Customer Reviews

Father and Son

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Larry Brown is an amazing storyteller. Father & Son is gritty and real. This is the lives of people living in a small southern town in the late 1960's. Before MADD and the tobacco lawsuits. They are not educated and not rich, but the story definitely

As you read about the lives of Virgil, Bobby, Jewel, Puppy, Mary, and most of all Glen, you feel time take on a different meaning. Their lives are not about obtaining wealth or recognition or even a state of comfort. Their lives are about survival, in the only world known to them and the only world they will accept.
Time passes slower there, and sometimes it seems that all they do is ride around in their old cars for hours drinking beer and smoking. But Mr. Brown brings their lives into clear focus whether you wanted to see it or not. Virgil's regret at how he spent his youth instead of raising his sons better. Bobby's yearning for Jewel and dedication to doing the right thing. Jewel's desire for the love she thought she had in the past, her unhappiness at finding it never existed, and her determination to make a decent life for herself and her child. Puppy's day to day struggle with just making a living, making peace with his father, and handling his own home life. Mary's struggle with her own lost love and her dignity in bearing through years of sacrificing that love. And then there is Glen. His life is a chilling look at the mind of cold blooded killer, but from a different angle than most novels give.

Brown's third novel, set in 1968, concerns the events of five days following the release of Glen Davis from prison. Having served three years for the drunk-driving death of a small boy, Davis returns to his Mississippi home town with scores to settle.

Brown's Deep South, working class voice drips with heat and smolders with trouble. Davis is a sullen, vicious young thug convinced that all his troubles are anyone's fault but his and determined to exact revenge. Not exactly an original character but Brown's gritty, laconic style imbues him with a foreboding sense of menace that seems to surround the whole town while people go about their business, knowing the danger but unwilling to quite believe it.

Within 50 pages, Glen has killed - casually, with intent but almost without thought. The next morning he begins to harangue Virgil, his father, about the lack of a headstone on his mother's grave.

"Virgil didn't look up. He couldn't reason with him. Not when he got things in his head and kept them that way. It wasn't any use to try. He was worn down and he'd had a long rest but now this rest was over and he didn't know if he could take this all over again."

As Glen creeps and careens around his town, drinking and wreaking brutal havoc as the whim grabs him, secrets begin to crawl up out of the worn linoleum floors and the fly-blown windows - cracks in the veneer of sainthood Glen has constructed around his dead mother, an unspeakable childhood incident that fuels Glen's hatred and weighs heavily on his father, a tangled history with the sheriff and his mother.

Sheriff Bobby Blanchard's stand-up confrontation with Glen goes deeper than Bobby's love for Jewel, Glen's girlfriend and the mother of his child. Bobby himself grew up without a father. "He still didn't know anything about working on a car. Still didn't know how to slip up on a squirrel." He's always wanted his mother to marry again. "To somebody. Anybody. So I could have had somebody to show me the stuff I needed to know. So you could have had somebody too."

The thought of Glen with Jewel "was too awful and the image was something he'd managed to keep out of his head so far." Bobby is restrained, thoughtful, caring - a little envious of Glen and a little pitying too. Glen is simpler. He hates Bobby, always has.

But why is Jewel wavering? What does she or did she ever see in Glen? Jewel is a normal, responsible parent, not given to heavy drinking or hankerings for excitement or abuse. While the motives of Brown's male characters are real and freighted with a lifetime of history, Jewel remains a cipher.

But it's a small quibble. Brown's simple, poetic, gritty style brings this small town to life while it drives toward an inevitable climax of violence and renewal.

Another fine novel from the award-winning author of "Dirty Work" and "Joe."

Larry Brown's Father and Son is a compelling novel, well worth a close reading. Even the title points to psychological depths that perhaps only Faulkner at his best ever mastered. I grew up during this time and in this place. The novel rings true as Memory, though perhaps not as journalism.

Brown's narrative revolves around basic archetypal symbols and situations. On the surface, the story is a study of good vs. evil, contrasting two basic types. There is Glen, a murderous, drunken rapist who should have rotted in prison. There is also Bobby, the Sheriff, who works for Justice.

During the course of the novel, Brown introduces a host of ancillary characters, lets the reader get a sense of who these characters are, and then drops them completely. This technique perfectly matches the nature of these white trash Mississippi folk during the Summer of Love. During those days, young people were experimenting with hallucinogens as a path to rebellion. These Mississippians share a deep devotion to altering consciousness with those radical youth.

Brown chooses archetypal symbols and situations that make a deep impression on the reader. By plunging into our unconscious and shedding light in all directions, Brown works much as a Jungian Analyst does, showing us the reality of what is often dismissed as merely ephemeral. This splendid novel makes a lasting impression even after a first reading.

Brown is a Mississippi writer with enough talent to make me want to read only Southern Literature. Although Faulkner's influence is evident on every page, he is his own writer. I look forward to reading more of his work.

I am from the South-- more specifically, from the terrain of which Larry Brown writes. And he has got it dead right. If you want to live and breath rural Mississippi, read this. And all his works. I have met these people. Ate with my feet under their tables. Drank water from their gourd dippers. Set trotlines with them. Seen the lines of hard living in their faces. Larry Brown's characters live and breath on the page. If you like honest writing, treat yourself to this novel!

This guy was the real deal. What a shame: he died at 53 of a heart attack.

I think this is one of his best books. It's raw and real and like all great writing, it leaves you a little damaged in the end.

Brown will be missed.

When I started reading "Father and Son" I wasn't too used to the pace of the novel and was dying for things to pick up and progress. But i guess crucial to Brown's writing is the reconstruction of the surroundings and environment of his characters. Setting plays a big role in this novel and you get an idea of a small town where nothing is really happening except crimes being committed and laws being broken. There is a deep sense of time just passing meaninglessly amid frustration, anger, impatience, and a general sense of boredom and dread. Set against this drab background, however, the characters Brown has created are powerful and moving. We see not just one layer of their characters, but the many other layers and complications beneath the surface, and how alot of their lives have been shaped by events beyond their control, of flukes which seem to have arisen due to rotten luck. Some of their trials mirror our own. From Virgil, we learn that love for a family member never dies no matter what happens. From Jewel, we learn the importance of recognising when it is time to let go and move on, and to have the strength to see it through. From Mary, we learn that sacrifices form part and parcel of true love. From Bobby, we learn decency and understanding. And from Glen, fascinating and unforgettable character that he is, we learn the angst of love turned to hate, the destructive capacity of mankind, and the senselessness of criminal behaviour. The novel highlights the depths humankind can sink to, in the murders committed by Glen and others, but it also uplifts us with a sense of hope when we see the role David is able to play as a link to the disparate members of 3 families. Honest, sincere and moving, I shall look forward to Brown's other works.

I had read "Fay" and then "Joe" and then "Father and Son" when I finally did some internet research on Larry Brown and sadly learned that he had passed away. My heart sank at the thought of not being able to expect more to come. I've now read most everything of his available in print and "Father and Son" is my favorite. I also loved "Fay" and "Joe" and "Dirty Work" and it was really interesting to discover Brown's growth as an author throughout, particularly if you pick up some of his short stories. But it's "Father and Son" which brings it all together in the most richly woven southern tapestry of characters so well developed on page that you think they live next door. Read this book!

Perhaps Glen Davis shouldn't have gone back. The authorities should have kept him in prison, he should have started in a more structured work release elsewhere, there are so many alternatives.

But, he did go home. And not a day later, he committed a treble homicide of a bar owner, his employee and the bar's mascot monkey. He did a lot more than that before he was through.

"Father and Son" is about several paternal pairings: Glen and his father, Virgil. Sheriff Bobby Blanchard and his father Virgil. Getting confused? Glen and the good Sheriff are half brothers---and Sheriff Blanchard is the one born on the 'wrong side of the blankets.' And, of course, Glen and his son David--also born out of wedlock and Glen doesn't want to have anything to do with his son.

Glen had originally gone to jail for killing a kid while he was driving drunk. His thoughts--he could handle his whiskey, the parents should have watched the kid.

Sheriff Blanchard is trying to solve several murders--including a son killing his father, a homeless father killing a sick son, and then he has a terrible feeling that Glen's killed the bar owner in another county.

Meanwhile, Glen's drinking and still wreaking his own special brand of havoc on the community. Jewel, the mother of his son, wants to get married but she's realizing Glen's not a good bet. His aging father wants to have a relationship with his son, but recognizing he spent too much of Glen's formative years in a bottle.

Brown's writing is spare and harsh as Mississippi, but in no way impoverished. His tale comes to life with searing economy and is sometimes painfully too real. "Father and Son" is not a story for the faint of heart or the light of mind, but it is a worthwhile addition to the growing collection of Southern fiction.

Larry Brown was one of our greatest writers and I hate the fact that he is now gone. Of his novels, I think Father and Son is his best work, followed by Fay. The characters in Father and Son are so richly drawn that they seemed more real to me than some of the real people I know, and Brown has such a unique and direct way of describing his characters and the town they live in and things like how the sun is hitting a field that it comes across as poetry written by someone who is not trying to show off and who has a handle on how he sees things and can beautifully transcribe those perceptions. Even the "villian" of this novel is so beautifully drawn that I found myself cheering for him, supecting that things weren't going to work out for the best and wishing I could change it. Unlike with most books I've read, I would have been happy if Brown had tacked on another 300 pages. A brilliant work by a brilliant writer, and one of those rare books that can widen and make richer the reader's life. Buy it or borrow it and read it today.

Finally I have gotten around to reading Larry Brown. Goodness, goodness: What I've been missing! Father and Son will cause you to gasp and wince as you follow the wretched decisions Glen Davis makes (the main character). The trail of pain he leaves behind will shake you to the core. You love the character but hate the man. You want to scream at him as he scowls through one mistep after another. He is beyond the reach of reason, and his behavior gives new meaning to the words "dysfunction" and "aberration."

He is evil and his journey is tragic. How Brown portrays it and makes us care is awe-inspiring: tone offers the incidents in understated, almost casual objectivity; characters emerge bold and beautiful in their sorrow; plot screams forward like a runaway train on a hardened track; descriptions are as sharp as a razor-slice, quick and incisive.

I agree with the book-jacket quotation that says, "The model is Faulkner, but his influence has been absorbed and transcended." I raise a glass and toast Larry Brown, and soon I will read his other two books that are hailed so highly here: Joe and Fay (after bracing myself first by throwing down a shot or two).