Reading the South
New Fiction by Regional Authors, February 2004
by Hal Jacobs
for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Just when you thought you knew everything about the world of cops, here comes a collection of short stories that breathes fresh life into being a police officer AND a woman. In the late 1970s and '80s, Laurie Lynn Drummond patrolled the streets of Baton Rouge. In Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You (HarperCollins, $23.95), she puts her insider's knowledge to work.

In the first story, "Absolutes," Drummond describes the aftershocks experienced by a police officer who kills an armed suspect.

At first, Katherine recalls the incident as if in the words of a police report: "It was a dog shift, around 1:00 A.M., and Jeffery Lewis Moore had a gun, although I didn't know that was his name at the time; he was just a B/M, 5'9", 17-25 yrs old, light-complexion, medium build, wearing T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. And, of course, carrying a gun. A BIG gun, the hysterical counterman said, LOTS of bullets."

But then she probes deeper, detailing how a few seconds of violence led to a few more seconds of unexpected intimacy that will stay with her a long time.

Pieces of that night come back to me suddenly, unexpectedly. His smell. The weight of his body against mine. It's like turning the corner on the roof of a high building and feeling a warm, nauseous rush of vertigo.

Other stories in this collection show how the many different ways women cope with life-or-death situations and stressed-out personal lives.

In "Under Control," Mona must not only defuse a family feud that has already taken one life, she must also deal with the bad blood between her and her father, a cop himself who just happens to be in her line of fire.

In "Something about a Scar," a woman's life becomes entangled between a victim she once counseled and her husband, the investigating officer who may have mishandled the victim's case.

Laurie Lynn Drummond, an assistant professor at St. Edward's University, lives in Austin, Texas.

***

James Gallant's novel The Big Bust at Tyrone's Rooming House (Glad Day Books, $18 paperback) takes a mostly lighthearted look at life in Atlanta's Grant Park neighborhood, where the author lives.

The narrator is a white, middle-aged former professor who spends his days puttering around his yard. As a result, he finds himself frequently interacting with his neighbors, mostly retirees and professionals, and a wandering cast of addicts, dealers and prostitutes.

Mr. Author, as he's known, clearly enjoys being in the middle of the action. Although he occasionally feels threatened by the young crack dealers, he also fears encroaching gentrification -- "that process in which middle class people buy up rundown inner-city properties, renovate them, and turn a profit by driving off poor people and their problems."

In a good-humored way, he sees the theft of his potted fern or ladder as a local form of redistribution of wealth. Still, that doesn't stop him from trying to track down his missing fern. He also appreciates the irony of being carjacked on Capitol Avenue and being forced to drive back to his Grant Park house to get some money, eventually winding up on a first-name basis with his robber, who promises to pay him back.

At times the novel feels sketchy. And sometimes the narrator sounds like he's preaching to freshman. Nonetheless, the overall effect is engaging.

Mr. Author isn't your stock liberal-intellectual, aging hippie who wants to save the world from "the Man." All he wants is to be compassionate to society's down-and-out and live in a safe neighborhood. In the process, Gallant gives an edgy neighborhood a human face, leaving the reader to wonder if gentrification and homogeneity might be a worse assault on the senses.

Gallant, a resident of Grant Park, has written stories and essays for a host of national magazines.

***

Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia (University Press of Kentucky, $45) features the work of 105 writers, from those writing more than 170 years ago to major contemporary figures such as Dorothy Allison, Barbara Kingsolver and Lee Smith.

Edited by Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson, this hefty anthology includes poetry, excerpts from short stories, novels and memoirs. As a reference work, it provides biographical information and primary and secondary sources, as well as contents listed by authors and by chronology.

Besides introducing readers to many new voices, the anthology provides a strong counterpart to the stereotype of hillbillies (Deliverance comes to mind) that have cursed the region. In the words of Verna Mae Slone, who wrote her first book when she was in her sixties:

These lies and half-truths have done our children more damage than anything else. They have taken more from us than the large coal and gas companies did by cheating our forefathers out of their minerals, for that was just money. Their writers have taken our pride and dignity and have disgraced us in the eyes of the outside world.

An edited version of these reviews appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2004.

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