Lo Patrick

The Night the River Wept by Lo Patrick is a very highly recommended small town Southern murder mystery with a very unlikely investigator.

Arlene, 24, is married to her high school sweetheart, Tommy, and longs to be a mother. The two live in Faber, a small town in Georgia, where Tommy, is in commercial real estate, but does well enough that he is often called a real estate tycoon in town. Tommy loves Arlene and wants the best for her but he also has a drinking problem. After a miscarriage she show more needs to find a way to keep busy so she applies for a job at the police station and is offered a part time position bagging evidence. Since the job only takes about 20 minutes of work a day, Arlene begins to read the old case files.

One case in particular, the murder of three young brothers on Deck River, an area populated by those with little hope, captures her attention. The murder was followed by the suicide of the main suspect, Mitchell Wright. Arlene gets permission to look into the case and soon believes she could solve the case. Tommy is getting on her nerves with his drinking anyway and the cold case becomes an obsession. She sets out to discover the truth with help from Allaina, who was on the police force at that time, and Ronna, the police department's receptionist.

I really enjoyed The Night the River Wept and I realize I'm a bit of an outlier in how much I enjoyed it. It is a beautifully written novel and captures both a unique, charming Southern setting as the characters deal with personal struggles,loss, growth and redemption while uncovering the truth. The narrative unfolds through the point-of-view of Arlene, diary entries written by Mitchell's sister, and the murderer. Arlene is the main, dominant voice.

I appreciated the humorous dialog and observations throughout the novel. The bulk of the novel is full of grim insightful and poignant moments in the narrative, but interspersed are gems that left me laughing several times while reading. Patrick captured the dialect of her characters in the dialogue and I could hear them talking as I read. And the stories... like the daughter who left the lineman she was married to, which disappointed her mother because she is a Glen Campbell fan.

Arlene is certainly a flawed character, but, bless her heart, I like her. She's young and she's blaming herself for her miscarriage. Her dream of being a mother has been shattered and seems unobtainable. Arlene is insecure and searching for an adult role model/friend. It is funny and a bit heartbreaking when she attaches herself to Ronna, a woman who has her own issues, and closely follows her behavior in an attempt to be an adult. This includes bringing leftover meatloaf for lunch. She's also dealing with a husband who's frequently drunk by noon. Looking into the cold case gives her a purpose and confidence in herself.

The novel is populated with unique, memorable characters. Arlene is earnest in her role as detective as she looks into the cold case. The investigation into the murder mystery is serious. The small town never really dug deep and tried to truly solve the case. People kept secrets.Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.
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I'll admit that I spent some time looking at other reviews of The Floating Girls before writing my own. They tended to focus on the same aspects of the novel, whether they were enthusiastic or lukewarm. The evocative descriptions: readers either delighted in them or felt they became repetitive. The menace of too many things unspoken and repressed: readers either appreciated the build up of tension or felt overwhelmed by the unknown. The powerful voice of the twelve-year-old girl, Kay, who is show more the narrator: she was either remarkably bright and engaging or ill-used and irritating. And in a way, all of these observations are true.

• Evocative Descriptions: The descriptions do go on and on and on, but the point seems to me to be creating an ongoing sense of discomfort that needs repeating to be effective. Because I'm a wimp about hot weather, I found this aspect of the novel particularly vivid. I could easily feel myself in bayou country experiencing the torpor, the sense of everything weighing more than it should, and of my body becoming a prison I couldn't escape from.

• The Menace of Too Many Things Unspoken or Repressed: The piling up of unanswered question after unanswered question was frustrating, but necessary, given the writer's choice of narrator. I *think* I figured everything out by the end, but the fact that I still harbor some uncertainty was probably the result the writer was aiming for.

• The Powerful Voice of the Twelve-Year-Old Girl Who Is the Narrator: For me this was one of the novel's clear, compelling strengths. Kay speaks truth to power. Kay never shuts up. Kay goes her own way regardless of what she's told. Kay is embedded in family complexities she's far too young to understand. Kay has at least a dozen chips on her shoulder. Kay's imagination is running about ten miles in front of her with ideas about love that are both naive and all-consuming. If I had to spend time in person with her, she would exhaust me. But as a narrator, her presence is a gift.

I'm a bit in the middle on this one—but definitely more enthusiastic than lukewarm. Reading this book is like dropping yourself into the middle of an interesting puzzle that's missing a good number of pieces. Readers never get the whole picture, but they can enjoy fitting individual bits together.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. show less

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick is a very highly recommended literary Southern mystery and coming-of-age story told in a dual timeline. I have read and loved every novel Lo Patrick has written.

Danielle (Dani) Greer moved back to North Georgia after a brief career as a teen model in NYC. Now she is a married mother of four daughters living in her childhood home. One afternoon her girls coming running back into the house saying they found bones in the ravine behind the house. Danielle show more knows who it couldn't be, but may know who it was. She calls local police officer Cady Benson.

Years ago when insecure teenage Dani, 17, came home from NYC for a visit she fell in love with motorcycle riding bad boy Benji Law, 15, and quickly became obsessed with him. Her modeling career may not be taking off as fast as promised, but her fixation on Benji is overwhelming, although seemingly not reciprocated in kind. He was killed in a motorcycle accident on the road in front of her family's house so she knows the body in the ravine isn't his and still recalls the events leading up to his death.

The extremely well-written literary novel held my complete attention throughout. The narrative unfolds through chapters following events in dual timelines set in 2004 and 2019. Danielle is the narrator and the novel follows her point-of-view. Even though it is a slow-burning novel, it is full of psychological insight, complex family dynamics, and tackles the emotional intensity of a first love. We have both a mystery and coming-of-age story, that follows the folly of a youthful and the realities of adulthood.

Danielle is portrayed as a fully realized individual, with strengths and flaws, especially since we meet her as a teen and later as an adult (who is likely suffering from depression). Her character development is carefully crafted and Patrick manages to capture the heartbreak, confusion, and resignation she experiences in pitch-perfect prose that is both insightful and poignant.

When the realization of what happened becomes clear toward the end with clues provided in the plot, it is both surprising and shocking, yet somehow understandable. I may be an outlier in my love and appreciation of Fast Boys and Pretty Girls, but I was completely immersed in the novel from start to finish.

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls is a perfect choice for those who enjoy literary novels, Southern fiction, mysteries, and coming-of-age stories. Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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The Floating Girls by Lo Patrick is a very highly recommended coming-of-age domestic drama, mystery, and a fine example of Southern fiction. This is an excellent debut novel.

Twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker and her family live off the beaten path by the marshlands in Bledsoe, Georgia. Kay, the youngest in her family, has two older brothers, Peter and Freddy. Her older sister, Sarah-Anne, is unusual, usually non-verbal, and often just stands in the yard "like a twig in mud." Their father, Clay, show more is habitually unemployed and their mother, Sue-Bess, is distant and emotionally absent. Kay is a feisty, opinionated, talkative, and lonely girl who is always at odds with the rest of her family.

When she is out running in the marshland one day, she comes across a house on stilts and a boy about her age, Andy Webber. From this point on she is fascinated by Andy and his father, Nile, and wants to go over to his house everyday or invite him to her house to play. Her father immediately gets angry and tells her to stay away from the Webbers. This proves to be impossible for Kay, much as it seems impossible to keep "the people from the state" from routinely showing up at their house, at which point they hide Sarah-Anne. When she learns about Mrs. Webber's death years earlier and that everyone in her family knows about it, it marks the beginning of secrets being revealed and changes everything.

Kay is the narrator of the novel and we see everything happen through her point-of-view. She is often defiant and opinionated. She likes to curse to get her family riled up. She can be very insightful, while at the same time she is naive. Some of her observations and descriptions can be humorous and sometimes they are achingly sad. All of this makes her a perfect character to narrate what is her coming-of-age story.

The writing in The Floating Girls is absolutely superb. Patrick captures the setting in descriptive prose that puts you there amid the oppressive heat and humidity in the summer. The marsh become a character as well as the location. The poverty and dynamics of Kay's highly dysfunctional family are also an intrinsic part of the narrative and the secrets that are exposed. All the characters are carefully crafted and depicted as realistic individuals. As the plot unfolds, Patrick manages to capture the heartbreak, confusion, and trauma in pitch-perfect prose.

The Floating Girls is an outstanding debut novel. If you enjoy well-written Southern literary fiction and coming-of-age stories, this would be an excellent choice.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Sourcebooks Landmark via NetGalley.
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