TRUE HOPE

Another poignant, psychologically probing tale from one of the brightest new lights of southern fiction: here, Manley borrows the name and mood of his debut novel (The Cockfighter, 1998) but is more concerned with finding the root of optimism in a man battered by death, prison, and betrayal.

Nearly 40, Al Cantrell walks away from his Georgia prison cell a changed man. His anguish over the death of his wife and true love Kate having driven him to drink and the wrong side of the law, he’s made peace—two years later—with his grief. Not that he wants to forget Kate; on the contrary, he soon moves into her father’s trailer in northern Georgia, the better to preserve her memory. A dazed and dimming Korean War vet, father-in-law Tom doesn’t have much to say to Al, but as a favor brings him to Benny, the county powerbroker, who puts them to work as his private team of enforcers. But when Tom deliberately burns down a house during an eviction, Benny appoints Al his guardian. Al, however, at last lonely for female company, takes up with Laurie, a part-time prostitute whose husband left her, taking their baby with him, and hasn’t much time for Tom. At their next eviction, Tom not only burns that place, too, but severely burns himself as well. When treatment fails and he dies, Al loses his last physical link to Kate, along with his job (Benny wants him gone). Hoping for the best, he decides to help Laurie steal her baby back and start anew—a decision he soon regrets.

The discoveries Manley makes in Al about hope and resilience are not only quietly credible, but also give a heat that fires all the characters, no matter how self-interested, with a common humanity and a flash of noble purpose.