Paris Trout

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 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 show more 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

Pete Dexter’s justly renowned Paris Trout traces the inexorable decline of its eponymous character, and the few citizens of Cotton Point, Georgia, whom he takes with him. Dexter delivers his grisly, unfortunate story in robust language, making clear his central characters’ lack of choice, or their delusions, or their destructive impulses. Dexter’s greatest achievement in this book is the inevitability of its climax, and yet he manages to surprise us anyway. Typical of Dexter, this book boasts plain, strong language, an unflinching gaze at human failing, a pace that never lets up, and the overall impression that we are in the hands of a master. It’s unforgettable.

It’s the 1950s, and Paris Trout is a local businessman who has show more been active in a small Georgia town for decades. He runs a small general store, deals in used cars, and lends money out at interest, serving the town’s Negro population as well as its white people. He manages his interests in an unorthodox manner, not being one to write anything down, including books of account. He retains all transactions and balances in his head, for he has a powerful, capacious mind.

He also has a deadly, unswerving focus on his own interests, and this focus leads him to nefarious activities, the worst of which results in the fatal shooting of a 14 year-old Negro girl in her home. His trial on this charge constitutes a good portion of the book, and is the central trigger for the acceleration of his downward spiral.

We only get to follow Paris’s reasoning, such as it is, at a remove. We are much closer to the other characters in the book, his wife Hanna, Harry Seagraves, his attorney, and Carl Bonner, a lawyer who arrives halfway through the narrative, and represents Hanna in divorce proceedings against Trout. The mental and emotion journeys these people take in the wake of Paris Trout’s deeds and misdeeds show Dexter’s superior ability with the human mind and heart.

Take this up. It’s an important work of American fiction from the last century, and it showcases the astonishing ability of its celebrated author.

https://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2022/05/paris-trout-by-pete-dexter.html show less

PARIS TROUT, the National Book Award Winner for Fiction in 1988, is a flawless work. Paris Trout is a resident of Cotton Point, Georgia; an arrogant solitary man who abuses his wife both psychologically and physically, he commits a crime which sends reverberations throughout the community.
Paris’ mental state deteriorates as he fights against being held accountable for his senseless actions. His attorney and his wife both realize he is disturbed. A feeling of doom seeps into the story and builds until the fateful ending.
Pete Dexter brilliantly weaves the stories of the residents of a small town in 1950’s Georgia. He effectively draws a variety of personalities and connected storylines - hinting at past indiscretions, exploring show more people’s private thoughts, and thoroughly bringing his characters to life. I could feel the stifling culture with its simmering hostility.
I would recommend PARIS TROUT to everyone who enjoys great literature. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
~Stephanie show less

Well, this book turned out to be nothing like I had expected from the Goodreads blurb. Race plays a part in Paris Trout’s crime only in the sense that the society was cruel to its black population, which made it easier to assault a black person and walk away, but Paris Trout was much more than a racist, he was a monster and a threat to humanity in any form. I did not think that the color of skin was the determining factor for Paris. I’m not even sure it was a factor, except in freeing him from any need to curtail his wrath because of social pressures. If Henry Ray had been a poor white boy who owed him money, he would have behaved in much the same way. Paris is a racist, but the society he lives in is worse, because it purports to show more be kind and just, and it turns its head the other way.

While no one could deny the sick perversity of Paris Trout, the thing that tore at me was the way he was shielded by the system, even when every single person who came in contact with him: prosecutors, judges, neighbors, employees, and his defense attorney, knew him for the savage demon that he was. Several of these leading citizens knew details of his brutal treatment of his wife, Hanna, and showed as little concern for her as they had shown for Rosie Sayers, the innocent black girl he had murdered.

Who and what Paris Trout is, is established in the opening moments of this novel. Who the others are takes longer in revealing itself, and is much more important. I couldn’t help thinking of that old cliche “all that is required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.” But, then, when evil flourishes, it refuses to contain itself to the parameters we think we set for it. It tends to spill out over the edges like an overfilled bathtub. It tends to reach out its tentacles and touch everyone and everything. Eventually, it touches us.

[b:Paris Trout|899813|Paris Trout|Pete Dexter|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1302028458s/899813.jpg|1155530] is not an easy read, but then stories about the evils of society seldom are. You cannot tell a tale about the dangers of tolerating evil without looking at some pretty horrendous things, just as you cannot make Paris Trout a respectable businessman by putting him in a suit and tie and inviting him to the Kiwanis Club dinners.

Take a very deep breath and then read this. show less

The book starts with Paris Trout, a white businessman, murdering a 14 year old African American girl. He claims he was perfectly within his rights to do so because someone else in the house owed him a debt. His racism against the family and particularly the girl seems standard of the time at first glance as it is compared and contrasted with how the girl was treated up until then. Though the actual act of murder showed a level of pure malice and spite that went beyond it.

As the novel progresses Pete Dexter manages to completely vilify Paris Trout. He becomes a caricature of a man, pure evil, and there are constant hints throughout the novel that people think there is something "not right" with him. Though none of them are disturbed show more enough to do anything more about it other than give him a wide berth. To their peril.

A lot of people compare this novel with To Kill a Mockingbird. I have to say that it seemed a lot harsher than that novel. Also, because the racism in Paris Trout was distorted to seem like something only the insane would do, it diminished it and made it seem like an impossibility in polite society. That is not true (and definitely wasn't true in 1988 when this novel was written) and it's sticking your head in the sand to portray it that way. It's there, trying to break it down to cartoonish good guys and bad guys simplicity won't make it go away. Not to mention it makes it seem less of an issue than it is and glosses over its shades of grey and those that suffer from it no matter the shade.

All in all, a lot of this book was pretty sick. There's murder, rape, abuse, insanity, infidelity and, of course, racism all written very vividly and that's just the first half of the book. I don't really recommend it. Read To Kill a Mockingbird if you want to read a book that gives this issue it's true justice.

Favorite Quote:

"He scart me," the girl said.
Miss Mary nodded and looked over at her in a slow, tired way. "That's your common sense talkin'," she said. "That man scare anybody got common sense." show less

Paris Trout is a loathsome character. He shoots and kills a 14 year old black girl for no reason. Not a crime of passion, but more chillingly a crime of indifference. She’s simply in the way when he tries to collect his debt so he shoots her. Well-drawn novel villains often have some, if not redeeming qualities, at least qualities that make them seem more human. They love their children or their dog. Or they have some charming roguishness. Paris Trout has none of that. If he had a dog, he would beat it. He simply has no redeeming qualities. It is a testimony to Dexter’s writing skill, that even in all his loathsomeness, Paris Trout is still a compelling character.

However, if this were simply the story of a racist sociopath it would show more be hard to endure and probably not worth reading. Definitely not National Book Award worthy. But it is, of course, much more.

We see the story of Paris Trout unfold from not only his perspective, but from the point of view of the girl he killed, his lawyer, his wife, the prosecution and a host of supporting characters.

Dexter creates what feels like a very realistic feeling portrait of redneck Georgia in the early 1950s. It feels honest, not patronizing or apologetic. Paris Trout: A Novel, is at times an uncomfortable reading experience, but worthwhile. Highly recommended. show less

This is a very good novel about a terrible man who does some terrible things and is largely supported in his violent, antisocial behavior by the society in which he lives. While Paris Trout is the central character and the catalyst for the story, the book is simply a portrait of an evil man. It is a portrait of a social structure that finds it impossible to contain the behavior of such a man. Trout is an outsider with a sour disposition. He abuses his wife. He takes advantage of the black community with high-interest loans. And he ultimately kills a fourteen-year-old girl when he's enraged over not being able to collect a debt from one of her relatives. But Trout is a local businessman with enormous financial resources, and the white show more community finds it difficult to prosecute him effectively.

The character of Trout is consistently unrepentant and uncompromising. He is the embodiment of the society's worst faults, with no inclination to cover them over with polite talk or deferential behavior. Like the inexplicable motivations of Iago in Shakespeare's Othello, his reasons are always his own, without clear explanation. Even though discussion of this book seems frequently to settle on racism as a primary subject of the book, that is only one facet of what's going on in this story. To let the story go by with only that as the element of its critique is to avoid the more sweeping social criticism, which can be seen to touch us all. Trout's behavior is the manifestation of those societal compromises every civilization makes to varying degrees. Racism is obvious, because this book is set in the American South after World War II. Yet there is also a clear corruption of the social order by the unchallenged belief that money and wealth represent the highest good. Legal justice becomes a commodity that wealth and community standing can help to buy. Seemingly intolerable behavior becomes impossible to oppose when societal rules dictate that we pretend not to see injuries and abuses.

Trout too is a problematic character in that his behavior has grown increasingly erratic over the years. It seems likely that he has always been a difficult man with numerous faults, yet those negative traits have intensified with time. His violent episodes in the book may be evidence of mental problems that finally grew too difficult to control. Trout became "poisoned," just like the rabid foxes in the opening passages of the book, and became a wild animal that ran out of control. Like every story that includes a rabid animal, there is only one way it can end. show less