Reading the South
New Fiction by Regional Authors, June 2003
by Hal Jacobs
for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tim Gautreaux's The Clearing (Knopf, $24) reveals how the lives of two brothers from a wealthy Pennsylvania family intersect in a hellish Louisiana cypress swamp. Randolph Aldridge, the younger brother, arrives in 1923 as the mill manager. His job is to run the mill as efficiently as possible, respecting the limits of both men and machine in this spongy, snake- and gator-infested wilderness. At the same time, his father is counting on him to reestablish contact with his troubled older brother, the local constable -- and the reason why the family bought the remote site.

But nothing has prepared Randolph for the violence of this mean, backwater settlement, where drinking, gambling and fighting are as natural as the heat and insects. Or the excessive brutality of his once-genteel brother, Byron, a troubled World War I veteran. It may be oversimplifying to say that Byron has a death wish, but it helps to explain why he attacks a local Sicilian gang who swears out revenge on the brothers.

Gradually, Randolph adjusts to the frontier life. As he watches over the despoliation of the cypress swamp, he and his brother (and their wives) reconnect, eventually bonding together for a final showdown against the Sicilians.

Throughout this historical novel, Gautreaux shows exquisite attention to detail. As primitive and hellish as the timber-cutting operation is, he finds godliness in the work itself.

Randolph watched a filer wade up through calf-deep water to sit on the stump and sharpen the felling saw, polishing the cutting teeth with a small file and setting their angle, peening the pitch of the rakers with a little hammer, his care telling that unless the saw was like a razor, leaving woody ribbons on the ground instead of sawdust, the team would work themselves dead on but a few trees.

Gautreaux is a Louisiana native and a writer-in-residence at Southeastern Louisiana University. He is the author of four books, including two novels.

***

How do you heal a broken heart when you are a women's studies professor whose surgeon boyfriend has just left you for an art historian married to a big-time Hollywood producer? In Kelly Cherry's We Can Still Be Friends (Soho, $24), you convince the producer that you want to have his baby. Sounds crazy? Perhaps. But to the jilted Ava, tired of living with her sadness, it represents a brave step forward.

Likewise for the producer. He lives in a childless marriage with a woman whose lack of faithfulness over the years has been the one great constant in their relationship. He is tantalized by the prospect of bringing life into the world, even if it is with his wife's lover's exgirlfriend.

As the story unfolds from each character's point of view, we see how Ava's simple decision opens up a new world of possibilities, eventually leading to a rearrangement of everyone's priorities and relationships.

Cherry's novel is lyrical, offbeat and sexy. Rather than treat her narcissistic characters with big helpings of irony, she reveals their loneliness and courage as they work out the endless details of their nontraditional lives.

Cherry, a native of Richmond, Virginia, is the author of nine collections of poetry and six novels.

***

In Brad Barkley's Alison's Automotive Repair Manual (St. Martin's Press, $23.95), a West Virginia woman can't move past the loss of her husband two years earlier. Alison is an unemployed college history instructor in her mid-30's who has overstayed her welcome at her sister and brother-in-law's house. They believe, as does everyone else in the small town of Wiley Ford, that it's time for her to move on.

In Alison's case, moving on means restoring a '76 Corvette that, like Alison herself, looks good but has lots of rust beneath the surface. Although she knows little about cars, her efforts begin to pay off. Especially when she enlists the help of a good-looking demolition expert who has some rust of his own to deal with (a bad relationship with his father).

Barkley's novel takes an honest look at family and community relationships his small-town characters have built and broken over the years. What gives his novel an edge of authenticity is the constant irritability that infects his characters. Alison frequently resorts to corny wisecracks, and she and her sister are constantly baiting each other, which is both aggravating and true at the same time.

Barkley, a native of North Carolina, lives in western Maryland. He is the author of "Money, Love."

***

The Florida developers are at it again in Randy Wayne White's Everglades (Putnam, $21.95). A controversial religious leader, Bhagwan Shiva, is trying to strong-arm a group of Seminoles into letting him build a large development and casino in the Glades. There's only one thing he hasn't counted on: Doc Ford, a former covert operations agent turned marine biologist. Normally, Marion Ford is content to putter around collecting ocean specimens and tossing back drinks with his Zen master friend in Dinkin's Bay.

But when an ex-girlfriend, blonde with lime-blue eyes, appears on the doorstep of his little stilt house with a sob story about her missing husband, Ford goes into action.

This ninth installment of the Doc Ford series is perfectly attuned to those who like a little suspense mixed in with their Florida history and marine biology. White seems as interested in sharing insight into Florida's fragile ecosystem as he is in showing off his characters' mastery with headlocks and airboats.

An edited version of these reviews appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, June 29, 2003.

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