Yoder, J. Wes 1979-

PERSONAL:

Born 1979, in Franklin, TN.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist; former intern to Rick Bragg.

WRITINGS:

Carry My Bones (novel), MacAdam/Cage (San Francisco, CA), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tennessee native J. Wes Yoder interned for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg, gathering details for important stories that appeared in the New York Times under Bragg's byline. They included the Birmingham, Alabama, trial of Bobby Frank Cherry, the last remaining suspect in a 1963 church bombing by the Ku Klux Klan.

Yoder's debut novel, Carry My Bones, takes place in the contemporary South during football season. Narrated by Merit "Junior" Banks, it is also the story of his adoptive father, Gideon, and John Frederick White, a black man who lives in the woods and survives on charity. Gid is a potter who carries his statue of the Alabama governor to antitax rallies. When he kills the lover of his wife, a crime that he may not have actually committed, the three men, two older and one younger, flee for a life on the road, depending primarily on the kindness of strangers, including the young waitress who hides them and who becomes Merit's lover.

A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that the romance allows Merit "finally to become a fully fleshed character." Booklist contributor Frank Sennett described Carry My Bones as "a subdued and satisfying read."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2006, Frank Sennett, review of Carry My Bones, p. 41.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2006, review of Carry My Bones, p. 324.