The Jumper

The Jumper is a novel by the American writer Tim Parrish, published in 2013 by Texas Review Press and winner of the 2012 George Garrett Prize for Fiction. The protagonist, Jimmy Strawhorn, grows up on a West Texas ranch believing himself to be an orphan. One day he receives a letter from a man claiming to be his father, who wants to see him before he dies, and so he sets out for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In that decaying Southern industrial city he finds his biological father, J. T., and becomes entangled in J. T.'s feud with a local crime boss. Through a series of flashbacks, the truth surrounding Jimmy's birth is gradually revealed: a family history steeped in deception, gambling, debt, and an ambiguous racial identity. The novel also depicts the past and present of two other eccentric figures, Sandra and J. T., whose lives are changed by Jimmy's arrival. Throughout, the book alternates between Jimmy's impulse to leap from high places, his fear of love, and his struggle to survive in illiteracy and hardship, in a tone that is both bleak and darkly comic. Reviewers praise the author's vivid portrayal of the Texas badlands and Baton Rouge, and his natural dialogue, calling it a work of contemporary realism in the tradition of Southern literature.