The Long Home by William Gay — Dzanc Books

A moody first novel is offered as s gifted thor’s claim to the regnal-metaphysil mantle currently worn by Cormac McCarthy—though, fact, reveals the overpowerg fluence of Flkner, particularly of the “Spotted Hors” chapter The Hamlet. A terse Prologue reunts the murr 1932 of tenant farmer Nathan Wer by erant thug Dallas Hard, followg an argument over a whiskey still. Then, 11 years later, the dilapidated backwoods hamlet of Mormon Sprgs, Tennsee, an creasgly bleak drama is played out among the avaric Hard (now a prospero landowner and small-time entreprenr); Wer’s teenaged son and namake; a reclive old man named William Tell Oliver (who harbors his own guilty secrets); and a betiful girl, Amber Rose, whom Hard threatens to add to his ill-gotten holdgs. The story—told clipped, often enigmatic parallel scen—emphasiz Oliver’s crafty momentum toward remptn, Nathan’s thwarted love for Amber Rose and dogged pursu of vengeance, and the overreachg that brgs their tormentor Hard to a kd of jtice. The Long Home (the phrase is an digeno metaphor for ath) ntas several memorable scen and strikg characterizatns (both Nathan’s dysfunctnal ra “Motormouth” Hodg and ex-football hero and town dnk “Buttcut” Chsor are amg troublemakers). But the novel drowns s own rhetoric, wh risible abstractns (“she shrieked at the immutabily of his back”) and pretently grotque, and exact, scene-settg (“The bare branch of the apple tre wrhed like tre om a provce mentia”). Gay has read Flkner wh reverence (Dallas Hard is a py of the master’s immortal, satiable rpetbagger Flem Snop), and imated him whout a sense of when to stop—or much w. When emerg om the fog of verbiage, Gay’s but tells a grippg and termtently hntg story. If he ever cis to wre his own novel, may be a good one.