Fay: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Short on plot, but a beautiful style
Review: Fay, a character who appears briefly in Joe, is seventeen years old and has run away from her family in the back woods of Mississippi. She is niave and penniless, but determined to leave the abuse behind. She meets up with some boys, who hurt her ... she meets up with a state trooper, who takes her home ... she meets up with his former lover, and has to run away again.

Fay is a slow book, subtle, reminding us of the unrushed, poverty stricken south. It is an incredibly detailed book. And it is one of the few books I have ever read simply because I wanted to enjoy how the author could string words together. Larry Brown's power of description is like none other. His ability to capture exact feelings and details left me both stunned and willing to forgive his inability to plot and his seeming obsession with characters drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

If you're seeking nonstop action, don't look to Fay for it. But if you appreciate beauty, she has lots to offer.

Rating:
Summary: Fay's word of the day is BOVINE. Can you say that?
Review: I cannot even think of this book, and of the protagonist Fay, without thinking of the word "Bovine" and having the image of a sloe-eyed cow meander through the lush fields of my mind.

Fay has left her abusive father behind, leaving without a penny to her name or even a place to go. Not that she had enough education to spell out where she thought she was, for that matter. But Fay is a pretty girl, often referred to being "well endowed" above the waist (again the image of the cow), and she is quite accomodating to the frail-minded men who find her.

The novel Fay is a sort-of continuation of Brown's previous novel "Joe", in that Joe outlined the horrendous character of Fay's father Wade. But that is pretty much where the tie ends, and Fay the novel does not reference much back to Joe. And even then, Joe does not explain Fay's sociopathic disregard for others, except for the possibility of heredity. She was never molested the way her younger sister was, though she did live in extreme poverty and have to fight off her father.

In this novel, we will follow the extremely unlikable and bovinely stupid Fay through a series of men, who she uses for a place to stay and food to eat while keeping her eye out for greener pastures. I still don't know who made me the angriest, Fay or the dumb men who fell for her charms.

In her wake she leaves behind men and bodies, first plowing through Sam the State Patrolman to eventually settle in with Aaron, a no count low life who cannot separate love from abuse, but looks "like he could take good care of you".

I was utterly transfixed by this glimpse into the mind of a woman who had no clue how to fend for herself, and found it easier to hang around letting men take care of her rather than get a job or even try to make her life better. Fay's dependency on men and her disregard for the lives of others that her stupidity impacted left me open-jawed with shock.

So why the four stars? Because Brown is a truly poetic writer, the words flow across the pages underneath the gentle melodies of poetry in motion, while your mind digests the deeply fleshed and vapid personalities of the characters with discordant jangling of a fire alarm.

Love them or hate them, victim or criminal, you will still find yourself drawn into these pathetic lives, involved at a level that is both uncomfortable in its intimacy and compelling in its desire. Brown is a truly talented and gifted writer, and though the journey may leave you with mud and tobacco stains on your pants-leg, you will still find that you are happy you accepted the ride. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: 'Fay' transcends Southern-fried stereotypes
Review: One word best describes Larry Brown's writing: brutal. The north Mississippi writer's latest work of fiction, "Fay," is filled with characters, events and pain which amplify the everyday brutality of many lower-class whites in Mississippi. Of course in writing about these increasingly marginalized women and men, Brown also says much about all of us: who we are, who we love, who we hate and what it means to live and to die as Southerners. Along the way, Larry Brown also tells one fine story.

"Fay" is one of those novels that you should read on a deck or a dock, maybe in the sand at the beach, with a six-pack of cold, cheap beer next to you. Read a few pages, take a sip. Think about what it is you've read.

After 489 pages, you'll shake your head in disbelief at Fay Jones and the lives she brightens, enlightens and ends. "That can't be. Who are these people? What are they thinking? This isn't real." But it is. And that's the beauty - and gift - of Larry Brown: He tells the truth from the darkest of our hearts.