Customer Reviews

The King of Babylon Shall: Not Come Against You

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The author writes this novel set in Florida with a combination of vigor and poetry and humor that is very rare and wonderful; his many characters pull you deeper and deeper into this story which flies back and forth a generation to gradually reveal the truth of a 20 year old murder. One extraordinary character after another is born on the page and all together form part of the story. No wonder the author can write such very deep and real Elizabethan books for which he is justly famous.

Outside of Virginia and graduate writing programs, where he is treated as a minor deity, Garrett is largely anonymous. This is a shame, since he is among our greatest living writers. I'm especially fond of this book, which explores the South's relationship with its own history in a way that respects and humanizes everyone without abandoning the humor that marks the best of the region's fiction. I do not wish to imply that Garrett is merely a local star. He writes about the South because he is from here, but also because it provides a microcosm of America. Issues of racial identity and religious splintering dominate this nation, and they also dominate this novel.
Garrett is an elegant stylist, a wry and fearless observer and a gifted humorist. This book ought not be discarded--it is the best American novel about America written in the past decade, and it is a shame that it has not crossed over into the mainstream territory of book clubs and high school reading lists.