -Anne Lamott

"A Tilt-a-Whirl that flings the reader from comedy to calamity. . . . Childress is a fabulist in the manner of John Irving." -AtlantaJournal-Constitution

"By turns rollicking and troubling, as provocative as it is droll,One Mississippiis about as easy to resist as a riptide. This critic's advice is to go with its powerful flow." -RaleighNews & Observer