Southern Fiction

REVIEW: The Cutting Season by Attica Locke

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Genre: Literary Mystery, Southern Fiction
Audience: Adult

Summary: Caren Gray is a strong, educated African American woman and a single mother. She has mixed feelings about managing Belle Vie, the sprawling plantation where she grew up and where her ancestors were once slaves. Despite the unease that the former slave cabins instill in her, she feels tied to the place. But when an immigrant sugar cane worker is found dead on the edge of Belle Vie and Caren decides to launch her own investigation, all of her latent misgivings are stirred up again. And even as centuries-old secrets from the past rise up from the past, in the present Caren begins to fear that her nine-year-old daughter may know more about the murder than she’s telling.

First Line: It was during the Thompson-Delacroix wedding, Caren’s first week on the job, that a cottonmouth, measuring the length of a Cadillac, fell some twenty feet from a live oak on the front lawn, landing like a coil of rope in the lap of the bride’s future mother-in-law.

Tracy’s Thoughts:
A nuanced mystery with gothic undertones, Attica Locke’s second novel (after Black Water Rising) is far more than a typical whodunit. The atmospheric Southern setting and eerie history of slavery permeate the plot, adding depth and weight to the story. Issues of race, class, and history are key, but these themes are seamlessly and subtly integrated into the plot rather than a carelessly tacked on “moral.”

Attica Locke’s writing is stellar, descriptive and even poetic at times: “[B]eneath its its loamy topsoil, the manicured grounds and gardens, two centuries of
breathtaking wealth and spectacle, lay a land both black and bitter,
soft to the touch, but pressing in its power.” However, I did not find the characters quite as captivating as the setting. I had a bit of a struggle warming up to Caren, who is a bit of a mystery herself. I appreciated that she is a strong but flawed woman, and I was pulling for her 100%, and yet, for me, she remains distant throughout the novel.

But despite my quibbles (and, if you haven’t noticed by now, I almost always have quibbles), I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The linkage of past and present, along with the blending of history, social issues, and various relationship issues make for a complex and satisfying read.

REVIEW: A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

Rating: 4/5 Stars
Genre: Psychological Suspense/Southern Gothic
Audience: Adult

Summary: In a small North Carolina mountain town outside Asheville, evil has festered for years in the form of Pastor Carson Chambliss, an ex-con and born-again Christian who encourages his congregation to speak in tongues, handle deadly snakes and fire, and drink poison to prove their faith. Adelaide Lyle recognized the danger years ago and insisted that the congregation’s children steer clear of Chambliss’s raucous services and attend Sunday school with her instead. But a series of events, beginning with the snooping of a young boy, brings the evil out into the open and shatters a family forever.

First Line: “I sat there in the car with the grave dust blowing in the parking lot and saw the place for what it was, not what it was right at that moment in the hot sunlight, but for what it had been maybe twelve or fifteen years before: a real general store with folks gathered around the lunch counter, a line of people at the soda fountain, little children ordering ice cream of just about every flavor you could think of, hard candy by the quarter pound, moon pies and crackerjack and other things I hadn’t thought about tasting in years.”

Tracy’s Thoughts:
Human weaknesses and vulnerabilities are exposed in this evocative novel about rural life, fate, and redemption. Equal parts Southern Gothic and Greek tragedy, it calls to mind the work of Flannery O’Connor. The story is narrated by a chorus of three voices: Adelaide, the town
wise woman and healer, a woman who at nearly eighty tells it like she
sees it; Sheriff Clem Barefield, still somewhat of an outsider, a middle-aged man
haunted by his own family tragedy; and nine-year-old Jess, precocious
and adventurous, a boy older than his years from looking out for
his mute and most likely autistic older brother. The novel weaves
back and forth through time, seamlessly revealing events of the past to
elucidate the tragedy that occurs early on in the narrative. This
layering of perspective and events creates a dark, quiet intensity that
pulls you in, the tension gradually building up to the final,
inevitable conclusion.

And debut author Wiley Cash’s writing is fabulous.The dialog and idioms are spot on, perfectly capturing the flavor of the mountains and its people without introducing awkward, unreadable dialect. The lyrical prose is unpretentious, and the characters lovingly crafted.This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys the work of Tom Franklin and John Hart. This book offers plenty of food for thought and discussion; it would make an ideal book club read.