Joe, this one’s for you.
There’s something special about sharing a story that carries a friend’s name—especially one with the humanity and grit of Larry Brown’s Joe.
I met Larry Brown at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. That personal connection gives sharing his work an added meaning for me. Behind the book was a man I had the opportunity to meet, in a bookstore that is part of the South’s literary life.
Brown’s novel became the film Joe, directed by David Gordon Green and starring Nicolas Cage as Joe Ransom. Alongside Tye Sheridan, who plays a struggling teenager named Gary, Cage portrays a deeply flawed man whose bond with a young person awakens his protective instincts.
This is a difficult, sometimes brutal story about hardship, responsibility, and the consequences of our choices. My reading of its heart is this: caring about another person can call us toward something better, even when we struggle to find the way ourselves.
Joe, I’m sharing this with you in friendship. A book, a movie, and a conversation can give us a chance to look beneath the surface and see the humanity in one another.
Here’s to friendship—and stories worth sharing.
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