CHILD OF GOD

Child of God, maybe, but also murderer, arsonist, and necrophiliac is crazy Lester Ballard from Tennessee. He shoots the man who buys his former homestead, the daughter of a friend who won't pull down her pants for him, and various random couples parking in the hills. If the victim's in a house, he bums it down. If not, he drags the dead lady to his cave, where he fits her out in sleazy dimestore dresses, wigs, lipstick before using her. The fact that his daddy done killed hisself after his mother run off don't make you feel sorry for him one bit. Why the winner of the William Faulkner Award and a Rockefeller Foundation grant would waste his time and their money on such an artificially stylized narrative is worth only slightly more consideration than this book. There are enough novels about fictitious southern murderers to last until the next three U.S. excursions into Southeast Asia. As for the real ones, read Capote, Joe Eszterhas, or Ed Sanders — they do it much better.