From Publishers Weekly
This immensely accomplished novel by the author of the Edgar Award-winning short story collection Poachers is based on a real-life feud in the 1890s that pitted the underclass-poor, mostly white sharecroppers-of Clarke County, Ala., against the land-owning gentry who could and did control their fate. But that simple summary does not do justice to the complex and incredibly violent events that shook the community. The seeds of the violent uprising are planted when Macky Burke, a poor, white teenage orphan living with his grandmother, the widow Gates, accidentally shoots local merchant Arch Bedsole during a holdup. Arch's enraged cousin, Quincy "Tooch" Bedsole, a down-at-the-heels farmer, cultivates those seeds with a mixture of resentment, greed and a desire for vengeance. He forms the "Hell-at-the-Breech" gang, made up of criminals and struggling white tenant farmers who but for their guns are nearly as powerless as the former slaves they compete with for work. Hell-at-the-Breech terrorizes Clarke County, exacting frontier justice (and cash) from the exploitative landowners, driving black sharecroppers out of the county and menacing the white farmers who are too law-abiding to join their ranks. Fighting the outbreak of violence is Sheriff Billy Waite, an essentially good man trying to keep the peace and administer justice in a lawless world. Despite an unremitting catalogue of violence, this gory book is a pleasure to read for its clean, unexpected turns of phrase (in a cotton field, "each tuft [is] white as a senator's eyebrow"); the laconic humor of its characters ("Rumors fly out of Mitcham Beat like hair in a catfight"); and vibrant, complex characters who spring from the pages. Franklin may have used history as a starting point, but he imagines the events in human terms, creating a book that transmutes historical fact into something much more powerful, dramatic and compelling.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* What starts as an apparent accident leads to a feudal killing spree in Franklin's accomplished account of a true story he heard while growing up in Alabama. When teenage brothers William and Mack Burke go out one night in 1897 to rob a passing horseman to get money for a whore, younger Mack's revolver accidentally discharges, hitting Arch Bedsole, a well-liked merchant and aspiring politician, as the boys run off and swear silence. But Arch's cousin, Tooch Bedsole, contends that men from an adjoining town are responsible. To avenge the killing he forms an unholy alliance of his Mitcham Beat countrymen, naming it Hell-at-the-Breech and targeting first those local men who refuse to sign its blood oath. It's up to Clarke County sheriff Billy Waite, who's feeling all of his 60 years and drinking too much, to stop the killing and curb the posse out to get the alliance. This is not a story for the faint of heart or stomach, with descriptions of violence so graphic and vivid as to seem cinematic. Yet Franklin, whose award-winning
Poachers (2000) elicited comparisons to Faulkner, is a splendid stylist who explores moral issues and stocks this tale with memorable (if mostly unpleasant) characters, spinning it seemingly effortlessly to a final surprise twist. This is historical fiction at its best.
Michele LeberCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
