Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Grim. If "Fay" is a car wreck, then this book is a slow death from cancer. You know it's going to end bad; there is no alternative. The ending is even worse than expected.

Allison's treatment of the setting, the characters, and the tone is perfect. My childhood came back to life, and I remembered cousins and aunts I had forgotten years ago. Thank God my family was not quite the "white trash" that hers seems to have been.

And the novel does seem autobiographical. Written in the first person, it reads like a memoir. A little search on the internet reveals that she actually lived the core of truth at the heart of this novel.

Definitely Southern Gothic, and Grit Lit. You don't finish this novel crying, you finish it wanting to shoot someone.

Oral History by Lee Smith

This is an excellent book, well written and executed. Is it a Southern Gothic? If not, it's close enough. It's about a cursed family, and their history is told by those who know them, relatives and friends. It spans generations.

It also seems to be meticulously researched. Set in the mountains of Virgina, it stays faithful to the culture and heritage of that region.

There is no ending. Which is what you would expect from a family history - it continues on in the lives of the next generation. There are plenty of subplots to keep up the readers interest, but if you are looking for a non-stop thriller - this isn't it. It's also sad and dramatic in places, and of course, dark. Yes I would classify it as a Southern Gothic.

Fay by Larry Brown

Reading this book is like passing a car wreck on the highway. You get caught in the backup first, not knowing what is ahead. Emergency vehicles pass you, lights flashing and sirens blaring. You could get of the highway, turn around, take another route. But you stick it out, and eventually, up ahead, you can see the wreck. Twisted wreckage, bodies on stretchers. You gape. Even after you pass the wreck you are slow to accelerate. You can't look away.

That's Larry Brown's "Fay". It's another in the series of Southern Gothics (or in this case, Grit Lit) that I am reading. It's a simple style, heavy on the "to be" verbs, light on action verbs and adverbs. Definitely not purple prose, but also not as spare as Hemingway. Brown is also not terse. The book is full of long descriptions of drinking, driving, drinking and driving, sex, drugs, fishing, and strip joints. All the essential features of the rural South.

You know it's going to end badly, but of all the endings I could imagine, the real ending is not the one I would have picked. Honestly, by the time the book was over I was ready for someone to shoot Fay.

By all means read it, but be prepared to stare at the wreck on the highway.