SECOND LIES THE SON

Phillips’ novel follows troubled old friends in a small town.

Sam Carl is a short-order cook at a diner in the town where he grew up. He is, at the age of 26, a father who lives with his wife and son. Sam’s life is largely unremarkable when compared with that of his friend Hayes Simms. Hayes and Sam used to get up to mischief when they were kids, but Hayes’ father, Ryder, was no laughing matter. Ryder, in Hayes’ words, is a “hate-filled prick”; a stern man to say the least, he even pistol-whipped Sam one time for no good reason. Hayes, as an adult, is a Marine who saw action in Afghanistan. Now, he’s back home. Hayes is called a “war hero,” but he is troubled. He seems unfit for civilian life, particularly when he does things like build sandbag bunkers around his home or mouth off to a police officer. He also seems bent on killing a local Marine Corp recruiter named Jazz. The narrative darts back and forth between the past and the present as Hayes and Sam come to terms with their lives. Theirs is a world of desert dust and angry men—after Sam is pistol-whipped, he thinks about killing Ryder: “Why can’t I be the one to put him out of his own and everyone else’s misery?” Such thoughts help keep the tension in the story high, as the threat of violence is always near. The novel does progress slowly in some lengthy scenes; a flashback to Hayes and Sam playing soldier in the desert as kids goes on for several paragraphs but does not yield much aside from the suggestion of a slightly sinister aspect of their friendship. Still, the reader remains curious about who, if anyone, will be left standing by the time all the dust has settled.

A grizzled, tightly-wound account of two men struggling with an unforgiving world.