True Cross

While this is not my favorite Pearson, there are gems aplenty here. Yes, there are neck noises. Yes, people are having "relations" all over the place. And I laughed my head off. However, what we're seeing here is an author in transition. If you've read his last few books in order, it is apparent that Pearson is reaching for something new, and True Cross is the natural step in that progression. I have a feeling the he's going to hit us soon with something that will astound his fans. And I can't wait!

An odd shaggy dog story, often laugh outloud funny in the usual Pearson manner. And then it occurred to me the ending, if not the whole thing, was a sort of banal Hannibal Lector spoof, with the victim the yokel and the perpetrators both the langourous female and the yokels' romantic and peckerish imaginations. Try the ending with that in mind.

What can you say about a book where nothing really happens but you laugh all the same and when you reach the last page you wish it wasn't over. I can't think of another author quite like T. R. Pearson. My late mother suggested I read A SHORT HISTORY... many years ago and after reading that saga of monkey water and hidden cigerettes I've bought every novel. I'm not quite sure how to phrase this. Even though Pearson mocks and ridicules somehow his affection for his characters always comes through. He doesn't seem mean spirited unless the character really deserves it. TRUE CROSS moves at a slower pace than his last three novels but not as slowly as his early work. I hope that someday and evermore Pearson will find the respect he deserves. Our two dogs, Queenie and Monroe, are named for canine characters in earlier Pearson works, and I can't think of any stronger evidence for the quality of his writing unless I made mention of something even remotely having to do with literary critisism. Trust me, read the book, if it doesn't make you laugh or if something doesn't remind you of your own life, just where do you live?!

Imagine Dante moving his INFERNO to Virginia and then subcontracting Mark Twain to be its tour-guide, and you get something close to T.R.Pearson's TRUE CROSS. It's a beautifully written book, dark and funny, and the readers who follow Paul Tatum, its protagonist, and his sidekick, Stoney, down the road paved with their good intentions will end up, literally and figuratively, in a hell of a read. Highly recommended.

T. R. Pearson is the absolute master of the rhythms and speech of the small-town south. A Short History of a Small Place is his bestwork, and ranks among the greatest American fiction of the 20thcentury. There are other great Southern writers such as Faulkner and Eudora Welty, but Pearson is the only one I know of who is ableto capture the folksy gossip that takes place at the small-towngeneral store. His writing is whimsical and lyrical, and the turnsof phrase will keep you smiling: "Kenny, his name was, and he sortof worked at a local muffler shop, a shabby unfranchised enterpriseon the rise behind the Sinclair where they never stocked yourmuffler exactly but carried one they could make fit. They knewinordinate need for mallets and main force, bent tailpipes withtheir knees..." Which sounds like many places I know, but Icouldn't phrase it that well.The novel is a narrative from Paul Tatum, who works as anaccountant, helping people with taxes and the like. He offersreflections about various townspeople he knows, their odditiesand eccentricities. These are small-town peculiarities, the kindsof things that you'd actually see in a small town--no axe murdersand such that too many novelists seem to feel are essential tomake a story interesting.Pearson is always at his best in the southern small town. In thisnovel Tatum visits Venice: in Pearson's novel Blue Ridge, someof the story took place in New York. Such visits to urban sitesdon't seem to work as well for Pearson--a bit like Michael Jordantrying his hand at baseball, although Pearson in an urban settingis vastly superior to Jordan on a baseball field. The ending israther downbeat: Pearson has worked murders into several novels:Cry Me a River, Blue Ridge, and Off for the Sweet Hereafter, butit doesn't work quite as well here. Still--Pearson is alwaysworth reading, and it's a fine novel.