SINNERS, COME AWAY

A first novel which derives from the Caldwell area of contact, substitutes an almost static still-life of no-account poor whites for violence, bears little social protest but carries the direct accent of this world. Centered is Presley Wayne Cargile, arrested and jailed for stealing a car and driving it over the border with a female companion. This reproduces, with a rough, raw fidelity, the weeks he spends in jail before his trial and sentence -- the talk of food, women, whiskeying, cockroaches; the time spent in singing, gambling, or speculating over his sentence; the final repudiation of his wife- and child. The skill here, which relies on the verbatim vernacular of these people, will still not carry this over some fairly dead spots -- notable among them a total absence of narrative action -- to a general audience.