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From the Back Cover
'Paris Trout' is a white storekeeper and moneylender in the sleepy little town of Cotton Point, Georgia. He is also an implacable bigot. A long time ago he studied law, but he is no respecter of it. One hot summer’s day he invokes his own law, with devastating results.
Some of the townspeople think Paris Trout a hero for what he did: others that the law should make him pay.
‘A grim and fascinating novel filled with wonderfully comic touches, by a writer whose brilliant understanding of the Deep South has allowed him to capture much of its essence – its bitter class distinctions, its violence, its strangeness… A fine and engrossing work’
WILLIAM STYRON
‘Reaches out and grabs the reader by the throat’
KATE SAUNDERS, 'Sunday Times'
‘Written with a quiet, almost forensic calm, full of foreboding detail, subtly registered, and with few of the baroque set-pieces normally associated with ‘Southern’ literature’
BRIAN MORTON, 'The Times'
NOW A FILM STARING DENNIS HOPPER AND BARBARA HERSHEY
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Customer Reviews
When the older brother of 14-year-old Rosie Sayers refuses to pay for a damaged car that Trout has sold and insured but will not fix, Trout and an accomplice decide to use him as an object lesson. Going to Henry Ray's home, Trout shoots little sister Rosie to death and leaves Mary McNutt wounded with four bullets. Surprisingly to Trout, he is put on trial, where people are bribed and the outcome is uncertain, despite eyewitnesses. The crime and trial take up the first half of the book, while the effects of the trial on Trout's defense attorney, Harry Seagraves, the increasing madness of Trout, and the town's growing impatience with Trout's behavior occupy the second half.
Dexter manages to give new life to a story of bigotry which has been told many times, creating in Rosie a particularly vulnerable and sad child, and in Harry Seagraves a lawyer who faces a crossroads--as a lawyer, husband, and man. Paris Trout, however, remains a bigoted stereotype, which reduces important aspects of the plot to "good guys" vs. "bad guys." Dexter's earthy tone creates an atmosphere that vibrates with emotion, however, and his brilliant selection of revealing details create innumerable symbols that develop the themes, poison being the most obvious symbol--Rosie's poisoning by a rabid fox, Hanna Trout's poisoning by physical and sexual abuse, and the town's poisoning by Trout's attitudes.
Dramatic, bloody, and horrifying, this novel shines a spotlight on a town which resembles a large snake that has been run over and is now "stuck to the highway with her own gum." As the town begins to free itself from Paris Trout, his power, and the attitudes he represents, the reader knows that Trout, too, is only a symbol, that real change will take generations. Mary Whipple
Dexter tells the story of what happens next through several characters - including Hanna, the wife of Paris Trout, his attorney Seagraves, Hanna's attorney Carl Bonner and Trout himself.
Everything in this book thrums with authenticity. In Paris Trout Dexter has created a monster, but the real success of his book is in the other characters - decent people who are also fallible and adrift in the wake of the casual cruelty and bigotry of the American South. This was made into a film, but the result can be no substitute for the book, which is totally compelling.
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