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Bev Marshall’s first novel, Walking through Shadows, is a breathtaking creation. Set in a small town in rural Mississippi just before World War II, the story’s obvious center is the murder of a young woman, Sheila Barnes. Sheila is one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve run across in recent years – just seventeen at the time of her death, married for around a year, Sheila is uneducated but full of unconventional wisdom, which she bestows gently on those around her as their needs dictate. She is a gift in their varied lives – and they all come to realize it in their own time.

Sheila comes to work at the dairy farm run by the Cotton family, and soon becomes the Best Friend of ten-year-old Annette (her caps) – the two girls grow as close as family, and at one point Annette’s mother, Rowena, comments that `Annette loves Sheila like a blood sister’. Sheila is seemingly completely without a formal education – she comes from a family of numberless children, loomed over by her brutal father. The beatings – and other abuse – she receives from him on a regular basis are the central reason in her leaving home, to seek work and shelter at the Cottons’. She is also possessed of a physical anomaly – a hump on her back – although she never lets it interfere with her image of herself or the way in which she attempts to live her life. It is at the Cottons’ dairy, where she works, that she meets Stoney Barnes – despite her `deformity’, he falls in love with her (and she with him), and after a short courtship, they marry. The abuse she suffered at the hands of her father continues sporadically – and Stoney is guilty of inflicting physical pain on her as well. When he reports Sheila missing early one morning, and her body is found in the Cottons’ cornfield, the investigation that ensues reveals things about almost everyone involved that each one would have most certainly preferred to be left in the dark. The revelations strain friends and family and community – the outcome is both expected and surprising, and soul shaking.

The story unfolds gracefully through various viewpoints – a technique that Marshall employs extremely well. The author endows each of the characters with a distinctive personality and – even more importantly, I think – a unique, completely believable voice. Rather than simply describe each character to the reader, the author skillfully allows them to illuminate not only themselves but also each other. Their narratives - which vary in length, but grow shorter and switch back and forth more in the second half of the book – overlap in both subjects and time frames, much as if the reader were privy to individual tellings of the same story, walking from room to room, eavesdropping. There is a subtlety in Marshall’s method here that is a wonder to behold – things are revealed to the reader as they are revealed to those in the story, allowing the mysterious aspects of Sheila’s brutal murder to be opened like a flower. The suspense is palpable and deftly controlled.

There are lessons to be learned here – as well as a story that entertains – about a plethora of subjects: love, honor, family, pain, abuse, friendship, faith, race, healing, and more…including magic. I’m not speaking of the type of magic that is performed on the stage – I’m speaking of the more indefinable magic that lives and breathes in the touch of a friend’s hand, in the stories they share that delight and instruct, in the pain that we cause each other and in the healing we can inspire. If this leads you to believe that this is a soporific tale, don’t be deceived – this is fine writing of the highest order, and a story that reveals not only the innermost workings of its characters, but of all of us.

Review by Larry Looney

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]]> http://southernlitreview.com/reviews/walking_through_shadows.htm/feed 0 http://southernlitreview.com/reviews/provinces_of_night.htm http://southernlitreview.com/reviews/provinces_of_night.htm#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 18:07:32 +0000 Larry Looney http://imagendesign.com/slr/?p=333

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When I read William Gay’s first novel, The Long Home, recently, I had the strong feeling that I had discovered the work of someone very special – and reading Provinces of Night has confirmed that for me. Gay writes with a carefully and languidly – the breadth and depth of his writing demands full attention from the reader, and the rewards are great indeed.The above-mentioned languid quality of his work does not for a single moment indicate any sort of laziness on his part – writing this good can, of course, come from the foundation of a natural talent, but it takes hard and diligent work to come up with a finished product of this quality. Gay’s characters are vivid and real, and they are built up slowly – the reader is required to get to know them, rather than having them dumped off the page and into their lap. His descriptive abilities are astonishing as well – if there isn’t a word that suits the image he’s trying to get across, he’s not above combining existing words into a single unit, and he does so with taste, style and intelligence. There are no cheap, easy gimmicks at work here – just talent and imagination.

Set in the same small rural Tennessee town in which his earlier novel takes place – but in the 1950s this time, as opposed to the 1940s – Gay captures the setting and characters with absolute perfection. His country folk are depicted honestly – they are uneducated, to be sure, and some of them are certainly not the brightest match in the box, but he treats them with respect. They come across as honest and real – the figures of speech they employ might seem odd to city dwellers, and their knowledge of the world outside of their area ranges from non-existent to a shadowy grey awareness that is tempered liberally with misinformation and rumor. They look upon outsiders with doubt and suspicion – and usually for good reason.

The relationship that develops over the course of the story between E. W. Bloodworth – an elderly man who left the area, his wife and family, many years before – and his grandson Fleming, whom he has never seen is one of the most touching depictions I’ve come across in some time, without ever venturing anywhere near the maudlin. The Bloodworth clan – and their neighbors and acquaintances – are a pretty rough-hewn lot. They number among their members bootleggers, drunks, hell-raisers, stand-by-your-man women and I-ain’t-takin-any-more-of-your-BS women. Fleming is a pretty intelligent – if uneducated – young man, and he is instantly attracted to his grandfather’s personality and stories of his life. E. F. is a banjo player and singer, a collector of old tunes – mostly blues. His fame actually spread to the point of a record label recording eight of his songs – but he never chose to pursue music as a career. It simply meant too much to him.

When E. F. decides to return home after many years away, he stirs the stew of a lot of family members and other locals - he’s not exactly welcomed back by everyone with open arms. One of his sons, in particular, Brady, is downright hostile. Brady is quite a piece of work himself, living with his elderly mother (E. F.’s wife) and casting spells and hexes on any and all who cross him. He’s looked upon by the locals as a bit of a curiosity and a crackpot – but at the same time, with enough trepidation that they try not to wind up on his bad side.

There’s a whole cast of memorable characters here – and a main plot with several related subplots that whirl and eddy around each other like currents in a stream. Definitely enough to keep the reader involved and interested. William Gay is a writer of amazing talent and patience – if you’re a fan of well-written, compelling fiction that contains emotion as well as a gentle dose of humor now and then, you owe it to yourself to check out his work. My next stop is his short story collection, I Hate to See That Evening Sun go Down.

Book Review by Larry L. Looney