Book Review – Poachers by Tom Franklin

A New Voice of the South Digs Deep and Hits Grit With His Debut

May 17, 2009

These ten authentic stories of savage desperation and violence could have only grown from the banks of a hopeless Alabama river: grim, secluded, and eerily natural.

Tom Franklin’s debut short story collection Poachers (Perennial, ISBN: 0688177719, 1999) is a look not only into the deep south, but the dark south. As opposed to merely being an amalgamation of all the southern writers that came before him (Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, etc), Franklin is individual in style and theme even if the setting and tone are built upon those who came before him. Poachers is as thick, dangerous, and refreshing as the murkiest Alabama riverbank.

Grit Lit

A brief introduction/personal essay about hunting in his homeland shows a regional attachment and an unshakable sense of place. The south is built into Franklin, and his gritty brand of literature reflects it wholeheartedly. In fact, first story “Grit” takes place in an Alabama grit factory, with men and women as coarse as the stone they manufacture stuck in a warped, murderous series of events.

Like most of the collection, "Grit" is a campfire tale that was written down beautifully and twisted into a great piece of moxie and noir. The novella ("Poachers") is constructed and delivered in a similar way, but it's even more mythic and epic, as the flash forward at the end of the story shows both a bleak juxtaposition and an inability to kill inherent evil.

A Focus on the Story

Franklin moves the reader through each piece with grace, nodding to Raymond Carver and Rick Bass with his exquisite prose and nodding to Stephen King with his ability to keep the tale at the forefront. "Triathlon" may just be a perfect story, as Franklin takes great skill in showing the narrator and his friend Bruce trying to quite literally outrun, outbike, and outswim their adult lives.

"Blue Horses" and "Shubuta" would drip with depression if it wasn’t bottled up and contained with the kudzu that weaves all of these stories together. On the other end of the spectrum, "Dinosaurs" stands out not only because it was the only story that starts slowly and differently than the rest, but because it is slightly positive, with a look upward at the end. It's a slow burn and a triumphant finish.

“Jesus Is Not Coming”

These stories are both expertly and engagingly written. Yes, they are dark and often hopeless, but that's the way life is sometimes. A sign in the title-story reads “Jesus is not coming,” and a summary of the collection’s mindset is found within: fight, and fight alone. These are honest stories, but not in the way where the honesty is pretty. This is the kind of beauty where it hurts.

The copyright of the article Book Review – Poachers by Tom Franklin in American Fiction is owned by Ryan Werner. Permission to republish Book Review – Poachers by Tom Franklin in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.