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WHO KILLED BUSTER SPARKLE?

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When a drag queen named Peaches meets Buster, a Mississippi ghost with partial amnesia, questions of past, present, and future surface.

Buster attempts to reckon with who he was and is in the presence of Peaches, whose gender-fluid identity perplexes him. Although he doesn't want to associate with Peaches, Buster realizes that he must push aside his biases to avoid eternal loneliness.

WHO KILLED BUSTER SPARKLE? threads together dialogue on race, gender, orientation, and economics, showing oppression exists in many forms. Bateman masters the comic and gothic through two characters who need each other more than they understand.

​A 2020 Nominee of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, John W. Bateman'sWho Killed Buster Sparkle? is more than a must-read....it's a must-be in the modern canon of literature.


"The previous edition of the novel included an antagonist who uses two slurs that, after considerable reflection, both the author and press no longer feel are appropriate or necessary to the story. Those have been deleted from new prints."

Version:

When a drag queen named Peaches meets Buster, a Mississippi ghost with partial amnesia, questions of past, present, and future surface.

Buster attempts to reckon with who he was and is in the presence of Peaches, whose gender-fluid identity perplexes him. Although he doesn't want to associate with Peaches, Buster realizes that he must push aside his biases to avoid eternal loneliness.

WHO KILLED BUSTER SPARKLE? threads together dialogue on race, gender, orientation, and economics, showing oppression exists in many forms. Bateman masters the comic and gothic through two characters who need each other more than they understand.

​A 2020 Nominee of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, John W. Bateman'sWho Killed Buster Sparkle? is more than a must-read....it's a must-be in the modern canon of literature.


"The previous edition of the novel included an antagonist who uses two slurs that, after considerable reflection, both the author and press no longer feel are appropriate or necessary to the story. Those have been deleted from new prints."

Praise for WHO KILLED BUSTER SPARKLE?

“... a smart exploration of race, sexuality, class, and community in the New South... original and entertaining.”

— christopher bram, author of gods and monsters

“... a fabulous read.”

— tony leggio, ambush magazinee

“... riveting mystery that you won’t want to put down.”

— jenna gibson, clarion ledger

 

About JOHN W. BATEMAN

John W. Bateman writes and looks for stories from the Deep South. His work has appeared in places like The Chicago Tribune, The New Southern Fugitives, Electric Literature, Facing South, The Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, and on the silver screen. He has a not-so-secret addiction to glitter and, contrary to his southern roots, does NOT like sweet tea. His first novel, Who Killed Buster Sparkle? (Unsolicited Press) was a 2020 Nominee in Fiction by the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters and recipient of the 2019 Screencraft Cinematic Book Award. John received his MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a 2023 Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow. He recently finished his term as a 2023-24 Watson Brown Fellow in the Southern Studies Fellowship in Arts & Letters.

Although he misses his unicorn lumberjack shack, John is living somewhere near the third star to the left.

 

  • Genre: Fiction

    Paperback ISBN: 978-1-947021-79-2

    Hardback ISBN: 978-1-947021-89-1

    Publication Date: June 12, 2019