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Hell at the Breech: A Novel |
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Hell at the Breech: A Novel |
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基本信息·出版社：Harper Perennial
·页码：368 页
·出版日期：2003年12月
·ISBN：0060566760
·条形码：9780060566760
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
内容简介 在线阅读本书
In 1897, an aspiring politician is mysteriously murdered in the rural area of Alabama known as Mitcham Beat. His outraged friends -- —mostly poor cotton farmers -- form a secret society, Hell-at-the-Breech, to punish the townspeople they believe responsible. The hooded members wage a bloody year-long campaign of terror that culminates in a massacre where the innocent suffer alongside the guilty. Caught in the maelstrom of the Mitcham war are four people: the aging sheriff sympathetic to both sides; the widowed midwife who delivered nearly every member of Hell-at-the-Breech; a ruthless detective who wages his own war against the gang; and a young store clerk who harbors a terrible secret.
Based on incidents that occurred a few miles from the author's childhood home, Hell at the Breech chronicles the events of dark days that led the people involved to discover their capacity for good, evil, or for both.
作者简介 Tom Franklin is the author of Poachers: Stories and Hell at the Breech. Winner of a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, he teaches in the University of Mississippi's MFA program and lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their children, Claire and Thomas.
编辑推荐 From Publishers Weekly This immensely accomplished novel by the author of the Edgar Award-winning short story collection Poachers is based on a real-life feud in the 1890s that pitted the underclass-poor, mostly white sharecroppers-of Clarke County, Ala., against the land-owning gentry who could and did control their fate. But that simple summary does not do justice to the complex and incredibly violent events that shook the community. The seeds of the violent uprising are planted when Macky Burke, a poor, white teenage orphan living with his grandmother, the widow Gates, accidentally shoots local merchant Arch Bedsole during a holdup. Arch's enraged cousin, Quincy "Tooch" Bedsole, a down-at-the-heels farmer, cultivates those seeds with a mixture of resentment, greed and a desire for vengeance. He forms the "Hell-at-the-Breech" gang, made up of criminals and struggling white tenant farmers who but for their guns are nearly as powerless as the former slaves they compete with for work. Hell-at-the-Breech terrorizes Clarke County, exacting frontier justice (and cash) from the exploitative landowners, driving black sharecroppers out of the county and menacing the white farmers who are too law-abiding to join their ranks. Fighting the outbreak of violence is Sheriff Billy Waite, an essentially good man trying to keep the peace and administer justice in a lawless world. Despite an unremitting catalogue of violence, this gory book is a pleasure to read for its clean, unexpected turns of phrase (in a cotton field, "each tuft [is] white as a senator's eyebrow"); the laconic humor of its characters ("Rumors fly out of Mitcham Beat like hair in a catfight"); and vibrant, complex characters who spring from the pages. Franklin may have used history as a starting point, but he imagines the events in human terms, creating a book that transmutes historical fact into something much more powerful, dramatic and compelling.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist *Starred Review* What starts as an apparent accident leads to a feudal killing spree in Franklin's accomplished account of a true story he heard while growing up in Alabama. When teenage brothers William and Mack Burke go out one night in 1897 to rob a passing horseman to get money for a whore, younger Mack's revolver accidentally discharges, hitting Arch Bedsole, a well-liked merchant and aspiring politician, as the boys run off and swear silence. But Arch's cousin, Tooch Bedsole, contends that men from an adjoining town are responsible. To avenge the killing he forms an unholy alliance of his Mitcham Beat countrymen, naming it Hell-at-the-Breech and targeting first those local men who refuse to sign its blood oath. It's up to Clarke County sheriff Billy Waite, who's feeling all of his 60 years and drinking too much, to stop the killing and curb the posse out to get the alliance. This is not a story for the faint of heart or stomach, with descriptions of violence so graphic and vivid as to seem cinematic. Yet Franklin, whose award-winning
Poachers (2000) elicited comparisons to Faulkner, is a splendid stylist who explores moral issues and stocks this tale with memorable (if mostly unpleasant) characters, spinning it seemingly effortlessly to a final surprise twist. This is historical fiction at its best.
Michele LeberCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 专业书评 From Publishers Weekly This immensely accomplished novel by the author of the Edgar Award-winning short story collection Poachers is based on a real-life feud in the 1890s that pitted the underclass-poor, mostly white sharecroppers-of Clarke County, Ala., against the land-owning gentry who could and did control their fate. But that simple summary does not do justice to the complex and incredibly violent events that shook the community. The seeds of the violent uprising are planted when Macky Burke, a poor, white teenage orphan living with his grandmother, the widow Gates, accidentally shoots local merchant Arch Bedsole during a holdup. Arch's enraged cousin, Quincy "Tooch" Bedsole, a down-at-the-heels farmer, cultivates those seeds with a mixture of resentment, greed and a desire for vengeance. He forms the "Hell-at-the-Breech" gang, made up of criminals and struggling white tenant farmers who but for their guns are nearly as powerless as the former slaves they compete with for work. Hell-at-the-Breech terrorizes Clarke County, exacting frontier justice (and cash) from the exploitative landowners, driving black sharecroppers out of the county and menacing the white farmers who are too law-abiding to join their ranks. Fighting the outbreak of violence is Sheriff Billy Waite, an essentially good man trying to keep the peace and administer justice in a lawless world. Despite an unremitting catalogue of violence, this gory book is a pleasure to read for its clean, unexpected turns of phrase (in a cotton field, "each tuft [is] white as a senator's eyebrow"); the laconic humor of its characters ("Rumors fly out of Mitcham Beat like hair in a catfight"); and vibrant, complex characters who spring from the pages. Franklin may have used history as a starting point, but he imagines the events in human terms, creating a book that transmutes historical fact into something much more powerful, dramatic and compelling.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist *Starred Review* What starts as an apparent accident leads to a feudal killing spree in Franklin's accomplished account of a true story he heard while growing up in Alabama. When teenage brothers William and Mack Burke go out one night in 1897 to rob a passing horseman to get money for a whore, younger Mack's revolver accidentally discharges, hitting Arch Bedsole, a well-liked merchant and aspiring politician, as the boys run off and swear silence. But Arch's cousin, Tooch Bedsole, contends that men from an adjoining town are responsible. To avenge the killing he forms an unholy alliance of his Mitcham Beat countrymen, naming it Hell-at-the-Breech and targeting first those local men who refuse to sign its blood oath. It's up to Clarke County sheriff Billy Waite, who's feeling all of his 60 years and drinking too much, to stop the killing and curb the posse out to get the alliance. This is not a story for the faint of heart or stomach, with descriptions of violence so graphic and vivid as to seem cinematic. Yet Franklin, whose award-winning
Poachers (2000) elicited comparisons to Faulkner, is a splendid stylist who explores moral issues and stocks this tale with memorable (if mostly unpleasant) characters, spinning it seemingly effortlessly to a final surprise twist. This is historical fiction at its best.
Michele LeberCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
