FOOLS' PARADE

Davis Grubb's (The Night of the Hunter) eighth novel is set in the mining country of West Virginia in the spring of 1935. Mattie Appleyard, Johnny Jesus, and Lee Cottrill have just been released from the prison in Glory, West Virginia, and are being escorted out of town by Uncle Doc Council, state prison guard. Mattie has a check for $25,000 representing his savings and interest during forty-seven years imprisonment. And the three ex-cons intend to begin a legitimate enterprise together if they live to cash the check which happens to be payable only to Mattie at the bank in Glory. Uncle Doc who is half evangelist, half criminal, savors the task of preventing their return alive. Grubb's novel thereafter is the story of a chase, and its subtle beginnings with an undertone of ominous unpredictableness decelerates into madcap happenstance in which the ""characters"" become mere pawns of coincidence. It's finally too much to believe that these three, who are authentic outcasts, should become Glory's heroes, that evil should be routed and that even a boy and his dog are reunited.