Good Southern novels are Blues music for the imagination. The liquid heat is the thrumming underlying bass. Trepidation is the horn luring us through the meanness of the streets and woods. A story often told and never trite is the throaty, liquoured voice of the lead vocalist.
The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux fulfills all the best requirements of a good Southern novel.
At the behest of his father, Randolph Aldridge leaves his mundane office in Pittsburgh to manage a potentially lucrative lumber mill owned by the family company. Randolph’s personal attention is directed at finding his brother, Byron. Easily found, and executing his job as a law-man, Byron prefers to wallow in his post-WW1 angst, accompanied by sentimental songs played on a Victrola which warps in the humidity. When Randolph arrives, Byron’s life largely consists of violent confrontations with a mafia-type organization selling illegal whiskey and coerced prostitutes. His midnight interventions are much appreciated by the more normal sector of this sweat-soaked mill town.
The Clearing reminds me of The Virginian, written in 1902 by Owen Wister. They share the theme of battling outlaws and bringing civil society to an enclave that becomes a town. They also share an environmental message, which is much stronger in The Clearing. To reveal the crux of the environmental message would be to ruin the novel. Suffice to say, Tim Gautreaux keeps us changing our minds about which “clearing” is the focus of the title.
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