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Father and Son is a complex, multi-layered novel, perhaps the most well-developed piece of fiction Brown has yet produced. With this sixth book, he seems to have hit a new stride, to have found new depths and hidden strengths to his talent. His plotting is extraordinary. The seemingly simple foundations Brown lays in the beginning of the novel continue to take shape piece by piece as the book develops, until by the last chapter the reader is surprised at how complicated yet strong a pattern has emerged. Each character is forever bound to the others, and to the town and the South itself, as if they are parts of a larger whole.
One seemingly unrelated plot twist stands out as an example of Brown's unequaled ability to create mood and scene with simple, clear language. The town sheriff is led to a ramshackle trailer far back in the woods to uncover what might be the grave of a murdered child. Brown's description of the oppressive setting, the succinct yet powerful way in which he conveys fast-changing emotions, and the force with which he writes the following action make this section of the novel some of the best writing published this year.
The book begins, however, with a bit of a joke. The opening scenes play like a stereotypical country song: Glen Davis, the bad seed of his small Mississippi town, comes home after three years in prison. He and his brother, Puppy, stop by the local diner to see Jewel, the woman who has been waiting for Glen all this time. The men drive out to the cemetery to visit the graves of their mother and their older brother (who Glen accidentally shot one morning at the breakfast table), meet up with the local sheriff, then head to a bar. It seems the only Southern cliches missing are a train, rain, and a dog (the dog shows up soon enough).
Soon Brown, having had his fun, gets down to business. Glen is unable to settle back into life on the outside, and begins aimlessly robbing, murdering, and raping. He is like a piranha released in a pool of goldfish. His evil is riveting, near incomprehensible even to himself, and all the more fascinating because Brown leavens it with flashes of Glen's potential for gentleness. Unable to control his always-simmering anger, Glen is pulled further and further out of control into a self-destructive vortex, and he threatens to pull those around him down with him.
Others caught in Glen's violent descent include Puppy, Jewel, and Glen's father, Virgil, whom Glen hates. Glen believes that Virgil betrayed his mother by having a long-term affair with Mary Blanchard. Mary is the mother of Bobby Blanchard, the town sheriff and Glen's rival in life and love. As she and Virgil begin to rekindle their romance, Glen's hatred of them festers, as does his hatred for Bobby, who has stepped into the gap Glen leaves in Jewel's life and in the life of Glen's young, unacknowledged son.
The ties between fathers and sons, which are spun slowly, strongly, and intricately, either trap these men like a net or support them like a bridge. Brown uses the most delicate of touches to show which path each man chooses and why, and how each of those decisions affects the others.
When Glen commits a final explosive act of violence, it is the connections between the fathers and sons in the novel that both drive the act and enable the survivors to deal with its consequences. It has long been known that Larry Brown is a talented writer and one to watch. This new work propels him from those ranks onto the shelf reserved for modern classics. Father and Son should and will be read now and for years to come.
Laurie Parker is a frequent contributor to this publication.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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