Fay: A Novel

Wow. What a book.I couldn't stop reading it. I had read JOE a couple of times but that novel gives FAY only a tree breeze of introduction. We know she leaves. We concentrated on Gary 's survival. But Gary had a little help. FAY walks away with two dollars and two cigarettes. Like STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE,the Jones kids survive with the kindness of strangers. But neither of the Jones kids depends on such kindness. They just keep clawing out of the swamps- swamps which would swallow them and nobody would ever know. They are survivors and Larry Brown makes us feel every fist, every drink, every cigarette, every step which keeps one alive and surviving.I too, tire of the seemingly constant drinking and smoking. I am from the south but not the Deep South. But the heroism happens when a character who is losing all he or she has to the swamps, gives a kid a boost as he goes down and Gary and Fay both survive. Not always a pretty survival but survival against all odds...Would not recommend this to the faint of heart.But I do recommend. Like another review said, my next read will need to be escapism...

***SPOILERS***The underlying premise of this novel - that a 17-year-old completely uneducated girl from the Mississippi woods would prove so compelling to two mature, sexually experienced men that they would ruin their careers and even kill to have her - would be hysterically funny if it weren't so preposterous, as well as painful to read. This book began with promise but relatively quickly settled into bland and sometimes hackneyed plot and descriptions befitting a high school junior writing his first novel. Everything is signalled, you see it coming in advance, but still you hope the author has more going for him, surely. But that's not the case. There's soooo much needless detail - we're told how many buttons Fay pushes to turn on the VCR, we are forced to read each step in how she makes coffee, it becomes too much to put up with over and over again in a book that's too long already. And I'm not saying this because I don't like detail. I love historical novels partly because of the details they use, the world they pull us into; but these details were trivial and didn't enhance the story in any way.Fay, the main character, is resourceful, I'll give her that, but ultimately she's unlikeable - though just at the point where she becomes almost likeable, just when you think she's improving herself and maturing, she murders someone and goes on the lam, hooks up with pole dancers and hookers and drug dealers and doesn't have the sense to get out. Could at any time have called her ex-lover to come get her but instead acts as if she doesn't know how to use a phone, can't figure out what is the address of the house she's living in (are there no street signs?), repeatedly ignores warning signs that the man she's with is a bad, bad man, and then suddenly at the end of the book, when it's finally convenient to the plot, she calls her ex-lover - so I'm sorry, Larry Brown, if you meant to indicate that she's smart, she's just not; she's just an ignorant country girl, one more in a long line of similar girls who've been taken advantage of, but she doesn't have any morality with which to redeem herself, nor does she use anything she's learned to rise in the world. And the ending of this book, the quite obvious climax the author spends endless pages hurtling us toward - the final conflict b/w Aaron and Sam - dies in a whisper, no real ultimate confrontation between the two, just a cop-out ending and an epilogue that makes it clear Fay goes on to New Orleans and becomes a pole dancer herself, with, I believe, five dead bodies left in her wake. What was the point of all those pages bringing Aaron and Sam together if the two of them were never even going to exchange a single word?I hate that I wasted so much time on this book. That's the sorry truth.

If you read the novel Joe by Larry Brown you know that Gary Jones had two sisters and the older of the two of them left. Living in what can only be described as the most horrific conditions imaginable, she just got up and walked away. Walked away from her family and from the story. Joe was about Gary Jones and Joe Ransom, so the girl's story was left untold. The reader was left wondering about this glaring loose thread. What happened to the girl? She was just gone.Fay, also by Larry Brown, tells the story of that girl, and what an amazing story it is. Picture a beautiful, innocent, uneducated girl with no experience in the world that normal people live in just walking down the dusty country roads of rural Mississippi with only a couple of dollars to her name and completely unaware of the dangers lurking in the shadows. That is where the story of Fay begins.This being a Larry Brown novel you know that you are in store for a long, unrelenting dose of noir. Things just aren't going to go well. And by the time all the pieces are in place, you find yourself caring more for these characters than you thought you would.I'm not going to give away the plot. Just know that it's a joy to read. I'll turn back to this one in the future. By far my favorite by Larry Brown.

I don’t have time right now to write a full review but trust me, everything byLarry Brown will ultimately be considered American lit. If you are interested I would read TIM first (Fay’s big brother, also a good movie starring Nick Cage). Not necessary but a great prelude to FAY. No matter, FAY is an amazing novel. You will love FAY and prey for her safety.

Larry Brown, as is always the case with this author, will grab you by the seat of your pants from start to finish and you won't want him to let go. Yes, it is a long book, maybe a bit too lengthy, but it is hard to put down and Brown insists on getting his point across...which is make his fictional characters seem real in a life that is made up mainly of drinking, smoking, cruising around and sex, and then more of the same. Could it be any different with the characters that populate his writing? That is a question that readers will try to answer throughout the book. If you are into moralism, don't bother with this novel...Brown doesn't want your opinion - he wants to tell it like it was in Mississippi (and many other places in the '70s-'80s, and not with much has changed in today's world) and he does so. Will the reader sympathize with Fay and the other figures (men & women left in her wake) in his story? I again don't think Larry Brown would give a hoot, but he will leave you thinking about the America we live in, like it or not.

This is gritty and real. Fay will stay with you long after you finish this book. The author, who is a sad loss to literature, tells a tale of empathy and inequality through a child/woman who has grown up the hard way with little knowledge of the wider world but who learns fast - very fast. The story is peppered with characters it's difficult not to feel for. This is a page turner in the tradition of Faulkner and McCarthy. I can offer no higher praise.

My husband was desperate for this book, so when he opened it on Christmas Day and it was in French, it was a big disappointment! It’s not made clear that this is the French version, so buyer beware.