Joe Jones

Joe Jones is Anne Lamott's raucous novel of lives gathered around Jessie's Caf, the sort of broken-down waterfront dive one might expect to find in Steinbeck. Jessie, thin, stooped and gorgeous at seventy-nine, inherited the caf years before and it has become home to a remarkable family of characters: Louise, the cook and vortex, Joe, devoted and unfaithful; Willie, Jessies gay grandson; Georgia, an empress dowager who never speaks; and a dozen others all living together in the sweet everyday.