Reading the South
New Fiction by Regional Authors, October 2002
by Hal Jacobs
for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

John Blair's collection of stories, American Standard (University of Pittsburgh Press, $24) are set in Central Florida, far removed from the world of tourists and beaches. His characters squish their toes in lake mud as they walk out to swim near alligators. His boys go fishing at night with their hard-drinking daddies, who make them dive in the dark and root under submerged logs to retrieve lures.

Blair's male characters don't know how to deal with their anger and frustration, like the young minister who "can feel violence threatening in every muscle fiber of his hands and arms." When they get involved with others, say, helping out a biker friend or a former stripper, they wind up hurt. These stories show the frailty of relationships, the pain of breakups, and the moments of insight that illuminate the darkness.

One of the most remarkable characters in these stories is Central Florida itself. Blair captures the intensity of its sunlight, clouds and sudden downpours ("the rain comes down in black, drowning walls of water"). He also understands the power of its lakes as a source of mystery for the young and solace for the world-weary.

Blair was born in St. Petersburg, Fla., and teaches English at Southwest Texas State University.

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Everyone is fleeing something in Mark Powell's debut novel, Prodigals (University of Tennessee Press, $26.95), set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the mid-1940s. Ernest Cobb, a 15-year-old farm boy, runs away from home after his girlfriend is killed by an errant shotgun blast at the hands of her father. After weeks of wandering across the mountains, Ernest finds his way to Asheville. There he ekes out a meager hand-to-mouth existence with wanderers like himself who are one step behind their nightmares. When a brief relationship with a girl ends in tears (his), Ernest finds work at a logging camp, where he crosses path with a war veteran with fresh blood on his hands.

Powell's world of broken dreams (and flinty dialogue) gives this eloquent little novel the feel of a 1940s detective film-noir. But instead of a private investigator trying to balance right and wrong, the characters all teeter on wrong. The true men of honor in "Prodigals" are the old men who have given up on the world. As one old-timer at the logging camp tells the boy, "You stick around here and one day you're gonna put your nose down to your chest and it ain't gonna be your clothes that are rotting. It's gonna be you. From now on it comes from the inside out."

Mark Powell lives in Mountain Rest, S.C.

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Talk about your odd chemistry. In Cary Holladay's Mercury (Shaye Areheart Books, $22), young Katelynn should be entering her freshman year of college, but instead the Arkansas teenager is messed up from smoking mercury-coated cigarettes with her friends. Nearly bedridden, the former lifeguard gazes out the window of her family's lakeside home and watches a crowded tour boat capsize. One of the two survivors is the boat's skipper, an older woman who forms a close, unlikely bond with Katelynn.

In her debut novel, Holladay creates a believable world out of a little lakeside community that is reeling with tragedy, large and small. Her characters, vulnerable as they are, show passion and resourcefulness that move the story forward into unexpected places.

Holladay, who lives in Memphis, is the author of two collections of stories.

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Also, check out these new books by regional writers...

New Stories From the South: The Year's Best, 2002, edited by Shannon Ravenel (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $14.95 paperback). This collection of 19 stories reveals the life and soul of its Southern characters, whether they live on mountaintops or cul de sacs.

No Enemy but Time by William C. Harris (St. Martin's Press, $24.95). This Savannah-based historical novel begins with a Nazi spy landing on the Georgia coast in the 1940s courtesy of a German submarine. Over the next few decades, the trained killer moves up the rungs of Savannah society, his secret kept by a local priest who has skeletons in his own closet to hide. Harris returns to the world of politics and corruption and Savannah society that he wrote about in his debut novel, Delirium of the Brave.

Ruby River by Lynn Pruett (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24). An Alabama truck stop run by a widow and her four daughters becomes a hotbed of fried food and good old-fashioned lust. Pruett has a good time with her small-town characters as they try to balance the needs of the community (and the Church of the Holy Resurrection) with their rollicking sexuality.

The Sunday Wife by Cassandra King (Hyperion, $23.95). A minister's wife is led astray, for better -- not worse, in the Florida Panhandle where her husband has just landed a new congregation. Her wakeup call doesn't come from Dr. Phil, but from a new friend who sees her for who she really is (or was).

The Pains of April by Frank Turner Hollon (MacAdam/Cage, $7.50 paperback). This short novel by the author of "The God File" gets inside the head of an 87-year-old man living in a rest home on the Gulf Coast. It's a spare, honest portrait (warts, wrinkles and all) of a man who still feels deeply about life and friends.

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An edited version of these reviews appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2002.