Answer: Maybe not. Question: Should you read this book.
I've read all of Hunter's later works, so I was looking for something that was written earlier in his career. Now, I can appreciate that his writing skills rapidly improved after he wrote this one.
This is a 1995 book that fills in some early peripheral information in the Bob Lee Swagger saga. Bob Lee's dad, Earl, was killed in a shoot out with some Pye boys. One of them fathered a child who was born after his daddy was killed, dying in the same shoot out with Earl Swagger. Dirty White Boys is the story of Lamar Pye, a psychopath. The book starts with a coarse scene of an attempted jailhouse rape. Hunter writes graphically, "His was the largest penis ever seen on a white man in that prison or any of the others in which Lamar had spent so much of his adult life." Lamar beats his assailant and then causes him to choke to death on a bar of Ivory soap. Knowing that the buddies of the black man he killed would come after him, Lamar escaped from jail and then went on a wild crime spree. Really, it was only my compulsive nature that kept me reading despite the fact that, unlike his other books, Hunter's characters were predictable and nearly one dimensional. The book title accurately characterizes Lamar and his cohorts. The author introduced a couple interesting strong male figures, Bud Pewtie, the main hero, and the old and drunken detective, Lt. C.D. Henderson. But, even their personal conflicts were typical. You don't need to read this one to appreciate the background of Bob Lee.
No comments:
Post a Comment