BOOK GROUPIE: Authors appreciate good books

Most of us are lucky enough to know people we can depend on, people we can trust for good, solid advice.

When it comes to book recommendations, I often read the blurbs on book jackets. If I read a blurb from an author I enjoy reading, I trust the book they’re praising is also one I’ll enjoy.

When I noticed Dennis Lehane’s recommendation blurb on Tom Franklin’s “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter,” I had to give the book a shot. Lehane is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I’ve featured his work in two Book Groupie columns, something I’ve done for only a couple of other authors.

Lehane’s blurb calls “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” a “cause for celebration,” and I agree. The book is rife with good, old-fashioned storytelling.

The sentences are long when the mood calls for it, sparse when that’s all that’s needed. Franklin puts readers into the heads of his characters, and he makes the setting — rural Mississippi — an important character as well.

The story weaves in and out of two time periods, the 1970s and more than 20 years later. Two characters are followed through these periods, their lives crossing in unexpected ways.

One character is a white male, Larry Ott. As a kid, Larry was bullied by his father and his classmates. He never had any real friends, except for the second main character, Silas Jones.

Silas is the son of a poor, black, single mother. He excels in sports and is popular in school, despite the racial tensions that exist in his small town.

Silas surreptitiously befriends Larry for a few months of their childhood. The experience marks both their lives forever.

While in high school, Larry takes a local girl to a drive-in movie and never returns her home. The entire town believes Larry has killed the girl, but there’s no evidence to support the suspicions. Larry is ostracized in the community, and more than 20 years later, when another local girl goes missing, Larry becomes the sole suspect.

Silas is a constable investigating the second girl’s disappearance. While searching for the girl, he also searches his own heart.

He decides it’s time to reveal a secret he’s been carrying around for decades — one that may take suspicion off Larry, but place it on himself.

I’m glad I trusted Lehane, and I hope you’ll trust me. “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” is a book worth reading.
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Miller welcomes book suggestions. Read her blog at www.anitalaydon miller.blogspot.com
or e-mail anita.l.miller@att.net.