Gypsy Escapades

"Gypsy Escapades is a picaresque, an adventure story, and a thriller. It's also an immersive dive into India, its cultures and subcultures, particularly the Narikuravar people, from a writer who knows what he's talking about. A young, budding anthropologist and an older but not always wiser mentor who might be a spy, embark on a mission to save India from a unique terrorist-and perhaps find themselves. Jackson's book is humorous and wise and tragic at times. It brings to mind Pynchon and Vonnegut and is well worth the ride." 

-Fritz McDonald author of Woods and coauthor of 2184 ½

"Zany, slangy, fascinating, original, and fantastical story of an unconventional Pakistani terrorist meeting his comeuppance in an encounter with a Gandhian professor and an American youth researching urban Adivasis in Chennai."

-Prabhu Guptara, director, Salt Desert Media Group

"Jackson weaves a rich tapestry of fictional intrigue, peppered with sweet humor and spicy history. Humor and scholarship do not always find a home in the same person and in this book we find a delicious and stimulating mixture. I thoroughly enjoyed this fascinating, imaginative, creative, humor-filled piece of work. It is bound to bring a smile to the reader's face and an opening of the petals of their minds as they flip through the pages with avid interest."

-Prabhakar Chitrapu, telecommunications professional and student of philosophy, spirituality, and music

". . . A delightful read. For me, as a former graduate researcher in India, the descriptions of the markets (particularly the fish market), the sadhus, Tirupati, and the border crossing brought the people and the places to life and took me back to the India I remember from decades ago. The use of cell phones, GPS, and social issues rounded out the story and took me to more contemporary times."

-Jonathon Goldberg-Bell, professor and director of Study Away Program, University of Illinois at Springfield

". . . Novels about terrorism-whether by Patterson or Ludlom or Penny-have never before had the tactile, face-down-on-the-dirt veracity that Jackson deploys in this book . . . it is fully human, astonishing, and all the more terrifying. Like a slowly tightening vice, Jackson's tale brings you along, and makes you follow the inner and outer lives of his characters, so that you remain in the thrall of the geo-political moment and its human impact. Jackson's understanding of the languages spoken by his characters, and its rich cultural meaning, emphasizes the ultimate humanity of the book, and its unexpected finality."

-Anders Nereim, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Dept. of Interior Architecture