Addie Pray

Addie Pray (1971) is a novel by Joe David Brown. It was the basis for the movie Paper Moon (1973) directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Shortly after the movie was released, the novel was re-titled Paper Moon.

The novel is narrated by Addie, an orphaned girl, who travels with confidence man Moses "Long Boy" Pray in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. Their travels are mainly in 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, encouraging "marks" to become investors in a worthless health tonic named PruYea for the prunes and yeast it is allegedly concocted with, and a climactic scam against a wealthy, dishonest lawyer in New Orleans.

Editions

• Addie Pray, Simon & Schuster, 1971. ISBN 978-0-671-20962-9
• Paper Moon: A Novel, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002. ISBN 978-1-56858-230-6