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From the top of a watertower, Benny Poteat sees something he isn’t suppose to see—a beautiful young woman, setting up a video camera, taking off her clothes, and then calmly walking into the water to drown.  Benny nervously climbs down the tower making his way to the riverbank where it happened, knowing full well that it is too late to save her.  He gathers her clothes, her video camera, and the video tapes left in her bag, tosses them into his pickup truck and rushes home dazed and frightened as though he had somehow caused her death.  He turns one question over and over in his mind, “What do you do after watching someone die?”

He doesn’t go to the police, instead he keeps what he saw to himself.  Paralyzed by a need to be close to the drowned girl he watches the video tapes she purposely left behind. Then he searches and finds the drowned girl’s sister, Becky Hinkey. Yet, rather than telling Becky what he saw, he starts dating her. He holds her while she cries over her missing sister.  He considers telling her what he saw.  But then he wonders–has too much time past? Would it seem suspicious?  Would it look as though he had something to do with it?   His frustration builds, he wishes he had gone to the police, but he didn’t and now he doesn’t know what to do. He considers telling Jeeter, his best friend, “One time, when they were both drunk, Benny asked Jeeter if he believed in angels. ‘Shut-up, Benny.’ That was the closest Benny ever came to talking about it.”

Sherrill’s humor is steeped in southern literary tradition with its dark, grotesque quality. He carefully weaves the lives of his oddball characters to create a most believable and compelling story.  Becky Hinkey, while the most normal of all the characters, is a midget.  Jeeter is most at home on a motorcycle and in a flea market.  He prefers spending his energies on rigging up a vibrating passenger seat on his motorcycle to arouse his female passengers.   And then there’s Doodle and Dink.  Doodle, Benny’s neighbor and a waitress at the Nub & Honey where he sometimes works.  Dink, a friend with serious issues of his own.  We laugh and sympathize with the midget stuffed in the giant pumpkin; we laugh and feel ill from the dog “sicking up” a pair of panties; we laugh and sympathize for Jeeter’s date, who is deeply bruised by his vibrating seat device.

Like the mischievous boy in second grade who always got away with shooting spitballs because he could charm the socks off the teacher, Sherrill’s poetic style and ear for rhythm lets him get away with telling us anything he wants.

Quote from Visits From a Drowned Girl:

Benny Poteat has seen a lot of THINGS.

Benny PO-teat has seen a lot of things.

Benny Poteat has seen a LOT of things.

Almost NOTHING would surprise him.

Almost nothing would SURPRISE him.

ALMOST.

Emphasis is negotiable, and emphasis is everything.”

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Read our bio of Steve Sherrill and peruse his other books.