Mark Childress has been on my list of must-read authors for quite some time, since I first saw “Crazy in Alabama,” a quirky comic film from 1999 directed by Antonio Banderas and starring his wife, Melanie Griffith, based on Childress’ 1993 novel of the same name.

The film, for which Childress also wrote the screenplay, featured Fannie Flagg, one of my favorite authors, in a rare cameo role as the proverbial wisecracking waitress, and it was the blurb written by Flagg on the front jacket of Childress’ newest novel, “Georgia Bottoms,” that ultimately convinced me to pick up the book:

“Move over, Flannery O’Connor, and make room for a new master. Mark Childress has written yet another laugh-out-loud Southern classic. In his new novel, ‘Georgia Bottoms,’ you will meet the most hilariously dysfunctional bunch of characters to come down the literary pike in years. Try to stop laughing!”

I’ve learned from past reading experiences that just because a writer I enjoy recommends another author doesn’t necessarily mean I will like the recommended writer; however, in the case of Childress’ “Georgia Bottoms,” Flagg’s endorsement was apt.

The “Georgia Bottoms” of the title of the book isn’t an allusion to fertile Southern farmland: it is the name of the title character, a sassy Southern belle from a shabby-genteel family in Six Points, Ala.

Georgia supports herself and her dependents – her aging, senile and racist mother and her ne’er-do-well, suspected terrorist and alcoholic brother – by sharing her sexual favors with six male pillars of her small, rural community. None knows about the others and she has one for each night of the week, as she takes Mondays off.

Georgia’s carefully constructed world begins to crumble when her Saturday lover – the married minister of the Baptist church she faithfully attends – threatens to confess their affair one Sunday morning in front of the entire congregation, and when her 20-year-old interracial son, whom she gave up shortly after his birth but has been secretly supporting, shows up unannounced on her doorstep from New Orleans, much to his maternal grandmother’s surprise and dismay.

The novel is bookended by two of modern America’s greatest tragedies: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina; just as our country was shaken to its core by those life-changing events, so is Georgia transformed by the exposure of the long-held secrets of her life. It is the track of that transformation, both comic and tragic, that makes up this funny, fierce and unforgettable novel.

Childress was born in Monroeville, Ala., in 1957. He grew up in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi and Louisiana. Childress graduated from the University of Alabama and has worked as a reporter for The Birmingham News, as a features editor of Southern Living magazine, and as a regional editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Formerly a resident of Dallas and New York, Childress currently resides in Key West, Fla.

Childress is the author of five other novels: “A World Made of Fire” (1984), “V for Victor” (1988), “Tender” (1990), “Gone for Good” (1998), and “One Mississippi” (2006). “Georgia Bottoms” is available in hardcover and e-book formats.

— Review by Jim Browning, Barnes & Noble Booksellers.