They Call Me Jabe
A Hillbilly Tale of Life, Death, and Grace
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
They Call Me Jabe tells the tale of a young man of Appalachian heritage who has many strange and unexpected encounters with grace. From drug addiction at a young age, to becoming an ordained United Methodist pastor, to battling with depression, the author provides an authentic, candid, and sometimes comical look at his life as he chronicles his journey from his native land to other communities and environments outside of Appalachia. A string that runs throughout Jabe's story is that of untimely death. He introduces to us many of the people he has called family and friend, who meet an early demise because of substance abuse or other forms of tragedy. With a lack of sentimentality and a brutal honesty, Jabe's story is one that is deeply moving, while also proving to be uncomfortably challenging at times. Topics such as mass incarceration, corporate greed, mental health, and addiction are taken head on in a theological and cultural commentative way, in the context of one life, lived, full of grace, pain, hope, and heartache.
Endorsements (3)
“Backstories—we all have them. Jabe’s is unsparingly hard. Yet God flips the script to Jabe’s recurring thought, ‘This should be me,’ demonstrating again the power of the scriptural question, ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord?’”
“They Call Me Jabe is a genuine page-turner. If the reader is not familiar with what drugs, especially, the opioids, have wrought in places like Pulaski County, Virginia, Jabe Largen’s memoir will be a revelation. He has given an unsparing account of the many devastations visited on him, his family, and friends due to drug addiction. Largen, who now pastors a Methodist church in North Carolina, also offers an unsentimental account of his redemption. This book is a none-too-gentle reminder that with the Lord and a few of his helpers, the Light really can overcome the darkness. This is a conversion story—and much, much more.”
“They Call Me Jabe felt like stumbling upon someone’s private diary. Raw. Honest. Tender. The palpable reality of addiction, disappointment, opioids, and loss was excruciating . . . yet not the last word. Grace gets the last word.”
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