Pete Dexter

The most satisfying book I've read in a long time.

The people that made the TV series claimed they had never heard of this book. The guy that wrote the book never had enough money to sue them. Never having seen the TV series, I have no idea how true that was to the book or if that matters, I guess it does only if you haven't seen the TV series because you can come to this book without preconceptions.

A narrative that starts and just keeps moving. It is cinematic in its execution, each frame show more clear and truthful, everything is always revealed and nothing is hidden. You may think this leaves nothing to be deduced, which is true, but what it does do is leave you to focus on the detail, for the story here is in the detail.

Unlike other stories where the main characters keep living as the incidental characters die off one by one, in this story the main characters die off as the story moves along and it is the incidental characters who reveal that they had been the main characters all along but in a way you have missed but also seen without seeing the whole time.

It put me in mind of the Homesman and The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout, another person who wrote a stories that transcended the genre.

I guess this book could also be framed as historical, but only in the way you'd frame an innocent person for a crime they never committed.

A book to be devoured and savoured at the same time, a book that sees past the morals and judgements to show people as they really are. It is the most human story I have read in a long time. show less

Una storia così può essere ambientata solo nel sud degli Stati Uniti, o in certe lande nostrane in cui imperversa un ottuso mito razziale e del self made man, dell'uomo che non deve chiedere mai, perché si prende tutto da solo, e per le spicce.
Paris Trout è un pazzo sociopatico, e come tutti i suoi congeneri riesce a sembrare del tutto normale, o quasi, fin che sbrocca, e quando lo fa lo fa col botto, letteralmente.
Ma a parte l'evoluzione verso la totale follia di Paris, è interessante show more notare l'accondiscendeza, per non dire la complicità, della società che gli sta intorno, e non perché non sappiano che è pazzo - la sua condizione viene spesso ribadita durante la narrazione - ma perché fa parte dell'elite del posto.
Scritto e tradotto benissimo. show less

Paris Trout is both a relentless and subtle novel. It starts out disturbing and never really lets up.

In Cotton Point, Ether County, Georgia, Paris Trout, a local businessman and money lender to the poor, shoots and kills Rosie Sayers, a young black girl, in an altercation about money owed him.

Rosie, who has had a short, difficult life, is in the wrong house at the wrong time. “The things that frightened her worst never came to her in a way she could see them.”

Local attorney Harry show more Seagraves is hesitant to defend Trout. “A man like Paris Trout could rub his right and wrong up against the written law for ten minutes and occupy half a year of Harry Seagrave’s time straightening it out.”

Trout is true only to himself. “There was a contract he’d made with himself a long time ago that overrode the law, and being the only interested party, he lived by it.”

Trout terrorizes a small segment of the Cotton Point population for several years as he loses both his mind and his many legal appeals.

Written in 1987, the violent climax is mild compared with what we have become used to now, with extensive press coverage being given to horrific mass shootings that claim more lives than Paris Trout could ever hope to. But that doesn’t detract from the power of the story. show less

Brotherly Love has one of the most gripping, disturbing, and violent beginnings I’ve read. The violence and menace never abate throughout the story. It’s not a bang-bang mindless violence, but a grinding, wrenching threat that bursts into blackness and dissipates, until it happens again. Pete Dexter is so skillful that he keeps the tension alive the entire time.

Peter and Michael Flood are cousins in Philadelphia thrown together as children by the death of Peter’s father. In fact both show more of their fathers have been killed because of their criminal connections. They’re a union, and organized crime, family. Michael never evolves from a greedy youngster, taking what he wants. Peter is a bright spot in the story, although he’s engulfed by the ugliness that he never really tries hard enough to escape.

Nick DiMaggio, a former boxer who owns a boxing gym over an auto repair shop, is another bright spot that Peter gravitates toward. Nick has built the life that he wants and tries to steer clear of Michael and his type. “These fuckin’ guys,” “Everywhere they go, it’s like they broke in.” But he knows he can’t avoid them forever and is going to be compelled to choose sides at some point. “Maybe three times in your life something new happens and you know the right thing to do. The rest of the time…” Michael, Peter, Nick and the other characters are expertly created and believable.

Dexter’s adeptly told story of inherited violence is leavened by a subplot of redemption and glimpses of humanity. show less