Rene Denfeld has written a compelling novel regarding the moral question of capital punishment in her novel The EnchaThe Enchanted: Living in Darkness
Rene Denfeld has written a compelling novel regarding the moral question of capital punishment in her novel The Enchanted. Denfeld is an author who writes what she knows. She is a death penalty investigator who works on cases of the condemned, reviewing their cases to assess whether an inmate's sentence was properly imposed. Her findings may lead to a new trial for her clients. Or an inmate's conviction may be upheld and the ultimate punishment may be imposed.
Not only does Denfeld address the lives of those on death row, she reveals the darkness of prison life. Those inmates, not on death row, but who are the "shot callers" on the prison yards, brutal human beings her exercise power over those weaker than themselves. Here are the inconvenient truths of prisoners improperly classified, thrown in with more hardened men who repeatedly use the weak for their own sexual pleasure. Corrupt guards who turn a blind eye to violence and male rape. The receipt of heroin and marijuana into prison populations. Corrupt administrators who become rich by promoting the trafficking of those drugs.
In such a nightmarish world, one does not expect to find the beauty Denfeld is able to depict through the narration of a nameless inmate, a fallen priest who administers to the condemned, and "The Lady," an unnamed death penalty investigator. But it is here. There is a terrible beauty that permeates this painful story of broken individuals. Yes, there is enchantment here, as hard as it is to conceive it might exist. It is a world of imagination, especially portrayed through the eyes of the nameless inmate who words alternate with chapters devoted to the work of "The Lady" and the Priest.
This is not an easy read. It can be an especially painful read. Denfeld, without resorting to lengthy legal descriptions of the arduous appellate process in capital cases, portrays the hopelessness of inmates on death row. There is York, to whose case the Lady has been assigned. York has lived on death row for so long he has lost any hope. He prefers that the Lady not pursue his case. He is ready to die. The certainty of his death is more comforting to York than the interminable passing of time.
We witness the progress of The Lady's work on York's case through her exploration of York's past. As in many cases like York's, evidence of his damaged childhood might have been presented at his trial during a sentencing hearing. However, the comptetency of his appointed lawyers, nicknamed Grim and Reaper, represent those lawyers who rarely delve into an inmate's past that might have lead to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Alternately, the nameless inmate, listens to The Lady's conversations with York, revealing a multidemnsional picture of the investigative process. This inmate's reality is distorted by his escapes into his imagination, his perception of a fantastical magic, yet whose observations are unerringly true. The tragedy of our nameless narrator is he is incapable of speech.
The reader should never think that Denfeld perceives her clients as blameless, or innocent. It is clear from her very balanced portrayal of death row inmates that, indeed, as John Steinbeck said in East of Eden, "There are monsters among us...and to the monstrous, the norm is monstrous."
This is a book that deserves to be read. Even though its contents may challenge your core beliefs. The Enchanted is a book that remains with the reader long after turning the final page.
Is this a book for everyone? I think not. I do not recommend it for survivors of victims of violent crimes. I believe it just might be too hard to take. It is a work that is capable of challenging anyone's emotions and beliefs.
This Reader's Personal Reflection
For almost twenty-eight years I was a career Prosecutor. The most terrible duty I was charged with was to try Capital Punishment Cases. I am among those lawyers whose job is not addressed in Denfeld's novel. I found that surprising. Yet, I am mindful of the reasons Denfeld wrote this book and the manner in which she chose to tell it.
Death Penalty cases, over the years in which I tried them, became a danse macabre. In many ways it is an arduous responsibility that diminishes the spirit of the Prosecutor and takes an emotional toll that we in that profession rarely speak of. These are cases of hypertechnical issues that result in an eerie pavane of dance steps that must be made.
At the same time, we live with the hearts and minds of the shattered survivors of the victims. Those left behind by the brutal murders hold on to the belief that justice will bring closure in a reasonable period of time. It never does. As I write this, a Defendant who murdered his son the day before the child was to be christened on Easter Sunday, remains on death row after sixteen years. I was the lead trial lawyer in the second trial of that case many years before. The child's mother and other family still deal with a baby's death more than twenty years afterward.
Over the years since I have retired in 2006, The United States Supreme Court has issued multiple rulings on various issues regarding capital punishment cases. Decisions changing previous precedents. The result has been a killing of the imposition of the death penalty by inches. Rather than biting the bullet and having the political courage to end Capital Punishment in America. You see, the Death Penalty is a very political issue that is too hot to handle. It is an issue that reflects on political partisanship by members of a United States Supreme Court shaped by the appointment of Justices during Republican administrations.
The costs of enforcing the death penalty now outstrips the cost of keeping a convicted inmate in prison for the rest of his natural life. So for me, one the outcome of the Presidential Election of 2016, will be who fills the current vacancy on our Supreme Court and any future appointments.
Surprising thoughts from a man who devoted his professional life to prosecution of our criminal laws? I think not. None of us should be unaware of the presumably guilty on death row who have been found innocent by means of DNA evidence and other means. It is time we reconsidered whether the death penalty should be preserved any longer.
Summer Crossing appears to be Capote's true first novel which he abandoned. In fact, the manuscript wSummer Crossing: Truman Capote's True First Novel
Summer Crossing appears to be Capote's true first novel which he abandoned. In fact, the manuscript was among papers left in an apartment in the care of a house sitter. Capote instructed the house sitter to put all papers on the street to be picked up as garbage. The anonymous house sitter recognized the value of what Capote considered trash, holding on to the caches of papers, including this novel for more than fifty years until his death.
A relative of the house sitter who also recognized the value of the lost Truman papers swiftly carted them off to Sotheby's. Through Capote's Literary Trust and some negotiation with Sotheby's, the Trust successfully protected the publication rights to all papers.
The sale would be limited to physical possession of the documents, but the purchaser could do nothing by way of publication of any of the documents. Ironically, not one person bid on the Truman papers, thanks to the legal maneuvering of the Truman Literary Trust. Today the papers are in their proper place with other known Capote papers at the New York Public Library. "Summer Crossing" was published in 2004 by Random House.
The big question is why didn't Capote want "Summer Crossing" published. Robert Linscott, Capote's editor at Random House told him it was too conventional, that it was good, but it did not reach the level of excellence Capote had achieved with his short fiction. In fact, Linscott told Capote that any writer could have written it.
Perhaps the deciding factor was Capote's lover's opinion. Jack Dunphy told him that the novel was "thin," a word that sends a chill up the spine of any writer. Capote told Linscott he had torn the novel up. The further I read in Clarke's biography, Capote, the more I become convinced that truth was a very relative word to Capote. At times, Capote seems to have invented his life story as he went along.
"Summer Crossing" refers to two distinct crossings during a long hot summer in New York. Lucy and Lamont McNeil are making an Atlantic crossing to see what the Germans have left of their European holdings.
Oh, yes. They're quite wealthy. They have a penthouse apartment on 5th Avenue. While away, Lucy intends on the finest fashion designers to make their daughter Grady's Debutante dress.
The second crossing is Grady's from adolescent to woman. She is seventeen. Going to Paris is of no interest to her whatsoever. Mrs. McNeil thinks that young Peter Bell is the reason for Grady's reluctance to leave the city for the Summer. However, Grady only considers Peter her best friend.
Why, oh why, couldn't Grady be more like her older sister Apple, married, with child, nice house, go getter husband? Apple, which happened to be the only thing Lucy could eat during her pregnancy, leaves her supposedly older and wiser daughter to look after Grady. So it goes.
The Second World War is over. New York is an exciting place to be.
Being the rebellious sort, Grady falls for Clyde Manzer, a parking lot attendant where she keeps her baby blue convertible Buick, a veteran who bulges with every muscle he built during the war, a full head of wavy black hair, and a way of showing his appreciation for a good looking girl. Taking a girl to the Central Park Zoo will do it every time.
Clyde invites Grady to meet his family to attend his nephew's bar mitzvah. Oh? I didn't tell you he was Jewish? And you were wondering where the conflict was coming in. Let's call it cultural.
Clyde's family can't figure out why he's bringing a shiksa blonde home with him. Conflict ensues when Clyde's sister Ida invites Clyde's nice Jewish fiancee, Rebecca, over to join the party. There, that should liven things up. Yes, it sure does.
Clyde moves into Grady's parents penthouse apartment. Hormones and pheromones are erupting left and right. Bodily fluids are exchanged on a regular basis. In that maddening state of love, what's a star-crossed couple to do but go over to Jersey and get married at 2a.m.?
Then, what should Grady discover but she is PREGNANT! Mother and Father are due back in less than a month!
Apple suggests they call a doctor to fix things. However, Grady reminds her of a friend they lost who bled to death on a public toilet.
You may consider my review a bit flippant. I suppose it is. Grady's naivete can be grating. But this book is worth the read. Hmmm, this might be considered the first Truman Capote Summer Beach Read!
Here are the halting beginnings of a master observer of human behavior. Capote was only nineteen when he submitted the draft to Random House. I understand Capote keeping it under wraps. He knew he could do better. But, I daresay, if not for the booze and the drugs, Capote would have returned to this one, one day. It would have been a helluva book, too. Yet, even in her naivete, I can see the character of Holly Golightly taking shape that would explode from the pages of Breakfast at Tiffany's.
In a way it is fitting that "Summer Crossing," a novel Capote did not want published, and Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel serve as odd bookends to a remarkable literary life.
Review to follow. On a book buying trip. Whooopeeeee!
And after some nice finds, it's back to business.
Music for Chameleons: New Writing by Truman CapoReview to follow. On a book buying trip. Whooopeeeee!
And after some nice finds, it's back to business.
Music for Chameleons: New Writing by Truman Capote Including Handcarved Coffins
Although Random House plugs Music for Chameleons as new writings by Truman Capote, when it was published in 1980, all of the pieces had appeared in the two preceding years in Capote's usual venues, "Esquire," "Interview," "McCall's," "New York Magazine," and "The New Yorker." Within four years, Capote would be dead.
The jacket photo revealed an older, perhaps more contemplative writer. There is no cigarette in his hand. As he indicated in one segment, he had quit smoking years ago.
In the final segment of the book, "Nocturnal Turnings," Capote interviews himself, looking back at his life--his fears, his faith, his faults.
"TC: What frightens you?"
"TC: Real toads in imaginary gardens.
"TC: No, but in real life--"
"TC: I'm talking about real life."
"TC: Let me put it another way. What, of your own experiences, hae been the most frightening?"
"TC: Betrayals. Abandonments."...
"And that's when I began to believe in God again, and understand that Sook was right, that everything was His design, the old moon and the new moon, the hard rain falling, and if only I would ask Him to help me, He would."
"TC: And has He?"
"TC: Yes. More and more. But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an aloholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius. Of course, I could be all four of these dubious things and still be a saint. But I shonuf ain't no saint yet, nawsuh."
And while Capote seems to have begun to contemplate his mortality, the range and depth of the writing in this anthology is breathtaking. All but one of the fourteen segments of the book are claimed to be non-fiction, or perhaps as Capote invented the form, non-fiction fiction, in these examples, short vignettes, portraits of people he knew and met, killers he interviewed in addition to Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Only one story, "Mojave," Capote claimed as fiction, or in his own coy fashion as he said he wrote it as if it were.
Capote ranges from the mysterious, where chameleons dance to piano music played by an old woman on Martinique. Is it real or is it the influence of Absinthe laced in his tea? Fiction or non-fiction?
He reveals his humor while evading a subpoena to testify in the retrial of Bobby Beausoleil for the murder of Gary Hinman, the first of what came to be known as the Manson Family murders. He had promised what Beausoleil had told him would remain confidential.
When Beausoleil was granted a new trial, Capote was served with a subpoena. His sneaking on a plane, dressed as one of Pearl Bailey's musician's, his head pressed to her bosom as she wrapped her arm around his shoulder will leave you howling.
His meanness emerges in his portrait of Marilyn Monroe, whom he portrays her as "A Beautiful Child" who calls her competition cunts, pops pills and drinks way too much. "A Beautiful Child?" perhaps so, perhaps not.
But it is in "Handcarved Coffins" that Capote reveals his mastery in the depiction of true crime. An unknown killer has targeted nine different victims. Each has received a handcarved coffin in which the killer has placed a candid black and white photo of his intended victim. Capote is referred to investigator Jake Pepper to render his opinion of the killings and the evidence that is too scant to make an arrest. The killings are diabolical. A couple enters a car filled with rattlesnakes pumped up on amphetamines to make them even more aggressive than they are in nature. A wire stretched across the road decapitates another.
Will Pepper get his man, or not? Capote stretches out the tension at a nerve wracking pace, plummeting the reader to despair with each successful killing. This is a masterpiece. Pure and simple. Pepper and Capote put the pieces together, discovering the killer has a darkroom and prefers German cameras. Capote's interview skills are intuitive and directly on point.
However, subsequent research by London Sunday Times reporters Peter and Leni Gillman shows that no case containing the details in this short piece exist in any law enforcement file. In all probability it was based on an unsolved case of Kansas Bureau of Investigation Agent Alvin Dewy whom Capote met during his work on "In Cold Blood."
Capote was growing tired. There were no other novels. "Answered Prayers" remained unfinished. One Christmas appeared as a short story in "The Ladies' Home Journal" in December, 1982. Then a short article "Remembering Tennessee" appeared in "Playboy Magazine." There was nothing more.
Once more I think of "Nocturnal Turnings." Capote knew he was slowing down. He knew he was tired.
"TC:...Now let's knock it off and try for some shut-eye."
TC: But first let's say a prayer. Let's say our old prayer. The one we used to say when we were real little and slept in the same bed with Sook and Queenie, with the quilts piled on top of us because the house was so big and cold.
TC: Our old prayer? Okay.
TC and TC: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.
TC: Goodnight.
TC: Goodnight....
TC and TC: Zzzzzzzzzzzz."
For a final look at Truman Capote's last burst of creativity, this is the book to read, fiction or non-fiction....more
One of the benefits of having your favorite professor of psychology as your next door neighbor is learning that he is a very widely read man. We are an odd pair, I suppose. He is 76. I am 59. But through the years we have known one another we have become best friends. We frequently exchange books the other has not read.
It is safe to say that Howard is fond of literature that some might find "quirky." That's fine with me. That which is quirky can be quite fascinating. Howard can also be subject to a touch of hyperbole. So when he handed me his copy of The Hotel New Hampshire, declaring it the finest book written in the English language, I graciously accepted it, not revealing the grain of salt I reserved for his high accolade.
While I would not proclaim "The Hotel New Hampshire" the finest book written in the English language, it is a book I came to love with the passage of each page. Quirky? Oh, there's no question about it.
Iowa Bob Berry is the football coach of Dairy Prep School in Dairy, New Hampshire. The school doesn't quite make the top tier of preparatory schools in New England, but it serves its purpose for the wealthy whose children don't fall into the top tier of students that attend the top tier schools. It comes, then, rather a surprise that Iowa Bob's son, Win,is Harvard material. The problem is, that although he has been accepted to attend it's going to take hard work to earn the money to afford the tuition.
Now,Dairy Prep is an all boys' school. It comes as no surprise that Win's girl of his dreams is unknown to him although they live in the same town. However, after graduation, the two nineteen year olds spend their summer working at Arbuthnot by the Sea, a resort in Maine. Nor does it come as a surprise that the two fall in love over that wondrous summer.
There is definitely a fairy tale quality to the courtship of Win Berry and Mary Bates, the daughter of a very scholarly family. Another employee at Arbuthnot is Freud, not Sigmund, of course, but Freud a mechanic, who entertains the guests with the antics of pet bear, "State O' Maine" who rides a 1937 Indian Motorcycle. At the end of summer, 1939, Freud announces he's returning to his home in Vienna, not a wise thing to do. He sells the motorcycle and the bear to Win for $200.00 for Win's promises he marry Mary, attend Harvard, and one day will apologize to Mary for an event Freud does not reveal.
Win makes good on the first promise quickly. Win and Mary begin to be fruitful between the entertainment seasons during which Win is earning his tuition at various resorts with the use of the Indian and the Bear. World War II puts a hitch in Win's enrollment at Harvard. However, he returns safely, graduates from Harvard and takes a teaching position at Dairy, now a coed facility.
The Berry children are Frank, Franny, John Harvard, Lilly, and the youngest,known as Egg. John, the middle child, narrates the novel in first person.
Win quickly becomes dissatisfied with his teaching position. He buys the now vacant female seminary to convert it to a hotel as there is no other in Dairy.
I've mentioned that Irving's novel has a fairy tale quality to it. It's necessary to remember that there are the lighter tales of Hans Christian Anderson and there is the darker side of the genre by the Brothers Grimm. As the story of the Berry clan proceeds, it is evident that Irving has chosen to follow the Grimm route.
Frank is gay. He is targeted for humiliation by the backfield of the Dairy football team, quarterbacked by Chip Dove. The same backfield rapes Franny. She refuses to report that she has been raped, but minimizes the attack by saying she had been beaten up. Lilly has a rare disorder which prevents her from growing. Egg is practically deaf following a series of ear infections.
Win receives an offer to sell the Hotel. And who should appear to offer the Berry family a change of scenery but Freud, now the owner of a hotel in Vienna, Austria. Win is his pick to help improve his gasthaus to the level of a fine hotel.
Freud could use the help. It's an odd establishment. One floor is occupied by prostitutes, who may ply their trade legally in Vienna. Another floor is occupied by a group of radicals, despising the old order and anything smacking of tradition. Win has his work cut out for him.
Freud has obtained a smarter bear, Susie. She's considerably smarter than State O' Maine. She happens to be a young woman who does a divine impression of a bear, not only serving as an entertainer, but a body guard for the ladies of the evening upstairs. And, oh, yes, Susie was the victim of sexual assault as well. She considers herself ugly, and is content to hide behind the bear suit.
"The Hotel New Hampshire" was written and directed by Tony Richardson for the screen in 1984.
The radicals upstairs are a dangerous group. They plan to set off an automobile bomb which will cause a sympathetic bomb under the stage of the Vienna Opera House on the premiere night of the fall season. I leave it to the reader to discern whether the attempt is successful,or not, and who lives and who dies.
The Berry family return to the United States. Lilly has written a best seller "Trying to Grow." This deus ex machina allows the Berrys to live a comfortable life, though all of life's normal travails continue to follow them through out their lives.
As Irving tells us, sorrow, love, and doom float through each of our lives. It's how we each handle those unavoidable currents that determine the satisfaction of our lives.
Iowa Bob, training John Harvard to be a weight lifter, put him on a strict regimen of exercise. "You have to be obsessed. Obsessed. Keep passing those open windows." Having lived approaching sixty years, I'd have to say you can't live just standing still. Some dreams become wishes which are fulfilled. Some are not. Just persevere.
I have read a number of reviews of "The Hotel New Hampshire." You will certainly find its detractors here. Those unfavorable reviews note the dysfunctional nature of the Berry family. Similar reviews find Irving's emphasis on sexual assault unnerving. While I've noted Irving's fairy tale nature of storytelling in this novel, life isn't a fairy tale. The events described in Irving's novel happen all too frequently. As a bit of a post script, I have to say Irving did his research on the dynamics of sexual assault and its effects on survivors. Yes, sorrow also floats.
The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock's tales from a ghost town
“Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters
The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock's tales from a ghost town
“Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?
Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.” ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
I learned that there are monsters among us at a fairly young age. On a bright spring morning around 1971, I was riding to Foster's Alabama, with a high school friend. There was a car, off the road, and stuck in a ditch.
John said we should pull off and help. But something didn't look right about it. One man stood at the front of the Caddy. Another stood by the trunk. As we approached, the man by the trunk looked at me. There are some people who have nothing behind their eyes. There is no conscience, or soul there, if you will.
I screamed at John to drive, even reaching to shove the steering wheel over to swerve us back on the roadway. It was a bit of good fortune.
Everyone loved Buddy Copeland, a big fireman, who was driving his pickup to go fishing on the Black Warrior River that morning. He had a winch on his truck. Being Buddy, he pulled over to help get the car out of the ditch. When they found him, it appeared he had decided to snack on a ham sandwich before heading on to fish. A blood soaked bit of it lay on the passenger seat by the door where the gun blast had blown it from his mouth. The men who killed him were named Turk and Alexander. They had no love for Buddy. He must have seen the body of the banker in the trunk of the Caddy they had hi-jacked earlier that morning. I watched their trial.
I grew up to hunt men and women who had no conscience, no soul behind the eyes. I was an Assistant District Attorney for almost 28 years. Unlike a lot of ADAs who swaggered around with their badge and a gun on their side, I carried a gun because of need.
Although most of my police friends favored a 9mm, I preferred a Walther PK .380. I was trained to shoot by the best shots in law enforcement. "Don't be a hero. Shoot for center body mass. Double tap. Shoot to kill. You don't, they'll kill you." I was a cop's ADA. I was good at it. I played to win. If I didn't think you were guilty, I refused to take the case. I backed up an officer during an investigation more than once. It was an honor.
My job was not done from a clean office. I went to the scene. I worked cases where sons killed parents for crack money, men shook babies to death, and jealous ex-husbands killed their ex-wives in front of the kids. The baby killer is on death row. When they slip him the needle, I'll be there as a witness.
Don't let Donald Ray Pollock fool you. Knockemstiff is a real place. It's a ghost town now. The nice name for the place is Shady Glen. Look at an Ohio Map from 1919, you won't find it. Look on a 1940 map, there it is. Pollock ought to know. He lived there before heading to Chillicothe to become a laborer at a paper mill for more than thirty years. After that he got an MFA and began to write. His first book is, you guessed it, Knockemstiff. Sherwood Anderson's advice to William Faulkner was good. "Write what you know." Otherwise, we might never have known about Yoknapatawpha County.
I've known places like Knockemstiff. I worked two homicided that ended up on Tuscaloosa's side of the County Line that separated us from Walker County. What began in Walker County ended up down on the Tiger Mine Strip Pit Road. It's a lonely place, where the maggots do their job if the body's not found soon enough.
As Pollock tells us, law enforcement didn't show up much in Knockemstiff. Neither did Walker County Law like to escort Tuscaloosa ADAs up on their Beat 10 road. It was a rough place. The people didn't trust outsiders. I took my own cop friends with me when I had to interview witnesses on Beat 10. They weren't any happier about it than I was.
The Devil All the Time begins idyllically enough. Willard Russell has survived war in the Pacific Theater in WWII. He's on his way home to Coal Creek, West Virginia to his parents home. But a stop in Meade, Ohio, leads him to a diner, the Wooden Spoon, where he meets a waitress named Charlotte. She's a woman he can't forget.
Although he returns to Coal Creek, he finds his mother has picked out a bride for him. Helen is an unattractive young woman. But Willard's mother had promised Helen's mother she'd look out after the poor thing when Helen's mother died.
Willard can't forget Charlotte, returns to Meade and marries her. They rent a house up in the hollers of Knockemsstiff from a cuckolded lawyer. They are happy. Willard and Charlotte have a son, Arvin Eugene. All's well until Charlotte gets the Cancer and Willard constructs an altar out of a fallen log. He and Arvin pray aloud there at the log for Charlotte's recovery. But their prayers are unanswered.
Willard must believe in an Old Testament God. If the prayers don't work by themselves, God must require blood sacrifice. Dogs, sheep, and larger game are strung up and bled to cover the prayer log in an offering satisfying to God. But if God is anywhere around, he's not in Knockemstiff.
Disconsolate from Charlotte's death, Willard cuts his throat at the prayer log, leaving Arvin Eugene an orphan. When Arvin reports his father's death to Deputy Leo Bodecker, he takes him to the bloody clearing in the woods.
"'Goodamn it, Boy,what the hell is this?'
"It's a prayer log,' Arvin said, his voice barely a whisper.
"What? A prayer log?'
Arvin stared at his father's body, 'But it don't work,' he said."
Arvin is sent to live with his grandparents back in Coal Creek. It seems he has a new sister, Leonore. She is the daughter of Helen, the woman Willard's mother had wanted him to marry.
Helen had taken up with a travelling preacher, Roy, who was accompanied by a paraplegic guitarist named Theodore. After Leonore's birth, Roy becomes convinced that if he could bring someone back from the dead, the audiences at his revival would grow by leaps and bounds. God must have been on vacation again. Leonore is just as much an orphan as Arvin Eugene. They come to view one another as brother and sister. Roy and Theodore take it on the lam after the Lazarus routine fails to take.
Years pass. Leo Bodecker, now sheriff, has a new set of problems on his hands. His sister Sandy is peddling her ass out of the restaurant where she waitresses. It seems his old opposition, the former Sheriff is rallying support for a new campaign. Sandy is complaint number one. Leo has got to do about his Sister's indiscriminate exercise of her sexuality, which is bounteously generous. The problem seems to be solved when Sandy settles down with Carl Henderson, a real shutterbug, who whisks Sandy away from town on extended vacations to add to his portfolio.
But there are no easy solutions in The Devil All the Time Carl's idea of a vacation is to wander the back roads picking up hitchhikers using Sandy as his bait. His favorite line of photography is taking photographs of Sandy in the arms of their unfortunate hitchikers, whom Carl dispatches with proficiency, documenting the whole sordid mess on film, developing his work in a private darkroom.
Meanwhile, down in Coal Creek, Arvin Eugene, protector of Leonore, discovers that the new Preacher had rather administer to the youngest of his congregation, including Leonore. When Pastor Teagarden impregnates Leonore, he rejects her, moving on to younger and more attractive congregants.
If God is present anywhere in he finds himself the incarnation of Arvin Eugene, who is packing his father Willard's Luger 9mm pistol, which he had traded for his own Nambu pistol taken as a souvenir ln the Pacific. Fleeing from Coal Creek, following meting out the Lord's vengeance on the misguided Reveverend, Arvin begins the long hitchike back to Knockemstiff.
In an almost incredible symmetry, who should stop to give him a lift but our happy serial killers Sandy and Carl. Arvin Eugene may be the most handsome model, the couple has ever scored. But Arvin is alert and most rescue himself from the shutterbug two which will not endear himself to sheriff Leo Bodecker.
Bodecker and Arvin take one last walk to the prayer log. Whether God is present, or the Devil laughs at one more triumph, the reader must discover for himself.
Pollock is a remarkable new voice in American literature. While he obviously shares comparison with Flannery O'Connor, none of O'Connor's theology is readily apparent in Pollock's work. Rather, picture William Gay decked out in clean carpenter's overalls, and read Provinces of Night or, among the most grotesque, Twilight. Here are the darkest aspects of Cormac McCarthy, and Tom Franklin as seen in Poachers.
Once again, in Donald Ray Pollock we have a novelist who writes that there are monsters among us and that to the monstrous, the norm is simply montrous....more
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