CRAZY IN ALABAMA

Flames of passion and rebellion confront the darkness of intolerance in Alabama, with many a macabre twist—in Childress's latest southern-fried coming-of-age tale (V for Victor, 1984; Tender, 1990, etc.). The quiet life is over for orphaned 12-year-old Peejoe Bullis and his brother Wiley, both living with their grandmother, when lovely Aunt Lucille stops to visit in 1965—on her way to Hollywood after ending an oppressive marriage by giving her spouse D-Con in his coffee. An hour later, she leaves six kids behind and drives off with hubbie's head in a sealed Tupperware bowl (after first taking him out to show everyone); shortly thereafter, Peejoe and Wiley are taken to nearby Industry to live with Lucille's brother- -Uncle Dove, an unassuming undertaker—at the moment when civil rights becomes a burning issue in the town. The point of contention is a new whites-only municipal pool, at which demonstrations are held after a black boy is killed during a scuffle with deputies. Peejoe's terrified face is photographed during a night ambush of demonstrators by rednecks, later appearing on the cover of Life; and when fair-minded Dove also sides with the victims, his family and business quickly fall apart. Meanwhile, Aunt Lucille finds instant fame herself, falling into a promising role in The Beverly Hillbillies—until the Tupperware secret spills out at a party and she's forced to hotfoot it from Hollywood. Arrested with the head in her hands, she returns to Alabama for trial and is convicted, but a lusty judge lets her go—just in time for Dove's funeral home to be burned and his black assistant lynched. Threading a thin line between bizarre comedy and ugly southern reality, this is a deftly balanced tale that unravels in the end- -when the fantastic and tragic elements clash in a finale both brutal and banal.