“Penalties of June” by John Brandon

Penalties of June (McSweeney’s 2024) by John Brandon is a well-crafted, invitingly atmospheric tale of a motley group of anti-heroes and a lovely, hard-working young woman in 1998 Florida. These characters cross fortunes and fates as their lives interlace again—and again—in a tale that carries a hint of the Southern Gothic within its absorbing pages. Kirkus Review calls it’s a “compelling thriller” and Publishers Weekly calls it a “noirish romp.”

Whatever genre label might best apply, Penalties of June is well worth the read, balancing darkness with brightness, danger with humor, all within a tense plotline. Set in Florida’s Tampa Bay area in a fictional town, the book is a snappy read that moves superbly toward its climax.

Told in alternating third person points of view, the bulk of the story focuses on Pratt, a young man fresh out of a three-year stretch in the Florida state prison system. Pratt has a sharp tongue, a quick wit, and an inherent kindness that is never far from the surface. Yet, circumstances, bad luck, and his shady past soon land him where he must choose between “a wrong side and a less wrong side.”

One of Pratt’s several nemeses is also his potential savior, an elderly crime boss named Bonne, whose dead son, Matty, was Pratt’s best friend and sidekick in crime. Orphaned young and raised by an uncle, Pratt and Matty were inseparable. Pratt, the responsible one, helped to control Matty’s wilder urges. Bonne understood this and provided Pratt with material gifts and privileges as if Pratt too were his son. The old man and Pratt have a bond—but eventually Bonne’s demands and Pratt’s own desire to be free of his former life will severely stretch that bond.

Then there’s Kallie, Matty’s girlfriend who, Pratt also loves. Add in a devious and determined cop with ulterior motives plus an accountant skimming from Bonne because of a gambling addiction, and the main cast of Penalties of June is ready to entertain and intrigue the readers.

It speaks well of Brandon’s talent as an author that he conveys the depth and complexities of his characters with unerring precision. Except for Kallie, the major characters are criminally flawed, yet most of them are also strangely likable.

Although this is primarily Pratt’s story, the aging crime boss Bonne comes close to stealing the show. Despite being a dangerous man, Bonne is a sympathetic, vulnerable character. Yet the author never lets the reader forget that this is also a dangerous man who could be Pratt’s deadly foe if things go awry—and that things will go awry is guaranteed.

Pratt, fresh out of prison and looking for what to do with himself, is indebted and trapped by Bonne. In order to get his true freedom, Pratt must obey a murderous order from Bonne. This order puts Pratt on a collision course, of course, with a multitude of dangers in which no option is a good choice. Enter Kallie, who is effectively Matty’s widow except for the legality of a marriage. Pratt tracks her down, unsure what it is he wants from her. When Pratt’s quest to save himself endangers Kallie, suspense in the story rachets up.

Despite Pratt’s moral ambiguities and questionable situational ethics, he seems at his core to be a decent man trying to find a way to live a decent life. The odds, of course, are stacked against him. On his side, though, he has a loyal friend and an old uncle—and Kallie. Whether he will make it out of the plot alive is not so much the question as to whether he will make it out without committing murder.

The Florida setting is not the pretty, fun seaside tourist mecca the Chamber of Commerce would champion, but the gritty underbelly of a place where drug dealers, corrupt cops, hitmen, strip clubs and strip malls, gators, hoarders, and gamblers all have their moments. It’s an engaging book, with a sharp, quirky, Elmore Leonard vibe, written in clear, honest prose by an author who truly knows how to put together a sentence—and a plot.

John Brandon’s prior work includes four novels, Arkansas, Citrus CountyA Million Heavens, and Ivory Shoals and a short story collection, Further Joy, all published by McSweeney’s. His debut novel, Arkansas, was adapted into a motion picture in 2020, starring Vince Vaughn and Vivica A. Fox.

John Brandon

His shorter works have appeared in Oxford American, The BelieverESPN the MagazineGQMcSweeney’s Quarterly ConcernThe New York Times Magazine, and numerous university journals. He’s been a Grisham Fellow in Creative Writing at University of Mississippi, and the Tickner Writing Fellow at Gilman School, in Baltimore. Though originally from SW Florida, he now lives in St. Paul and is an associate professor of creative writing, teaching in the BFA and MFA creative writing programs at Hamline University.

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