Followers

Friday, April 19, 2013

The Dark Corner by Mark Powell
Knoxville:  The University of Tennessee Press
$24.95 - 305 pages

“The best Appalachian novelist of his generation.”
                                                                     - Ron Rash

   Mark Powell’s The Dark Corner  is probably the best Appalachian novel that I have read in the last decade.  It is also the most disturbing. In this, his third novel, Powell captures both the natural beauty of northwestern South Carolina and the seething violence and paranoia that lurks beneath the surface.  This is a region where the interests of environmental groups, real estate developers, the Federal government and right-wing extremists collide. The result is  volatile and unstable, as homemade nitroglycerine.

   At the heart of this novel is the  Walker family: a collection of haunted and guilt-ridden souls who resemble terminal invalids, each trapped in a personal purgatory. Elijah Walker, the patriarch has retreated to a little shack where he spends the day watching a flickering black and whiteTV, feeding his beagles and peering at the ridge tops which are occasionally filled with invading Vietcong. The real world and the surreal past have merged and Elijah is haunted by Vietnam and his wife’s death in an automobile accident.  Alienated from his sons and the modern world, he appears to have his back to the wall, watching his approaching death with resignation.

   Malcomb, Elijah’s younger son is an ex-Episcopal priest and a failed suicide (he drank a gallon of antifreeze). He is also haunted by specters from Iraq, including a mutilated child that accompanies him as he travels aimlessly through his old haunts in Seneca, Walhalla and his brother’s resort property on Lake Keowee. A reformed alcoholic, he is poor company for his hard-drinking brother; however, he finds a kind of temporary peace with Jordan, a drug addict who is as psychically damaged as he is. Like many of the characters in this novel, Malcomb and Jordan are constantly searching for God through drugs, meditation, ... a peace that eludes them.

   Dallas Walker, Elijah’s older son, is Powell’s most fully realized creation. “Too young for Vietnam and too old for Iraq,” Dallas broods over his “missed opportunities.” A one-time college football star and a highly successful real estate developer with a trophy wife who shares her husband’s obsession with physical fitness (she does twelve miles on the treadmill each morning), Randi has undertaken the daunting job of keeping Dallas up and running. Over-medicated and existing on a steady diet of Ripped Fuel, percocet, OxyContin and Johnnie Walker, Dallas seems to be preparing for some portentous event which is now at hand.  Using his wealth and contacts, Dallas has become involved with extremist militia groups (THE TREE OF LIBERTY) and right-wing politicians; he waits for his “opportunity.”  Like his father and younger brother, he is determined to experience his own war.

   Then, there is Elijah’s brother, Uncle Tillman.  Over-weight and simple, Tillman is the family outcast.  No longer capable of dressing himself and bathing, Tillman sits in his own excrement, texting religious messages to his relatives. While his internet-acquired wife fornicates with Mexican workers in the next room, Tillman holds forth like Jeremiah and Job. (YE HAVE MADE OF MY HERITAGE, AN ABOMINATION.) Tillman is a source of shame to the Walker family, especially Dallas.

   The supporting cast in this dark and tension-soaked tale includes Dr. Leighton Clatter, who may be the nearest thing to an earth-bound demon in The Dark Corner.  Corrupt and wealthy, Clatter controls everything from illegal firearms and Atlanta-based drug traffic to prostitution and all of it is
flowing into northwestern South Carolina like a polluted river.  Clatter’s eager minions include corrupt government officials, right-wing activists,  AMERICA FIRST advocates, turncoat FBI agents and a smathering of organized crime. ( Powell includes a marvelous old southern politician and
ex-presidental candidate named Chellis who still dreams of resurrecting “old South values.”)  Clatter manipulates everything as though he is playing chess....but his motives are uncertain since he seems to have moved beyond mere greed and a lust for power.  Clatter seems to be “unmotivated evil,” perverse and whimsical.

   Literature has come a long way since James Dickey’s Deliverance, yet here we are, once more probing the darkness beneath the natural world, like the “sea change” in Rash’s short story, “Something Rich and Strange.” Like Dickey and  Rash, Mark Powell knows that more is at stake than a culture clash between traditional values and “Nu South” progress.  From the “adventure-turned-nightmare” trip down the Chattooga in Deliverance, we have progressed to the beach front cathederal-like summer homes and luxury pontoons that now troll those same waters. Those four adventurers who rafted down a doomed river are now among the privileged and over-medicated residents of Lake Keowee. They are dozing on the decks of their trophy homes.  The dark waters of these “tamed” rivers appear serene, but Mark Powell suggests that this  becalmed state is deceptive. It has something to do with the “protean nature” of water....the ability to change into something radically different.

   

57 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for continuing to review, despite the gnats swarming!!! This sounds like a very dark book, but am putting it on my list anyhow. Have to get the first one and start from scratch on this writer.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  17. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  19. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  20. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  22. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  24. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  25. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  26. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  27. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  28. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  29. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  30. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  31. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Looks like the spam harpies invaded here!

    ReplyDelete
  33. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  34. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  35. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  36. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  37. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Asking questions are really pleasant thing if you are not understanding something fully, except this article provides good understanding even.


    My page: モンスタービーツ

    ReplyDelete
  39. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Currently it appears like Wordpress is the top blogging platform
    out there right now. (from what I've read) Is that what you're using on your blog?


    Also visit my web-site; ロレックスレプリカ

    ReplyDelete
  41. Awesome issues here. I am very satisfied to peer your post.
    Thank you so much and I'm taking a look forward to touch you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?

    Also visit my webpage ... エアジョーダン

    ReplyDelete
  42. For latest information you have to go to see internet and on the web I
    found this site as a finest site for most up-to-date
    updates.

    My web-site - クロエバッグ新作

    ReplyDelete
  43. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Hello, I wish for to subscribe for this website to take newest updates,
    therefore where can i do it please help out.

    Look at my web blog; オークリーメガネ

    ReplyDelete
  45. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Hi there Dear, are you genuinely visiting this web
    page on a regular basis, if so then you will definitely get fastidious
    know-how.

    my web site: ロレックスレプリカ

    ReplyDelete
  47. I could not resist commenting. Perfectly written!


    Also visit my web-site - プラダアウトレット

    ReplyDelete
  48. 人々 をまた持っている あなた自身 店 花嫁 を選択する 彼または彼女の 結婚リスト。 女性
    がある、 - 生まれ の欲望 デコレータ ハンドバッグと 服 アクセサリーは
    魅力 に いくつかの 魔法の呪文 で ファッション 銀河。

    Feel free to visit my site miumiu 財布

    ReplyDelete
  49. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  50. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  51. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete