Friday, May 17, 2013

This One Has Everything, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


                                 I had so much fun reading "The King Of Lies," girls, that it took away the bad taste I had from Charles Jackson's "The Lost Weekend."  This is Southern fried fiction, with everything thrown in.  Set in North Carolina, you get an aristocratic family, a mendacious patriarch, a greedy bitch of a wife, a mentally disturbed lesbian daughter, her psychotic partner--I mean, where is Tennessee Williams???????  He would have had a field day with this, and I would have loved to have seen how the same story played, had he gotten his hands on it.

                                 After a slow, expository start, things take off, and don't stop, until the very last page!  That may sound like I am writing jacket copy, but, darlings, it is the truth. And there are so many truths revealed during the course of this story that I do not want to ruin it for those who may read it. Suffice it to say that when the perp is revealed, I had a moment where I said, "Hmmmmmmm....I thought it might be."  But John Hart throws out so many red herrings, at least half a dozen people could have done in Ezra Pickens, a man not too many are sorry is dead.

                                   What a movie this could make, if only there were actors suited to the parts.  A generation ago, there may have been; I am not so sure, now.  I am sure, however, that John Hart, whom I discovered through a reference I read to him in a review of Wiley Cash's "A Land More Kind Than Home," is a discovery I am happy to made, and I look forward to reading more of his work.

                                        Oh, yes, white trash.  There is plenty of white trash in this book!  What Southern novel would be complete without it???????????????

                                         But if you really want to know about Southern white trash, darlings, don't talk to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just ask Reese Witherspoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 comments:

  1. Have you read The Gods of Gotham by Leslie Faye? It's about Manhattan in 1845 and the search for a serial killer of child prostitutes. It's a fascinating tale of life in the notorious five points section of the city. Reminded me a little of The Alienist by Caleb Carr. If you're interested in old New York, like me, I think you'd like it.

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  2. Have you read The Gods of Gotham by Leslie Faye? It's about Manhattan in 1845 and the search for a serial killer of child prostitutes. It's a fascinating tale of life in the notorious five points section of the city. Reminded me a little of The Alienist by Caleb Carr. If you're interested in old New York, like me, I think you'd like it.

    ReplyDelete