Blooming with Books

The Bequest of Big Daddy

By Jo-Ann Costa

       Jo-Dee Janson Cipriano is out to discover the truth behind her great grandfather.  Who was Big Daddy?  Was he truly born mean and profane as family legend painted him or was there something more to the man?  Jo-Dee's search began because of attending Horatio "Ratio" Janson's funeral in 1953. 

        Big Daddy swore with a vengeance before it became common, it was just his way to use "outhouse language".  And he was known for his temper, even shooting off the mailman's hat for waking him from a nap.  He was also a womanizer with a "passel of yard chillin'!" as one great aunt stated. 

        Ratio's mother was a spoiled manipulative brat who deserved to be turned over someone's knee and given a major tanning.  Perhaps she might have been a half-way decent person with some discipline, but I doubt it.

          I have to be honest, I personally think if I had met Big Daddy I would have run the other way and never looked back.  But this book takes a look at the factors made him into the man he was.  But there is too much sex and innuendo for my tastes in books, but I know others won't and don't find this offensive.

        I found Jo-Dee's search more interesting than the sections that actually dealt with Big Daddy.  The people that she interacted with and spoke with were interesting.  The truth about her heritage is something that she and her family never suspected, but can she bring this secret to light or protect the family legend so that Big Daddy will remain bigger than life.

         The Bequest of Big Daddy spans the years before the Civil War and ends with Jo-Dee's search for answers in 1981.  If you go on this search with Jo-Dee you will discover the unglamorized truth of the South. 

         I received a copy of this book through TLC Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.

         Check-out the other TLC tour links for other blogger's opinion about The Bequest of Big Daddy.

About The Bequest of Big Daddy

Paperback:  280 pages

Publisher:  Koehler Books (April 1, 2013)

From a Reconstruction-era turpentine and logging industry to the decaying ruins of a doomed plantation with its dying social system, THE BEQUEST OF BIG DADDY (Koehler Books; April 2013) is evocative of all that was wrong in the post-Civil War South. A generational saga that spans pre-Civil War days through the 20th century, THE BEQUEST OF BIG DADDY is a grand tale of betrayal, separations and reunions. The Big Daddy of the title—and the main character in this novel—is an archetype of the infamous Southern patriarch.

At its heart, this is a story of a man born to Southern Aristocracy then reduced to peasantry, who spawns an empire of outcasts, heroes and heroines—among them a great grand-daughter who is determined to learn the truth about her kin’s hushed, painful past.

The story is set in motion at the deathbed of Ratio Jansen, a crusty patriarch with an infamous background, a hair-trigger temper and a feisty great grand-daughter named Jo-Dee. From the shocking gossip she overhears at his funeral, Jo-Dee is determined to plumb the murky past as the protective skin of Ratio’s story falls away.

Will she betray her great-grandfather and disgrace the family name, or will she preserve his shameful secret? Will Ratio’s spirit claim her even from the grave? Sometimes a bit of violence in the family is a good thing.

Learn more about The Bequest of Big Daddy at Jo-Ann Costa’s website, 

www.jo-anncosta.com.

About Jo-Ann Costa

Jo-Ann Costa studied her craft at the knees of her clannish Alabama kin, who are among the most accomplished at fabricating outlandish tales. Thus trained as a storyteller, Ms. Costa honed her compelling voice while serving in executive roles for a mega-corporation founded by the late Howard Hughes. While there, and with higher stakes, she invented tales of a different sort. Since then, Ms. Costa has once again deployed her trademark spin with her debut novel, THE BEQUEST OF BIG DADDY.