Amazon.com Review
So, you find out one day that your brother has just been killed, brutally murdered in fact, by someone who seemed to take calm delight in watching him die slowly, agonizingly. The thing is, you can think of dozens of people who wished Billy harm, and a few who very well might have done it, including members of your own family.
Such is the situation of Ray Johnson, the narrator of Lisa Reardon's first novel, Billy Dead, as we begin a gut-wrenching trip into the past of an American family that's about as unappetizing as you will find. A relatively decent, tender man who's spent much of his life trying to keep out of harm's way, Ray has managed to cobble together a pretty good existence of steady job and thoughtful, intelligent girlfriend, Sally... until now. As he ranges around town in a surreal haze in the days following Billy's murder, meeting up with ghosts from the past, and interacting with various and sundry family members (including a mother who flirts with an old boyfriend in sight of her son's coffin), Ray realizes just how much he remains shackled to a past chock full of domestic abuse, alcoholism, incest, and just plain meanness.
While Billy's death seems a just, but unavoidable, conclusion to a nasty existence--"Somebody took that thing full of mean and made it nothing at all"--maybe he was the lucky one. For Ray, the killing pulls into sharp relief the hell on earth that is his when he realizes his only life passion is his forbidden love for his younger sister, Jean: "All the hurt and confusion about Billy being killed is like a big forest fire that's burned through everything in me. Burned clean through all the underbrush of when we were little, all the deadwood memories. Even the big strong trees that I thought would live forever, blocking all the sun ... Jean and me, we're looking at each other now in that empty, burned-out place."
In a narrative that explores in terrifying detail the violent nature of Jean and Ray's past and the poignant truth of their love, Reardon creates a skillful and credible tale. This is a hard, in-your-face kind of book that takes you for a disturbing ride, and finally asks you to reexamine your notions of what is and what is not right when it comes to affairs of the heart. --Marianne Painter
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
When mean, violent and generally despised Billy Johnson turns up gruesomely murdered in this heartwrenching debut, his blue-collar Michigan town is full of suspects, including members of his own family. While relatives gather for the funeral and the police investigation intensifies, Billy's troubled younger brother, Ray, tries to make sense of it all by reluctantly dredging up his family's shameful past. He, Billy and their sister, Jean, were horribly abused by their father when they were children. They also abused one another. As adults, they continue to inflict pain on themselves and those around them. After having struggled to lead a normal life, Ray has yet to master his complex feelings for the estranged, withdrawn Jean, feelings that have come between Ray and his girlfriend. Meanwhile his father remains unrepentant and his long-suffering mother, having escaped and remarried, still can't acknowledge that the abuses ever occurred. The real brilliance in this grim tale lies in the author's choice of narrator, for it is only Ray's sweet, bruised voice that makes any of it tolerable. Reardon falters in straining for a redemptive conclusion, but that doesn't diminish her overall accomplishment: this is a compelling work, reminiscent of both Dorothy Allison and Caroline Chute, that evokes empathy for those who lead bleak, savage lives and even finds a measure of dignity and love in people raised in a world where all the rules and taboos are broken on a daily basis. Agent, Virginia Barber; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
