Off Magazine Street

Rating:
Summary: Desperadoes gone right
Review: This genre-bending author enthusiastically attacks reality in a unique blend of anti-heroes, misfits and innocents, equally at home knocking back shots with Tennessee Williams or Ernest Hemingway.

Byron Burns is one of the fair-haired boys of his home town, Eames, Alabama. Unfortunately, he becomes the proverbial black sheep of his family. Along with Bobby Long, another favorite son, the friends take the low road once they hit college: an indiscriminate feast of wine, women and song, inseparable on their long slide into oblivion.

Now in late middle age, Byron and Bobby have spent so many years besotted that they have begun to act like the stumbling derelicts that litter the streets of every city, blacking out from one drink to another. Moving to New Orleans, the men are joined in their cheap hotel room by Lorraine, a grossly obese mental patient Bobby has known for years, years before she submitted to the comfort of food to fill an emotional vacuum. Lorraine's 16-year old daughter is not much better off, already pushed to the edge of an indifferent society.

No one is particularly surprised when Lorraine dies, her larger-than-life heart strained beyond capacity. It is through Lorraine's death that Bobby and Byron's lives are transformed, in a subtle twist of fate, when her daughter, Hannah, appears on their doorstep, such as it is, with questions about her mother and not much hope to squander.

Hannah's arrival sparks long-buried ideals that Byron and Bobby have so far successfully obliterated with an excess of alcohol and philandering. Content in their careless waste of days, the men are entertained by the literary fragments of their younger years as teachers, reciting poetry and reading long passages from beloved novels. Hannah is a source of intense curiosity, wrapped in her nubile innocence, especially for the outspoken Bobby.

The ultimate transformation of these two men, the awakening of their abandoned finer selves, is something neither is prepared to acknowledge. Neither is Hannah thrilled by these middle-aged reprobates, although, given her lack of choices, they seem to be the only game in town.

Hannah stays in New Orleans with Byron and Bobby, gradually drawn in by their ineptitude and seduced by the treasure of knowledge they men so generously share. Add in the neighborhood derelicts from "the outdoor living room" and the scene is set for an excess of debauchery, really just a bunch of lonely, misspent men who drift together, attracted like Bobby and Byron to the glow of Hannah's youth and potential.

Like Eliza with her two Dr. Doolittles, the story unfolds in a series of drunken antics, but within the framework of family, albeit a highly unusual one. Not just a humorous tale of redemption, Off Magazine Street is a lesson in compassion. Judgment too easily rendered permits us to throw away those who have slipped from acceptable social mores. Ronald Everett Capps reminds us to look deeper, past the obvious, into that vast reservoir of humanity, where there is a home for all. Luan Gaines/2004.




Rating:
Summary: Anthem for an Alcoholic
Review: This sad attempt at Southern Gothic is nothing more than the author's rambling alcoholic rationalization for boozing it. It's almost as if this "book" could replace or repair the untold time he spent in a drunken daze writing the thing.

"Off Magazine Street" is poorly conceived with little for plot other than two drunken bums trying to peek under a schoolgirl's skirt. The revelations offered in this text are: 1) old, drunk men will chase young girls; 2) young girls can be correctly wary of old, drunk men; and 3) novels can be published without a hint of editing.