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Product Description
Running from a past that has scarred and blamed him, and a tragic accident that has destroyed his family, Pete Butcher avoids all personal contact. Then Sarah Leemer, the oddly beautiful girl next door, walks into his life. Slowly, sweetly, and with a determination almost Faulknerian in its ferocity, Sarah pulls Pete back into life and into the ever increasing complications of love, family, death, and deliverance. For Sarah has made Pete her own, and as she takes her claim, we see the miraculous power of love without boundaries or fear.
Pete Butcher had not meant to speak to her. Read the first page
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The story focuses on the relationship between the lead character Pete Butcher and Sarah Leemer. This relationship is handled with delicacy and insight by Crews and takes on spiritual qualities by the end of the novel. As Pete comes to terms with his guilt Sarah unfolds as a strong, tender and courageous woman who helps Pete through the process of healing. In and of itself this relationship offers the reader an opportunity to observe the regeneration of a man from one weighed down by tremendous suffering and isolation to one who's willing to open up and confront not only his personal demons but also have them exorcised. There's certainly an element of human understanding in this book and it's through Pete and Sarah's relationship that we experience it.
The problem is with the characters that surround this relationship, some of whom often seem implausible or cartoonish and at times even irrelevant to the validity of what's going on with Pete and Sarah. The absurd and grotesque are elements of Southern fiction which in the past have been used to effectively demonstrate qualities of the human condition, but here they fail to do so. While encountering some of the characters in this book I found nothing in them in which I could identify some substantial idea or human trait. They more often obscured or hindered the story rather than enhancing it, their superficiality conflicting with the grander aims of the book.
I'm sure this isn't what Crews intended but nonetheless it's how I viewed it.
Although I thought the book had its problems I still think that Harry Crews has talent and therefore I intend to read some of his other work.
My favorite scenes in the book are the interaction between main character Pete and either Max Winekoff -- an annoying old man who likes to bend and touch the floor, or George -- a ganga-smoking Rastaffarian married to basically a dominatrix with whom Pete works unloading cellophane from a box car. However, in my opinion, the love story between Pete and his next door neighbor Sarah, as well as his scenes with angry Gertrude (Sarah's mother, recovering from a double masectomy) and Linga (George's wife) tend to drag. Also, as the book got stranger, I found it harder to suspend disbelief, especially when we're introduced to a cult, headed by Linga, where the members work in a swamp.
I'm a huge Harry Crews fan, based on the novels mentioned above, as well as two novellas: "Car" and "Gypsy's Curse." No one writes quite like Crews, and at his best, his books can be totally engrossing. Unfortunately, though, not here.
Footnote: For fans of Harry Crews, I would also recommend the late Larry Brown (starting with "Joe" and "Fay"), who, by the way, was a big Crews fan.
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