0
*
0
*
1450
2025
book-filter
Work cover

Addie Pray

  • Joe David Brown

4.50

2 ratings

Addie Pray (1971) is a novel by Joe David Brown. It was the basis for the movie Paper Moon (1973) directed by Peter Bogdanovich. The novel was re-printed in 2002 as a paperback with the title Paper Moon: A Novel.

The novel is narrated by Addie, an orphaned girl, who travels with confidence man "Long Boy" Moses Pray in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. Their travels are mainly in the State of Alabama, but they do go elsewhere on occasion. The second half of the novel takes place in and around New Orleans, where Addie and Mose become involved in a scam with confidence man Colonel Culpepper. This portion of the tale would be omitted from the film Paper Moon.

Addie states at the beginning of the novel that Long Boy may or may not be her father; she says that her late mother was the "wildest" girl in her town, and that Long Boy is one of her three possible fathers. The book features three scams not depicted in the movie, including bilking cotton dealers, investors in a worthless mine, and a wealthy lawyer in New Orleans.

Genres

  • Depressions
  • Orphans
  • Father figures
  • Girls
  • Fiction
  • Swindlers and swindling
  • Large type books
  • Fiction, historical, general
  • Crime, fiction
  • Southern states, fiction
  • Fiction, psychological
  • Fiction, general
Already read

2

people already read

Currently reading

1

people are currently reading

Want to read

19

people want to read

About the author

  • Joe David Brown

    4.20

    5 ratings · 19 works

Editions

  • Edition cover

    Hodder and Stoughton, Simon and Schuster

    1972

  • Edition cover

    G. K. Hall

    1971

  • Edition cover

    1st Four Walls Eight Windows ed.

    Four Walls Eight Windows

    2002

  • Edition cover

    Simon and Schuster

    1971

Edition cover

Thorndike Press

2002

  • Edition cover

    Coronet

    1973

  • Edition cover

    Signet

    1973

  • Edition cover

    Signet

    February 1, 1973

  • Edition cover

    G. K. Hall

    1971

  • Edition cover

    Simon and Schuster

    1971

  • Edition cover

    Signet

    February 6, 1973

  • Edition cover

    Signet

    February 1, 1973

  • Edition cover

    Signet

    February 1, 1973