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Justin Jones
January 23 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Magic City Books is proud to welcome Justin Jones for an event to celebrate his latest novel, The Devil’s Smokehouse on Tuesday January 23, 2024. This free event will take place at the Tulsa County Bar Association, 1446 S Boston Avenue at 7:00 pm. Justin will discuss the book and sign copies.
The Devil’s Smokehouse is available now at Magic City Books or you can order a copy online at: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/the-devil-s-smokehouse/1898.
About The Devil’s Smokehouse
There were always two options: the closet or under the bed.
In the 1960s, young Jenkins and his sister, Jill are trying to grow up in a dusty, hardscrabble area a few miles out from a one-stoplight town in the American southwest. It’s a long bus ride through farmland to school where both children put on brave faces to cover up for the nights they suffer at the hands of their violent, alcoholic father, to whom they refer as the Devil. In his drunken rampages, he regularly beats Jenkins, Jill, and their mother, smashes up the shabby dwelling that serves as their home, and then retreats to his bedroom, his chamber of horrors.
As they grow into adolescence, Jill copes by focusing on doing well in school so that she can get out as soon as she can, as Jenkins is sucked into a life of truancy and increasing violence. While contemplating eventual revenge on his father, Jenkins must decide how to handle people and situations whose evil and cruelty will test ordinary readers’ imaginations. The realities of the lives of Jenkins and Jill are not unfamiliar to author Justin Jones, who has firsthand experience in the juvenile and adult justice systems.
The Devil’s Smokehouse is an unvarnished story of the ravages of rural poverty and an unsparing look at one boy managing to triumph against crushing odds.
Justin Jones is the author of two novels—Tales of the Caseload and The Perils of Ms. Apple—and various published articles and editorials. In addition to his writing accomplishments, Justin is a veteran of an extensive career in criminal justice, including as Oklahoma State Director of Corrections. He continues to provide expert opinion consulting in the corrections profession. Justin has and continues to serve on numerous nonprofit boards that focus on assisting the disenfranchised, and he established a foundation to support an alternative school that focuses on youth with various social challenges. He has been an adjunct professor and served as a suicide hotline volunteer. Justin has degrees in sociology and communications from East Central University in Oklahoma.
