Customer Reviews

Fay: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I cannot even think of this book, and of the protagonist Fay, without thinking of the word "Bovine" and having the image of a sloe-eyed cow meander through the lush fields of my mind.

Fay has left her abusive father behind, leaving without a penny to her name or even a place to go. Not that she had enough education to spell out where she thought she was, for that matter. But Fay is a pretty girl, often referred to being "well endowed" above the waist (again the image of the cow), and she is quite accomodating to the frail-minded men who find her.

The novel Fay is a sort-of continuation of Brown's previous novel "Joe", in that Joe outlined the horrendous character of Fay's father Wade. But that is pretty much where the tie ends, and Fay the novel does not reference much back to Joe. And even then, Joe does not explain Fay's sociopathic disregard for others, except for the possibility of heredity. She was never molested the way her younger sister was, though she did live in extreme poverty and have to fight off her father.

In this novel, we will follow the extremely unlikable and bovinely stupid Fay through a series of men, who she uses for a place to stay and food to eat while keeping her eye out for greener pastures. I still don't know who made me the angriest, Fay or the dumb men who fell for her charms.

In her wake she leaves behind men and bodies, first plowing through Sam the State Patrolman to eventually settle in with Aaron, a no count low life who cannot separate love from abuse, but looks "like he could take good care of you".

I was utterly transfixed by this glimpse into the mind of a woman who had no clue how to fend for herself, and found it easier to hang around letting men take care of her rather than get a job or even try to make her life better. Fay's dependency on men and her disregard for the lives of others that her stupidity impacted left me open-jawed with shock.

So why the four stars? Because Brown is a truly poetic writer, the words flow across the pages underneath the gentle melodies of poetry in motion, while your mind digests the deeply fleshed and vapid personalities of the characters with discordant jangling of a fire alarm.

Love them or hate them, victim or criminal, you will still find yourself drawn into these pathetic lives, involved at a level that is both uncomfortable in its intimacy and compelling in its desire. Brown is a truly talented and gifted writer, and though the journey may leave you with mud and tobacco stains on your pants-leg, you will still find that you are happy you accepted the ride. Enjoy!

This is my first Larry Brown read and I liked it. It is a compelling story and Brown does a good job of painting his charachters as real people with elements of good and bad. The world these people live in is often dark and ugly and none of the main players are black or white. They all have moments of conscience and strength and moments of weakness.

My main criticism is that he tends to over do it with the prose. Describing every minute detail is one thing in a short story, but at nearly 500 pages it tends to bog down a bit in a novel.

All in all a good read though.

Simple, awful characters, bad story, dumb ending, writing so basic it fails to be engaging on any level. I expected so much more after Big Bad Love. I thought that BBL was written to be a funny read, now I wonder if I read it wrong. I recommend avoiding this book.

This book was well written but I felt it "talked too much" in narration. Reading about Brown's Mississippi makes me never want to go there. Fay seems impulsive when she shoots Alesandra dead; was that necessary? She'd already punched the woman in the face and gained an advantage. Whoring girls, toxic men, endless streams of white trash, and still there was no happy ending for anyone.

My all-time favorite Larry Brown book, this novel will have your eyes tired and your time spent until you're finished! Fay is about a girl, Fay Jones (read about her in Brown's previous novel, "Joe") who runs away from her homeless family looking for the big lights of a big city, or at least some type of normality. In this novel you'll constantly find Fay hitch-hiking across Mississippi to changing destinations. Young and beautifull, Fay finds herself picked up by a number of men and women, mostly men, who find her naive "country girl" personality and amazing body worth ultimately dying for. By the end of this incredible novel there are five dead bodies, as you follow Fay through the twisted lives and deaths of some of the most amazing characters you'll ever want to know. DON'T MISS OUT on this novel, or any of Larry Browns works.

This is a sad novel that managed to grab hold of me. "Fay" isn't the kind of book I usually read. Nor the kind of book that male writers usually write. But it actually comes off pretty well and I'm glad I read it. Sure it's unrealistic in terms of all the crazy stuff that happens to one girl. But Larry Brown makes it feel very real, and in so doing, he makes you care about Fay and the rest of the cast.

Fay blows around from place to place like one of those puffy dandelion seeds. What's awful for her is that once she does sprout somewhere and begin to thrive, she gets uprooted, and is quickly floating once again. That's the fate of a girl like Fay, I guess, and it reminds you of how unfair and random life can be.

This book grabs you and drags the reader through the nasty places in our state. The thing about Larry is that he has probed the underbelly of the coast, of the areas around Oxford, and all points in between. This novel is extremely well written and the verisimilitude about life in Mississippi for many poor people is gripping.

After reading two excellent novels by Larry Brown, "Joe" and "Father and son" I was very anxious to read "Fay" - but found it an ordeal to finish. Other reviewers have noted Brown's penchant for endless drinking, propping beer cans between the legs, and smoking - but so much endless, trivial detail of this nature becomes formulaic, mere padding - and ultimately boring. Where Fay's rotten father had previously been so well depicted by Brown - and her hapless brother aroused real sympathy - the villains in "Fay" struck me as unreal, unrealistic even. Fay herself, as a very young woman of limited experience, does not ring true either... I will need to read very favourable notices to purchase further novels by this man - sad, because I really loved his earlier books (and still have to read his first novel).

Fay, a character who appears briefly in Joe, is seventeen years old and has run away from her family in the back woods of Mississippi. She is niave and penniless, but determined to leave the abuse behind. She meets up with some boys, who hurt her ... she meets up with a state trooper, who takes her home ... she meets up with his former lover, and has to run away again.

Fay is a slow book, subtle, reminding us of the unrushed, poverty stricken south. It is an incredibly detailed book. And it is one of the few books I have ever read simply because I wanted to enjoy how the author could string words together. Larry Brown's power of description is like none other. His ability to capture exact feelings and details left me both stunned and willing to forgive his inability to plot and his seeming obsession with characters drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

If you're seeking nonstop action, don't look to Fay for it. But if you appreciate beauty, she has lots to offer.

I don't mind unconventional heroes or unusual circumstances of trials and challenges for the story's main character to overcome. This book, however, really didn't do anything for me. I picked this book up with several others that were recommended, and this was the only one of the set I wish I had gone without.

The reason it gets two stars is for the author's style of setting up the story. He seems to treat this region, the ignorance, the poverty, the way of life, as though it were almost otherworldly while at the same maintaining a sense of gritty realism.

But I just think too many of the simple gestures are celebrated as something they just are not. This illiterate ignorant southern girl is praised for her resourcefulness. While she doesn't fall into some of the easier traps that many in the same situation would fall into, her sense of survival ultimately involves the generosity of the men around her based on her physical appearance. What began as endearing childlike lack of exposure to the world around her concluded as annoying and unrealistic cluelessness.