JAILER, MY JAILER

by Marian Gavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1964

An absorbing, shocking, explosively extreme melodrama is also a small town Texas tragedy laced with honey and blood. What is shocking is not the story but Miss Gavin's imagination, which goes berserk like a Scythian in an abattoir. Big Sam Breelon, a monolithic stereotype of the Western county Sheriff, is revered for his strength. Sam's much loved wife has been dead for two years, one of his two sons drowned, and the other is away. Big Sam, at 48, has become very official, but even the Negroes know that he is benevolent and they worship him, as do the single women in the town. However, one day Sam rapes his 17 year old neighbor, Jolene, and later murders her in a pecan grove. There are extenuating circumstances but carnage is the outcome. An itinerant evangelist, accused of the slaying, dies to cleanse Big Sam of his sin and several other deaths surround these two (those of other men, a lazy wife, chickens, a mule, a dog) to finally reveal that the guilt is not in the sheriff's star....

Pub Date: April 10, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1964

Categories: FICTION