Purple Church

“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, editor, Sewanee Review

|””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 (Mississippi)|””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, insight, 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

STARNER JONES, an emergency medicine physician living in Memphis, was born and raised in northeast Mississippi and educated at the University of the South, Saint George’s University School of Medicine, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. A seventh-generation Mississippian, Jones enjoys world travel, hunting, fishing, and golf. Purple Church is his debut novel.