Arkansas (edition 2009)

Arkansas has an interesting, if not very diverse, cast of drug dealing characters in the south. The story follows several of them, for a number of years in one case, as long as they remain alive. The violence, when it comes every so often, is vivid, but somewhat matter-of-fact and even inevitable.

Frog is a benevolent drug lord, but not to be underestimated. He and his loose group of dealers are the subjects of the novel. Kyle and Swin stumble into the drug trade, brought in by a park ranger named Bright, who soon turns up dead. Swin is a college dropout whose father took pleasure only in “salt water and Cuban sandwiches” before killing himself. After the two become “lost in a maze of their own fuckups” and loose ends that “were tangled all over each other like a wad of shoestrings” they become the targets.

The characters are all believable and memorable. Johnna is Swin’s girlfriend, pregnant with his baby. A middle-woman cut-out between Frog and lower level dealers is only known as Her. Tim and Thomas are Frog’s protégé brothers. Brandon keeps the suspense roiling and tells a good story in the process. ( )

This is the first novel I've read by John Brandon, and it was his debut novel. The story is compelling and page-turning, although the characters are not exactly in an admirable business. The three main characters are two young drug runners, Swin and Kyle, and a drug boss, usually called Frog. Swin and Kyle sort of stumble into the business, and are portrayed in a sympathic way that makes you care about what happens to them, without glorifying what they do. The amount of money at stake is never huge, but it is more than they are used to having around. Swin and Kyle develop a close relationship, eventually ending up as phony park rangers at a state park in Arkansas. Events start to get out of control, as they always do in the drug business, and they start to look for a way out.

There is an unusual narrative structure in this novel. The chapters that are told from the point of view of Swin and Kyle are told in the third person, alternating between the two of them. The chapters told from the point of view of Frog are told in the second person ("You now have a modest nest egg--nearly twelve thousand dollars, plus another ten you'd already saved"). Frog is the most mysterious of the characters, but having his chapters told in the second person adds a personal touch to his character (the reason for this eventually becomes clear). Also, the chapters about Swin and Kyle are set in a short period of time, while the chapters about Frog begin several years earlier, and gradually catch up to the events of Swin and Kyle. To me, this added to the sense of separation between the two youths and their mysterious boss.

This novel has its comic moments, but it is ultimately a tragedy. At the heart of it is the relationship between Swin and Kyle. There are homoerotic elements to it, especially in a few scenes, but mostly they are just two guys who accidentally crossed paths and became friends in a dangerous life. ( )