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(More customer reviews)The stories in this volume capture the South at its darkest - yet at the same time they reveal the brightest sparks of the souls of the characters that have been brought to life so vividly here by Marlin Barton. Centered loosely around a single family, they cover a wide span of time - from the Civil War to the present day. Considering the time and place of some of the stories, it's easy to understand that there is some serious ugliness involved - but rather than play it loudly and cheaply, Barton has chosen to be more of a medium than a creator. In his hands, the words become crystalline, allowing the reader to see effortlessly into the lives and times depicted.
The collection begins in (more or less) the present, with `Jeremiah's road', in which an elderly Black man sees the values to which he has clung for so many years fraying at the edges, most evident in the behavior of members of the family across the road. In this story, as in many here, there is an aching sadness for things that are lost, things that are perceived as vital in order to make a life whole, to make sense of the insensible. There are successes and failures - and all of the grey area in between - represented in these chronicled lives. From `Jeremiah's road', the title story takes us back to the time of the Civil War - but rather than being just another story of battles and bloodshed, Barton instead delicately paints a poignant portrait of a single soldier, touched by what he has seen and experienced in ways that will change him forever. The stories continue to work their way through time, winding up with `The cemetery', set, like `Jeremiah's road', in the present.
Many of the stories here involve struggles between the races - struggles to understand each other, to coexist, to find a way to treat each other with respect, sometimes simply to tolerate. There are no sermons here - right and wrong are presented in turn, and it's not always easy to tell them apart. Hmmm - rather like life. Barton's style is simply an amazing thing to behold. His writing is deceptively well-crafted, allowing its complexity to be shrouded in apparent simplicity - but therein lies his craftsmanship as a wordsmith. I think that `The minister', `Fires' and `The cemetery' moved me the most - but every single one of these stories is an absolute gem. I can't wait to read more by this writer.
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