The Merciful by Jon Sealy

The Merciful by Jon Sealy

Published by Haywire Books ISBN 9781950182077

Trade paperback, $17.95, 294 pages

One of the TV series my husband and I have been watching is Showtime's Your Honor, about a judge who tries to hide the fact that his teenage son accidentally killed a vicious mob boss's son in a hit and run accident. It's a gripping story, with one bad decision leading to the next.

Jon Sealy's new novel, The Merciful, mines some of the same territory. A young woman named Sam is killed riding her bike home from work late at night on a lonely road in a South Carolina tourist town. Daniel Hayward, the man who hit her, leaves the scene. He drives home to his wife, Francine, his college sweetheart, telling her (and himself) that he hit a deer. 

Word gets out about the accident after Sam's boyfriend goes looking for her and finds the body. People in the town are horrified that someone would leave after hitting Sam. They want her killer caught and punished.

The story shifts between the various people involved. Daniel's father contacts Henry, a big-time Charleston defense attorney whose client base is shrinking. Claire is the young state's attorney who is prosecuting Daniel. Years ago Henry berated Claire after she made a mistake, and she is determined to prove to him that she is a good lawyer.

Henry prepares Daniel for the upcoming trial, which consumes the town. In her last trial, Claire's affair with a police officer led to her losing the case. She knows that she must do everything she can to win this case, get justice for Sam, and repair her reputation. 

Daniel can't believe what has happened to him. He loses his job, Francine leaves him, he is shunned by everyone. His life was going well, how did one night change everything? 

Sam's boyfriend asks the same thing. He wanted to pick Sam up in his car that night, why did she not let him? And what happened between the time she left work and was hit? There is an hour of time missing, and that is tormenting him. Henry and Claire want to know the answer to that as well.

The Merciful is an intense novel that puts the reader in the shoes of several characters. We get the backstory to many characters- Daniel, Sam's boyfriend, Sam's sister, Henry, Claire, even the judge on the case- that lead up to the conclusion of trial, and the answer to the big question- "Why do people behave as they do?"

I was provided a review copy in enchange for an honest review.

The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington

The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington

Published by Algonquin Books ISBN 9781616206802

Hardcover, $26.95, 308 pages

Ed Tarkington's novel The Fortunate Ones opens with Charlie Boykin fulfilling his duty as a casualty notifications officer at Fort Campbell, on his way to break the news to a family that their son had died in service to his country.

While there, he sees on the family television that popular Southern Republican Senator Arch Creigh had committed suicide. Charlie is stunned by this news, and the story moves to how a young Charlie, son to a single teenage mother living in the working class section of Nashville, ended up best friends with Arch, the golden boy of Nashville.

Young Charlie was routinely beaten up after school, being the smallest of the few white students at his school. His mom managed to get him a scholarship to the elite prep school, where all of the privileged scions are educated. 

 

Charlie meets Arch Creigh, who takes Charlie under his wing and introduces him to his best friend Jamie Haltom and Jamie's twin sister Vanessa. Charlie is entranced by Vanessa, but she and Arch have a relationship. Charlie becomes involved in the lives of these three, spending all of his free time with them, and leaving his lifelong best friend Terrence behind back home.

 Charlie becomes seduced  and captivated by the lifestyle of his new friends and their parents. Arch's father died when Arch was young, so Jamie's dad became a surrogate father to him, a role he seemed willing to assume in Charlie's life as well. Jamie's mother drinks heavily.

When Charlie's mom is offered a position as Jamie's mother's personal assistant, he and his mom move into a guest house on the Halstom property. Things are going well for Charlie and his mom, they have moved up in the world.

Secrets and lies abound, and the moral of the story is told by Charlie on the day of his fateful interview at his new school-"If not for that day, I would have never have left East Nashville for Belle Meade, nor would I have understood how much the conditions of life in one world depends on the whims of those who live in another."

The Fortunate Ones is called "a Southern Gatsby", and that is an apt comparison. Much like Charlie is entranced by his new life, Ed Tarkington entrances the reader by bringing us into this world of wealth and privilege, filled with interesting and flawed people. I felt like I was dropped in this Nashville scene. Fans who are missing the writing of Pat Conroy have found a worthy successor. I recommend this one.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Ed Tarkington's tour.

Lookaway, Lookaway by Wilton Barnhardt

Reprinted from the Citizen

July 21, 2014 6:15 am  •  Diane LaRue | Special to The Citizen

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'Lookaway, Lookaway'

By Wilton Barnhardt

Published by Picador

Trade paperback, $16, 384 pages

Rating: 5 of 5 stars.

Southern fiction is an interesting genre, especially to those of us who grew up in the North. Contemporary southern writers like Lee Smith and Joshilyn Jackson feature characters in their novels who are distinctly southern, with all that implies.

Wilton Barnhardt’s newest novel, “Lookaway, Lookaway,” even has a title that conjures up the South, in just two words from the iconic song "Dixie." You are most likely not going to pick up this book expecting anything else but something set in the South.

“Lookaway, Lookaway” tells the story of the Jarvis/Johnston families. Each member gets one chapter to tell their story, so this engaging novel almost feels like linked short stories. The stories are set in different time frames, and each person’s story is more interesting than the one before.

The first story belongs to Jerilyn, who is heading off to college at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She is the youngest child of Duke Johnston Jr., a former football hero at UNC who married the formidable Jerlene Jarvis.

Jerilyn can’t wait to get to college and join a sorority, and not the staid, studious sorority her mother belonged to. No, Jerilyn wants to join the crazy sorority, where the girls drink too much, inhale coke and cigarettes to stay thin, and need her to bring their house GPA up.

Jerilyn’s older sister Annie is a real estate mogul. Annie was a difficult child (and teen), completely rebelling against all the things her mother held sacred. She has been married three times (twice divorced on the way to number three), and her real estate empire is falling apart during the housing crisis.

Brother Bo is a pastor, married to Kate, a vibrant young woman he met in the Peace Corp. Bo is torn in his job; he wants to be a good pastor, and likes the public adoration, but he is not sure that this is the life for him. The politics of the job irk him. Kate wants to go back to the Peace Corp to make a difference.

Josh is the other brother, a man whose best friend is a black woman named Dorrie. Josh’s parents question why Josh and Dorrie are not married as they spend all their time together.

Jerlene’s has two siblings, the most colorful of whom is Gaston Jarvis, a celebrated Southern novelist who followed up his brilliant debut novel with a series of awful books about a brave female who fights for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He hates what his life has become and has become a reclusive, nasty alcoholic.

Each person has a secret they are trying to keep- insolvency, affairs, sexual orientation, a secret child born years ago- and some of these secrets spill out during a raucous, crazy Christmas dinner at Jerlene and Duke’s sprawling, ancestral home that they will soon have to sell.

This is such a great scene, I had to go back and reread it. It reminded me of Adriana Trigiani’s Valentine trilogy of novels, which always has a crazy family holiday dinner scene, but this one has more of an edge to it, and much less love. (But it does involve an ambulance.)

Reading “Lookaway, Lookaway” drops the reader right into this North Carolina family and their surroundings. They try to keep up appearances amid the chaos and secrets, and watching them try to stay one step ahead of the secrets makes for fascinating reading.

We find out how Jerlene and her siblings’ upbringing, with a brutal, alcoholic father, made them into the adults they became. Jerlene was determined to make a better life for herself, and for the most part she did.

She is one tough cookie, and anyone who thinks they can get the better of her had better think twice. The term Steel Magnolia comes to mind. She will protect herself and her family with everything she has.

Although the book is 385 pages, it is such a quick read. You can’t stop reading, you feel compelled to turn to the pages to read the next person’s story. I also liked putting together the puzzle of what happened to whom when.

The characters are so well drawn, these people feel like someone you would run into if you spent time in Charlotte, which is also a character in the story. And if you think maybe your family has issues, the Jarvis/Johnston’s may just have you beat.

I loved “Lookaway, Lookaway”; this is a terrific, juicy, summer read.