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Title: Hell at the Breech : A Novel by Tom Franklin ISBN: 0-688-16741-1 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 27 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (20 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: THE EVIL THAT MEN DO...
Comment: ...sometimes in the name of 'justice'. Tom Franklin's first novel is set in 1897-98 rural Alabama, and is based on historical events surrounding a gang that called itself Hell at the Breech. Formed ostensibly to avenge the murder of the brother of its founder, the gang's activities quickly spread beyond the boundaries of justice and revenge, and into more and more violence - committed for the sake of greed, and, sometimes, for its own sake.
The strengths that drive this work are Franklin's character building, as well as his incredible talent for placing the reader right smack-dab in the middle of the setting. None of the folks of populate this novel are clearly, completely good or bad - all of the good ones have their 'warts', and all (well, at least some...) of the bad ones have at least one redeeming characteristic. Many of the men who fight on the side of the gang are doing so out of what they see as honorable reasons - and many others are forced into supporting them on threat of death. It's a timeless story of the evil that can be done in the name of justice - one that can shed a lot of light on many of the events of our own time. It should be widely read for that reason alone.
Franklin is an amazingly talented writer - his short story collection POACHERS is witness to this fact. I think I could have easily enjoyed this novel much more if it weren't for the fact that he seems to be preoccupied - perhaps fascinated is more correct - with the almost unbearably gruesome details in the story. Telling a tale such as this is naturally going to involve a lot of violence - the men on both sides of the fight lived and breathed it every day - but there were too many instances in the book that seemed to dwell overly long on what amounted to literary 'close-ups'. American television seems to have 'caught up' with popular film trends in the last few years - shows like 'CSI' and its offshoot, 'CSI - Miami' are replete with cringe-inducing close-ups showing bullets and knives slicing into human flesh. Franklin is a better writer than this - he shouldn't feel the need to cram this sort of thing into an otherwise stunning debut.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Gripping Tale of Men Pushed to the Limit
Comment: Like many of the reviewers here, I was very impressed with Franklin's story collection Poachers, and especially the novella by the same name which dominated that award-winning collection. Franklin's lean style, and his obvious familiarity with the rural Alabama landscapes he portrays, remind me a little of William Gay's equally-fascinating depictions of rural Tennessee. When I saw that Franklin had a novel coming out based upon a real-life conflict set during late 19th-century Alabama, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Hell at the Breech did not disappoint.
The novel takes its time setting the scene, and giving the reader a true sense of Mitcham's Beat, a tiny slice of rural Alabama where poor farmers have too much work to do to stop and grieve over something like a dead spouse. Two teenage brothers, Mack and William Burke, sneak out for a night on the town and during a botched robbery, a man is accidentally killed. The victim, Arch Bedsole, is a shop-owner and local politician, and his murder prompts Arch's cousin Tooch Bedsole to form a gang, with blood oaths, who would set matters right in this neck of the woods.
We find out pretty early that the gang, calling themselves "Hell at the Breech", take their group quite seriously. You are either with them or against them, and you don't want to be against them. For obvious reasons, they don't handle rejection well since anyone approached about joining then knows their identity.
Over the course of the novel Franklin skillfully blurs the distinction between good and evil, creating some ambiguity in the reader as the violence escalates. William joins Tooch's group right away, while Mack, who is considered too young, keeps a low profile while working in Tooch's store, torn between his natural curiosity and his fear at learning too much. Lev James, one of the more ruthless of the gang, suffers tragedy at home and at the same time it appears he is about to lose his farm to foreclosure, although he claims to have made the required payment to the ruthless lender who is not about to cut him any breaks. Tooch himself, who starts out hell-bent for revenge for his cousin's unsolved murder, may have some complicity in his death, the cover-up, and may have bent the rules to take over the store. Even the widow, a mid-wife who raised Mack and William Burke, knows a lot more about the goings on at Mitcham's Beat then we are first led to believe. The self-righteos townfolk who comprise the "posse" demonstrate as much bloodlust as the gang they are after. Nothing is ever as black and white as we initially think.
Over the course of the novel, the tension escalates and a monumental conflict looms ahead. I loved the "gun for hire" character of Ardy Fox, whose brutal method for dealing with the lawless gang, under apparent authority from a local judge, reminded me of the ruthless game warden from Poachers. Sheriff Billy Waite is another character very skillfully drawn by Franklin, a fundamentally fair man with a weakness for whiskey, who is trying to make it to retirement in one piece, with a minimum of bloodshed on his hands. As the murders pile up and the Hell at the Breech gang veer further out of control, Waite realizes he is powerless to stop the mob mentality gripping the townpeople, who want quick results.
I read some commentary by the author, in which he revealed that while the conflict depicted in this novel actually occured in Alabama in the 1890's, there are conflicting reports as to certain of the details. After getting bogged down initially in the details of trying to sift through the evidence and get every fact right, a basically impossible task over a century later, Franklin eventually decided to use the known history as his roadmap, and tell the story his way. I am glad he did, as his debut novel is one of the better reads I have come across in a long time. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5
Summary: Beautifully written by a true storyteller
Comment: This story, set in the late 1800s in the Southern rural district of Mitcham Beat, begins by introducing us to Macky Burke, a boy on the brink of manhood. In a boyhood moment of adventure, Macky and his brother accidentally commit murder one night and set off a series of events so violent that it changes life in this tiny backwater forever. Tooch Bedsole, brother of the murdered politician/store owner, takes over the store and makes it a center of power for the gang that calls itself "Hell at the Breech," and proclaims the townies the sworn enemy, killers of his brother, Arch. Macky, in reparation for the debt his adoptive grandmother ran up at the general store under the previous owner, is assigned to work for Tooch until the debt is paid off, and is therefore caught up in the increasingly violent activities of the gang. The story reaches a page-turning climax when over 40 men ride out to Mitcham Beat from town to put an end to the lawlessness in a brutal battle scene.
The setting and characters in Hell at the Breech are mean, dismal, and poverty stricken, but Franklin's writing style so strikingly beautiful that the reader is entranced, caught between a world both beautiful & ugly at the same time. In prose-like sentences, Franklin weaves a tale based on actual events and gives the world a wonderfully complex and compelling novel. This book is highly recommended!!
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Title: Poachers : Stories by Tom Franklin ISBN: 0688177719 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 30 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux ISBN: 0375414746 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 17 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Rabbit Factory: A Novel by Larry Brown ISBN: 0743245237 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Bangkok 8 by John Burdett ISBN: 1400040442 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Last Car to Elysian Fields: A Novel by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0743245423 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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