I was caddywonked from the get-go.

That’s how this vivid, hilarious, and ultimately poignant memoir begins, under the cover of darkness in 1962, as an embryonic Jeff Batton was whisked away by his brothel-owning grandmother and soon-to-be birth mother to a home for unwed mothers in Savannah, Georgia. After he was put up for adoption (displayed in a supermarket delicatessen case, as he recalls it), Jeff’s new parents arrived in the form of Mr. and Mrs. Batton. Jo Ann adhered to the standards of Emily Post and the Bible (in that order), and Curtis was a third-generation Georgia farmer and true Southerner who filled his tea glass with something stronger each night. Jeff’s new home: a 700-acre peanut and tobacco farm so far from town that they had to pipe in sunshine. 

Coming of age during the civil rights movement, Jeff experiences both the Tom Sawyer existence of idyllic barefoot freedom—including a deep friendship with a kid from the other side of the tracks—and blatant racism at home, along with the confusion and angst of figuring out who he was and how he fit into this world.

While the memoir has the South as its launching point, the narrative travels far and wide beyond the trope of a barefoot childhood, to New York City, Hong Kong, London, and beyond. Lovingly told, with warm and stark transparency and laugh-out-loud humor, Grinnin’ Like a Jackass Eatin’ Briars is an important book about uncovering our own truth, looking at the world from a different angle, and, ultimately, finding the courage to embrace what we find.

About the Authors

Jeff Batton grew up on a 700-hundred-acre farm in South Georgia, and is both an apologist and proud ambassador for the South. He has been shot once, attempted to save the world’s poor, traveled to more than 25 countries, and now coaches people on what not to do. He has lived and worked in Atlanta, New York City, Hong Kong, and London, and finally landed in Detroit, where he makes his home just spitting distance from Canada. He has a bachelor’s degree in theater from LaGrange College. This is his first book.

Landon J. Napoleon is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of fiction and nonfiction books that have been translated into multiple foreign editions. He is a previous Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” finalist and is the author of the acclaimed Devlin legal series. His debut novel ZigZag was adapted into a film, and his nonfiction biography Burning Shield: The Jason Schechterle Story was a “The Arizona Republic Recommends” selection. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Arizona State University and a master’s degree from University of Glasgow in Scotland. He lives in Arizona.