Let The Dead Bury Their Dead
December 18th, 2002by Randall Kenan
ISBN: 0349107122
This book is a collection of interconnected stories, all of which tie to the tiny southern town of Tims Creek. From the viewpoints of different people and different times, these stories explore the multiple meanings and intersections of race, poverty, faith, and sexuality in this community.
Randall Kenan is a mesmerizing storyteller. He has a good ear for how people speak, and the right sense about how people listen. Most authors writing dialogue using any kind of dialect annoy the hell out of me, but Kenan pulls it off. He knows what his characters sound like. He also knows what they think like: he doles out the secrets, jealousies, surprises, petty annoyances, pains, and fears of his characters in the right amounts to keep you reading.
These stories also reveal a fascination for the truth, and the different forms that the truth can take. Some stories (”Clarence and the Dead” and “Things of This World”) are magical in multiple ways in reaching that truth, while in others (”What Are Days”) the truth moves from a repressed and hidden state to moving joyfully in the light.
Highly recommended.
