- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (Sep 15 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0805053034
- ISBN-13: 978-0805053036
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.8 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 327 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #916,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Larry Brown is the master of the raw and the sparse and of bringing Mississippi to the world in a language that is as stripped down and bare as Faulkner's is dense. Brown is at his best when he writes of the tensions between one screwed-up man and another, in this case a father and son. One has just been let out of prison, and he shouldn't have been. The other is drunk and disabled and intends on staying that way. To make things worse, there is a conflict with the sheriff, who is good and righteous but who tried to put the moves on the parolee's woman while he was in prison. To tell more would be to violate Brown's mastery of dialogue and of that which goes unspoken in this sly story of father, son, and misery.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
It takes formidable talent to mesmerize readers of a novel that focuses on a deeply flawed, unsympathetic protagonist, but Brown succeeds triumphantly in his most wise, humane and haunting work to date. On the first day that Glen Davis is released from the Mississippi state pen (after serving three years for running over a child while he was drunk), he kills two men; that night, he callously tells the mother of his toddler son that marriage is not part of his plans. On the second day, he rapes a teenaged girl. Glen is a despicable person?mean, icily remote, seemingly without conscience. Sheriff Bobby Blanchard is Glen's opposite; a kind and decent man, he epitomizes integrity and responsibility. Bobby is in love with Jewel, the mother of Glen's son, and their relationship is only one of the heartwrenching dramas played out here. Only halfway through the book do we learn that Bobby is Glen's half brother; both are sons of Virgil Davis, whom Glen demonizes and hates and whom Bobby wistfully wishes would acknowledge him. In fact, all of the characters are involved in a web of secret relationships, and much of the resonance of this suspenseful narrative is due to Brown's adroit pacing, as he releases surprising information gradually and with natural understatement. Despite Glen's coldhearted deeds, we come to understand him, too, as he progresses to a desperate act of rage and revenge. As in his previous novels, Brown (Dirty Work; Joe) uses lean, lyrical prose to evoke the cadenced speech and the atmosphere of the rural south in the 1960s, where everybody chainsmokes and drinks whiskey. Though he depicts a basic conflict of good and evil, however, Brown never reduces the issues to stark polarities. Most impressive here are Brown's compassionate view of human nature and his understanding of the subtleties of human behavior and the fabric of society, which, after tragedy reknits itself anew, to reaffirm the essential kinship of a community of souls. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
It was Saturday when they drove the old car into town, returning him, passing by the big houses with their blankets of dark grass beneath the ancient oaks. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was Saturday when they drove the old car into town, returning him, passing by the big houses with their blankets of dark grass beneath the ancient oaks. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting, Exhausting,
By
This review is from: Father and Son: Winner of the Southern Book Award (Paperback)
In Father and Son: A Novel, the star is the villain, the antihero. Instead of hating him for all his dastardly, savage deeds, it's easy to care for him. He is, in a sense, a wayward vehicle, a device gone bad by way of circumstance, killing or crippling anything in its way. Larry Brown weaves a tale of tragedy that leaves the reader exhausted, reflective. After all, how many of us, if we suffered and survived the same boyhood as this criminal, would have emerged with any greater sanity
3.0 out of 5 stars
Passive women wreaking havoc,
By
This review is from: Father and Son: Winner of the Southern Book Award (Paperback)
One thing Larry Brown does so well is create female characters who are mostly passive and naive, but are responded to in a way that leads to violence and passion. Although most readers and reviewers are likely to focus on the gritty males in "Fay" and "Father and Son," the action and mayhem seems precipitated by women who seem to have no earthly idea of how these men react to them (often violently or certainly passionately).Take Jewell in "Father and Son." She's the catalyst for the violence. In the scientific sense, a catalyst is something that promotes a chemical reaction between other compounds but that does not change itself. How the men react to her, however, is responsible for much of the violence. And Fay, she just kind of shows up, penniless, naive, victimized. I think she is even described as a woman who is beautiful but hardly knows the impact she has on men. Double that sentiment after you get into the book! Anyway, this aspect of Larry Brown's craft deserves more thought and commentary, I think. If you have some thoughts on this, send them to JMakansi@yahoo.com.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Love and Hate,
By
This review is from: Father and Son: Winner of the Southern Book Award (Paperback)
Brown's ability to create real people, and not shallow characters, is fully on display in "Father and Son" (though my particular Brown favorite is "Fay"). The conflict between good and evil, is to some extent kept lower case here (not Good and Evil). Though the crimes of Glen Davis are shocking and extreme, by the novel's end he is a shrunken and pathetic figure, a damaged (but very dangerous) boy who could never accept one simple truth (which his father, the very flawed Virgil Davis, has come to recognize): we are all sinners. On the other hand, the novel's other major characters, use Love as a means to move on, to transcend, the hard things of life. Glen's kind of hate must eventually, in the end, devour itself. With that in mind, it is fitting that Glen's young son represents such a moving on beyond the sins of the father(s). Brown's ability to shape such messages and place it them the mouths (and souls) of his characters, while avoiding preaching, is what makes Father and Son a piece of fine literature.
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