Purple Church

Synopsis

Purple Church tells the story of Brother Jimmy Russell, a vulnerable and lonely Baptist minister who has everything going for him until his life falls apart after leukemia claims the life of his devoted bride. Brother Jimmy is then tempted by the young and beautiful Ashley White who was abused by her father as a child and raped by her fiancé’s father when she was in college. Ashley's tragic past leaves her empty and starved for attention, a perfect combination that leads her to skid row on a lofted stage in a popular Memphis strip club. The tale is one of redemption and spiritual consequence for both the handsome preacher and the lovely coed whose salvation is Brother Jimmy's only reason for living.

Author

Starner Jones, MD is an author and board-certified emergency medicine physician. Born and raised in northeast Mississippi, he was educated at Sewanee: The University of the South, Saint George’s University School of Medicine, and Jersey City Medical Center. He is a graduate of the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at The University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. Jones has an interest in international diplomacy and can recite from memory the entire Declaration of Independence. In addition to reading works of classic fiction, he enjoys world travel, hunting, fishing, and playing golf.

Purple Church, his debut novel, won the 2011 George Garrett Fiction Prize. His second novel, Mother City, is currently in progress.

Critical Acclaim

• “Starner Jones has debuted brilliantly with this award-winning novel about one man's spiritual death spiral in a morass of loss, lust, and shame in the contemporary South. With humor, insightfulness, and tangible angst, we are led through this gritty depiction of an epic moral struggle told by one of the freshest voices I have read in years.”

  Governor Haley Barbour Mississippi

---

• “The author takes us on a disturbing trip from the God-fearing small town of his youth to a seamy Gomorrah less than two hours to the north. A graphic story of temptation, actions, and consequences as inexplicable, yet believable, as the Fall itself.”

  U.S. Senator Roger Wicker

---

• “Reading Purple Church brings to mind Diogenes. Like the protagonist minister, we want to avert our eyes and turn away, but we can't. The story is as gripping as it is sordid and sad, and we are left wondering what it takes for human resolve and goodness to win out over temptation and depravity.”

  Robert Pearigen, Ph.D. President, Millsaps College

---

• “Starner Jones' impressive first novel, Purple Church, is a sharply written narrative of sin and redemption that carries the reader quickly and surely through a fast-paced plot with many unexpected turns and reversals. The surprise ending, which involves the antagonist and protagonist, who have been changed forever in the course of the action, reminds one of O. Henry.”

  George Core Sewanee Review

---

• “A rough, tragic, and twisted tale steeped in the complexities of Southern Culture and the human soul.”

  Chris Peck, Editor The Commercial Appeal

---

• “A story of the slippery slope of sin and degradation following in the great Southern Gothic tradition, Purple Church is a book readers are unlikely to forget because its concerns are eternal and deeply rooted in all of us, whether we admit it or not. With tact and poise, humanity, and an acute vision of the South, this novel will leave readers reevaluating the darkness of their souls.”

  Eric Miles Williamson Author of East Bay Grease

---

• “Grippingly graphic. Both sordid and sad. A spectacular story of wanton grace left wanting more. Metaphorically magnificent. Tales that a preacher can handily relate, yet hardly reference.”

  Robert S. Norris, Th.D. The Royal Poinciana Chapel Palm Beach, Florida

---

• “A gripping novel about the fall of man through the eyes of a preacher who is faced with a contradiction of lust and sinful yearning that leaves him a shell of a human being. This book will leave you examining your own soul and moral fabric.”

  Ben Ferguson Nationally Syndicated Talk Show Host and Political Commentator

---