Jones, Matthew F. 1956–

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Jones, Matthew F. 1956–

PERSONAL:

Born December 1, 1956, in Newton, MA; son of Charles W. and Ruth H. Jones; married Karen Shapero Jones; children: Reuben Isaih. Education: Hartwick College, B.A. (cum laude), 1977; Syracuse University School of Law, J.D. (magna cum laude), 1980. Politics: Independent. Hobbies and other interests: Running, swimming, cross country skiing, canoeing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Newton, MA. Agent—Suzanne Gluck, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Writer. Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA, writer-in-residence, 1995; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, workshop leader, 1996; Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, VA, writer-in-residence, 1997-98. Also practiced law.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

The Cooter Farm, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1991.

The Elements of Hitting, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1994.

A Single Shot, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1996.

Blind Pursuit, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1997.

Deepwater, Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 1999.

Boot Tracks, Europa Editions (New York, NY), 2006.

ADAPTATIONS:

Deepwater was adapted for film by David S. Marfield and released by Halcyon Entertainment, 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Matthew F. Jones took an unusual road to his career as a writer. Jones, who grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, studied political science as an undergraduate and later earned a law degree with high honors. But Jones seemed predestined to become a novelist. While practicing as a lawyer, he was involved in an accident that nearly paralyzed him and made him realize what he wanted to do with his life. During his long year of recovery, never having taken a writing course, he wrote his first novel, the story of a dysfunctional family living on an upstate New York farm. Jones' work, which can be difficult to categorize from book to book, has been noted for its character-driven plotting, realism blended to a deep sense of spiritualism, uniqueness, and sharp eye for detail. Jones incorporates in his fiction elements of suspense, psychological intrigue, human conflict, suffering, absurdity, and the struggle between mankind's desire to do good against the obstacles in life that would lead him from it.

The Cooter Farm is narrated in the voice of ten-year-old Ollie Cooter, who desperately wishes for a normal family life. Ollie's father, Scooter, used to be a track star but has been reduced in later life to a hypochondriac who sells bull semen for a living. Scooter's malicious brother Hooter (nicknamed for his harsh laugh) runs the farm, as their father is senile and incapable of making decisions. Another brother, Looter (named for his propensity to steal), stays high on marijuana and dates women from a nearby commune. Hooter has been regularly raping his much younger sister, thirteen-yearold Mary Jean, who also lives at the farm. Through Mary Jean, Ollie becomes more aware of the evil that Hooter conceals. Mary Jean convinces Ollie that Hooter can only be stopped by enlisting The Power, a force that lives in a local abandoned house. When the children call upon The Power events backfire and present new and unimagined horrible possibilities.

Critics responded favorably to Jones' debut. Sharon Lloyd Stratton, writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, called The Cooter Farm "strong and memorable … a truly amazing first novel," while Michael Griffin, writing in the Orlando Sentinel applauded the naivete and the "heart" of the child narrator, comparing Jones' characters to those typical of a Charles Dickens novel. Curt Schleir, reviewing the book in the Florida Times-Union, hailed the novel as "the debut of a major new talent," as did Library Journal contributor Thomas L. Kilpatrick, who called Jones' debut "a bold first novel" and dubbed Jones "a bright young writer." Entertainment Weekly contributor Gene Lyons declared The Cooter Farm "an altogether remarkable debut," comparing the book to the work of Joyce Carol Oates and John Irving. San Francisco Chronicle critic Charles Shackett remarked that the novel is "so funny and fast reading that the seriousness of the conflicts sneaks up on the reader." Shackett concluded that the novel "is a fine debut for Matthew Jones."

In his 1994 novel The Elements of Hitting, Jones' protagonist is again the product of a dysfunctional and tormented family. Walter Innis is facing a mid-life crisis: his wife is leaving him and he cannot hold his job as a used car salesman. Walter's father, a former star baseball pitcher who injured his pitching arm throwing rocks at a sailboat while taking part in a foolish bet, is dying in a nursing home. Walter remembers family life becoming increasingly worse following his father's injury: his father drank and beat his mother, and his mother eventually had an affair with her rich employer Henry Truxton. Walter's mother was later found dead in a lake bordering the home of Truxton, a man now running for political office twenty years later. Believing that Truxton was responsible for his mother's death, Walter sets out with his best friend, a good-hearted but not exactly principled lawyer, to try and wreck his political campaign. Against all odds, circumstances occur that appear to alleviate Walter's miseries. He is approached by a former college sweetheart, Jeannie, who is trying unsuccessfully to coach her son's Little League team in his hometown. Even though he never excelled at the game, Walter, having learned baseball at the hands of his father, is an obvious choice for coach. Walter goes on to find possible love with Jeannie and to believe that life is not quite as hopeless as he believed.

According to Denney Clements, writing in the Wichita Eagle, Jones notably captures the absurd and painful aspects of life with this novel, even while sending the message that those with the courage to go on may find some meaning and hope in life. Griffin, writing again for the Orlando Sentinel, commented on Jones' skill at making the story "a baseball book that breaks the mold," while a Kirkus Reviews contributor declared: "Jones packs plenty of humor, pathos and plot into a story that literally ends with a bang." Washington Post Book World contributor Chris Bohjalian favorably assessed the novel, concluding: "At its core, is an often haunting and occasionally beautiful story of one man's attempt to rebuild his life with two strikes against him."

Suspense, murder, and human despair characterize Jones' third novel, A Single Shot. John Moon lives in a remote, upstate New York town, and he has been left by his wife and child and is simply trying to scratch out a living for himself by working odd jobs and hunting. Moon is poaching for deer one morning and is hot on the tracks of a wounded buck that he has been following for hours. The buck takes off in a different direction than expected, and when Moon hears a rustle in the woods, he fires. To his horror he finds he has killed a teenage girl. Later he discovers her belongings in a nearby cave, including 100,000 dollars in cash that he decides to keep to lure his wife and son back to his household. In the meantime he struggles with guilt and initially hides the body in his freezer. The money actually belongs to some malevolent individuals in town who come looking for Moon and instigate a final suspenseful showdown in the forest, where Moon is attempting to give the corpse a proper burial. The criminals cause plenty of chaos in the neighborhood, ransacking the home of Moon's best friend, who turns out to be involved in the underlying murder and robbery and later shoots himself in distress.

Daniel Woodrell, reviewing the book for the Washington Post Book World, remarked on the effectiveness of Jones' portrayal of Moon and the taut disintegration of Moon's psyche which occurs over the seven-day span of the novel, asserting that Jones "has in concocted a literary thriller of sorts, for the requisite mayhem and intrigue are present. But it is a satisfyingly dour and deterministic novel, the doom stacking scene by scene toward a startling, macabre, and inevitable result." Philadelphia Enquirer reviewer Michael Harrington remarked that "Jones is remarkably adept at detailing the way both nature and necessity turn against Moon…. Scenes of gruesomely detailed violence alternate with exquisitely described natural beauty." A contributor to Publishers Weekly called the book "gritty and claustrophobic," and characterized it as being written with "great economy, surprising pathos, and a keen sense of the grotesque." In a New York Times review, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt assessed the novel as a "harrowing literary thriller," and commented that "Mr. Jones … has created in a powerful blend of love and violence, of the grotesque and the tender."

Jones continued writing in the suspense thriller genre with Blind Pursuit. In this 1997 novel, the daughter of a yuppy couple living in a wealthy exurb of Albany, New York, is abducted. A police investigation later leads the parents to suspect their neighbors, a respected couple with whom they attend church. As Jones unearths the mystery and motivations behind the deep secrets of some of these characters, it turns out that the suspect raped and murdered his own daughter and that his wife knew about and concealed his crime. The author also explores the parents' guilt as they agonize over not spending enough time with their daughter and leaving her with a nanny whose background they had not extensively checked into. A reviewer from the San Francisco Chronicle called the book a riveting effort propelled by "sadistic yet mesmerizing energy." Susan Salter Reynold, writing in the Los Angeles Times, offered high praise for Jones' literary talent, asserting that Blind Pursuit is "a smorgasbord of agonies, and Jones cuts deeply, acutely, into each one of them." Reynolds further praised Jones' characterizations, asserting that this "author is so attentive to voice, to every wavering indecision, that the dialogue at times reads like a taped transcription. At first, this is frustrating, but then, like eyes adjusting to darkness, your hearing registers the precision of this method." Booklist contributor David Pitt felt that the abductor's identity was the least of many surprises in the novel and called Blind Pursuit "an extremely well constructed (and sometimes quite moving) mystery," while a Kirkus Reviews contributor observed that the novel contains "relentless, lean-and-mean page-turner plotting and a grimly satisfying ending."

A fifth novel by Jones, Deepwater, appeared in 1999 and was adapted for film in 2005. As the novel opens, a young drifter by the name of Nat Banyon finds himself in the rural town of Deepwater and is soon hired by an older man, Herman Finch, to paint the hotel Finch operates. As a contributor to Publishers Weekly remarked, the novel soon becomes "an inspired tale of suspicious strangers, a secret love affair and one man's slide into madness." Banyon is attracted to Finch's alluring young wife, Iris, and the two soon begin a love affair. Meanwhile, Banyon's relationship with Finch also develops, according to a review by Bob Lunn in Library Journal, into "a complicated bond that is equal parts antagonism and friendship, suspicion and fear." Finch seems to have a sinister hold over the Deepwater community and Banyon experiences a deepening sense of alarm as he notices uncanny similarities between his own physical appearance and old photographs of Finch and of Finch's seeming omnipotence. A contributor to Publishers Weekly commented that the tale was "told exceedingly well" and added Jones "creates tension with remarkable economy and intricacy in a sinister narrative that ultimately reveals itself as a powerful expression of loneliness, dangerous passions and the quest for identity." Booklist Bill Ott wrote that despite a conventional opening, "in the hands of a writer who knows how to wring the sex out of a hot night, we're just as compelled as poor Nat to keep going in the wrong direction. Jones varies the formula just enough by giving the wrong guy a full-dress personality and forging an almost spiritual link between hunter and hunted."

After a break from writing novels, Jones published Boot Tracks in 2006. Charlie Rankin is free after a four-year jail term for stealing forty-some dollars and a few candy bars from a hospital vending machine. He is not free, however, to move on with his life. With a sense of obligation to his jail mate and protector, nicknamed "The Buddha," Rankin is ordered to kill a man for him out of vengeance. In the process he couples with exporn star LuAnn and a relationship develops. Rankin's own sanity begins to crumble as he struggles with his loyalty to "The Buddha" and his off-center sense of morality.

Reviews for Boot Tracks were mostly positive. Writing in Booklist, Ott noted that the ex-con just out of prison was not a new premise, but that "Jones does it proud in this powerful tale." Hannah Tucker, reviewing the book in Entertainment Weekly, called the book "a brooding character study of a man who's morally compromised." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called the book "dark but illuminating novel," and stated that it is "a nightmare thriller with the power to haunt."

Jones once told CA: "The world, I would say, doesn't necessarily accept people with open arms. It puts up obstacles. Indifferently challenges people to get around them. I find, in my writing, very few universal truths, only individuals trying to survive as best they can with whatever tools God has granted them."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Writers Directory, 22nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2006.

PERIODICALS

American Libraries, April, 1996, review of A Single Shot, p. 74.

Armchair Detective, fall, 1996, review of A Single Shot, p. 503.

Booklist, October 15, 1991, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 408; March 15, 1994, Bill Ott, review of The Elements of Hitting, p. 1327; April 1, 1996, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of A Single Shot, p. 1343; June 1, 1997, David Pitt, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 1666; August, 1999, Bill Ott, review of Deepwater, p. 2034; June 1, 2006, Bill Ott, review of Boot Tracks, p. 43.

Bookwatch, July, 2006, review of Boot Tracks.

Chicago Tribune, June 8, 1997, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 6.

Drood Review of Mystery, September, 2000, review of Deepwater, p. 17.

Entertainment Weekly, January 31, 1992, Gene Lyons, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 52; July 11, 1997, Alexandra Jacobs, review of A Single Shot, p. 60; May 26, 2006, Hannah Tucker, review of Boot Tracks, p. 111.

Florida Times-Union, January 26, 1992, Curt Schleir, review of The Cooter Farm.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 1991, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 1365; February 15, 1994, review of The Elements of Hitting, p. 164; February 1, 1996, review of A Single Shot, p. 162; March 15, 1997, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 407; September 1, 1999, review of Deepwater, p. 1333; April 1, 2006, review of Boot Tracks, p. 314.

Kliatt, November, 1997, review of A Single Shot, p. 8.

Library Journal, January, 1992, Thomas L. Kilpatrick, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 175; April 1, 1996, Darryl Dean James, review of A Single Shot, p. 117; April 15, 1997, Mark Annichiarico, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 118; November 1, 1999, Bob Lunn, review of Deepwater, p. 124.

Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1992, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 6; May 12, 1996, review of A Single Shot, p. 10; July, 1996; August 10, 1997, Susan Salter Reynold, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 2.

New York Times, April 22, 1996, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of A Single Shot, p. B2.

New York Times Book Review, April 10, 1994, Diane Cole, review of The Elements of Hitting, p. 24; July 13, 1997, Frederick Busch, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 16; November 21, 1999, David L. Ulin, review of Deepwater, p. 74.

Orlando Sentinel, January 26, 1992, Michael Griffin, review of The Cooter Farm; April 24, 1994, Michael Griffin, review of The Elements of Hitting.

People, August 12, 1996, Pam Lambert, review of A Single Shot, p. 32.

Philadelphia Enquirer, August 10, 1997, Michael Harrington, review of A Single Shot.

Publishers Weekly, November 1, 1991, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 74; February 21, 1994, review of The Elements of Hitting, p. 234; April 14, 1997, review of A Single Shot, p. 72; May 12, 1997, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 60; August 9, 1999, review of Deepwater, p. 339.

Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 1, 1992, Sharon Lloyd Stratton, review of The Cooter Farm.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1992, Charles Shackett, review of The Cooter Farm, p. 7; October 3, 1997, review of Blind Pursuit.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1995, review of The Elements of Hitting, p. 23; winter, 1998, review of Blind Pursuit, p. 24.

Washington Post Book World, May 16, 1994, Chris Bohjalian, review of The Elements of Hitting; July 7, 1996, Daniel Woodrell, review of A Single Shot, p. 6.

Wichita Eagle, April 3, 1994, Denney Clements, review of The Elements of Hitting.