Redneck Boy in the Promised Land: The Confessions of "Crazy Cooter"
A former congressman from Georgia, Jones earlier portrayed grease-covered garage owner Cooter Davenport on the early-1980s TV showDukes of Hazzard. Now Jones and his wife, Alma Viator, own the Cooter's Place museums in Nashville and Gatlinburg, Tenn.; they also stage Dukesfest, an annual Nashville gathering ofDukesfans. Looking back at his hardscrabble childhood, he recalls his barefoot days growing up in a Virginia railroad shack minus electricity and hot water. He studied TV-radio at the University of North Carolina, but graduated as a likker drinkin', hell raisin', dope smokin', fist-fightin', womanizin' jailbird wild man. During the 1960s he participated in civil rights sit-ins, established a theatrical career and kept on drinking. At 36, after three disastrous marriages and countless fractured relationships, he went on the road to recovery. When theDukesratings soared, he became a heartland hero, and Jones's congressional career fills the final chapters. Capturing Southern culture in a burlap bag full of funny anecdotes, Jones covers miles and memories: In the vastness of America, I have never found a road that wasn't interesting. Observing life from his porch in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this modern-day Will Rogers writes with a mix of humor, pathos and passion in a rip-roarin' book with a down-home flavor.(June 3)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.