Author Gerald Duff’s Dirty Rice: A Season in the Evangeline League published by the UL Press has been tabbed one of the 25 best fiction books of the year by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The baseball novel is among the Post-Dispatch newspaper’s “Our 50 Favorite Books of 2012” compilation of 25 fiction and 25 nonfiction works.
Dirty Rice, set in the minor leagues of Louisiana in the 1930s, is narrated by a rookie pitcher “in prose that snaps like a dandy curveball,” according to the Post-Dispatch.
It stands out as the only fiction selection published by a university press alongside work from major houses such as Simon & Schuster, Knopf and Random House.
With Dirty Rice, Duff shares space on the Post-Dispatch list with books from literary heavyweights like Toni Morrison, Denis Lehane, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Diaz and Richard Ford. Duff, who lives in Lebanon, Ill., has published 15 books, including novels, short story and poetry collections, and nonfiction. The 296-page novel is available from the UL Press.
Founded in 1973, the press is the publishing arm of UL Lafayette's Center for Louisiana Studies. It publishes books that make significant contributions to the study of Louisiana history and culture. With more than 100 titles in print, the press currently publishes10-12 titles yearly.
For more information about the UL Lafayette Press, including a list of titles and events, visit ulpress.org.
CONTACT: Charlie Bier
charlie@louisiana.edu