Favorites: The Half-Mammals of Dixie
When, I wonder, did it become commonplace with Southern writers to center a body of work in one specific small town? Wendell Berry has his Port William. Ron Rash had his Cliffside. I suspect it all started with Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha. George Singleton has recently given us Forty-Five, South Carolina.
In The Half-Mammals of Dixie, Singleton unpacks the lives of Forty-Five’s sparse population in short, comic sketches. Common themes here are childhood friendship, alcoholism, and the uniquely small town phenomenon of the cheating spouse that everyone is aware of but the cuckold himself.
More than anything, The Half-Mammals of Dixie is funny. It will make you laugh frequently and occasionally aloud. But, like jokes delivered in rapid succession, they can become muddled if read all in one sitting. Each story, while related to the other pieces in varying degrees, works as a stand-alone narrative that doesn’t rely on the rest of the collection for buttressing, and that may be Half-Mammal’s greatest strength — pull if off your shelf at random and read a story to lighten a bleak mood. I frequently ask my girlfriend to read them to me when cooking, doing taxes, etc. It’s really unbeatable for that sort of thing.
While Singleton ultimately lacks the sophisticated prose styling of later Rash (buy yourself a copy of One Foot in Eden or, even better, Serena) or Berry’s inimitable sense of place, his work succeeds in providing sharp comic sketches of rural life with taut prose and impeccable narrative pacing. But perhaps above all, there is no hint of corn-pone in Half-Mammals. Singleton manages to keep the stories recognizable, relatable, and hilarious without once going for the low-brow “dumb cracker” joke. There is not one single dead mule. The humor is deft and original, and that alone warrants a read.
Sure, it’s not Faulkner. But nothing is.
Posted: by Ryan October 5th, 2009 under Books, Favorites.
Tags: Books, Favorites, George Singleton
