Joe (1991) by Larry Brown

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Joe (1991)

by Larry Brown

Oxford, Mississippi

Mississippi: 15/19

   I chuckled when I read the jacket copy, which compares author Larry Brown to Faulkner, Welty and O'Connor in the same sentence.  What you mean he writes like three of the five non-African-American authors that matter in the deep south?  If you look up the author online you will soon see that he is associated with a genre called "grit-lit."  The Good Reads page is a mess and lists titles from Faulkner to O'Connor and everything in between.  To me, it sounds like an attempt to rebrand Southern Gothic for the "modern" (aka 1990s) period.   The prevalence of freaks, and freak like behavior in literature from the deep south is unique within American literature, sure every state and region has its dysfunctional families, but the patriarch of the dysfunctional family in this book really takes the cake.  Calling him a knock-down, drag-out alcoholic doesn't begin to do his depravity justice.