Review by Booklist Review
Louella Scurvy is dead of uremic poisoning after giving birth, in middle age, to her fifth child. Daugharty's fourth novel (after Dark of the Moon, 1994; Necessary Lies, 1995; and Paw Paw Patch, 1996) introduces the Scurvys (Louella's shiftless husband, Old Man; sons Buck, Pee Wee, and artistic Alamand; daughter Loujean, 16, who names the baby Joy, short for Joyful Noise) as well as Earl, a buddy of the brothers who hopes to settle down with Loujean; neighbors (both helpful and hateful) in Cornerville, Georgia, just above the Florida line; and Louella's "improved theirselfs" sisters from "Etlanna" and New Orleans. City folk may need to concentrate to catch the drift of this rotating-narrators novel's backwoods talk (some will find its characters' casual use of the n-word troubling). But readers who love fiction that explores unfamiliar places and captures both the variety and the universality of the human spirit will appreciate this visit to the Scurvys' narrow front room and the piney woods of Swanoochee County. --Mary Carroll
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Echoes of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying reverberate in this many-voiced tale about a poor Southern family's efforts to bury their mother decently. Daugharty (Pawpaw Patch) gets off to a scattered start but pulls her narrative together with the help of some startling language. The aptly named Scurvys are dirt poor, without pull or respectability, though they've lived in South Georgia's Swanoochee County as long as anyone can remember. As the novel opens in 1960, Louella Scurvy, mother of four grown children, has just died during the birth of a fifth child, a daughter. With no money and no hope of acquiring it, Lay Scurvy, the "old man," leaves the business of the funeral to his three sons, whose only way to raise the necessary cash is to "run shine" for Buster, a sleazy small-town power broker and bootlegger. Loujean, their school-age sister, takes over the care of the baby. Daugharty tells her story in the voices of the five remaining Scurvys and of Loujean's suitor, Earl, who becomes a kind of hero when Louella at last gets a proper funeral. Early on, Daugharty struggles at the delicate business of establishing six different voices. She employs dialect unevenly and often force-feeds too much background information. But she hits her stride as she zeros in on Alamand, who's the slowest of the Scurvy boys but an artist; the broken and fearful Lay, who sinks low before he gains his integrity; and thoughtful, hardworking Loujean, whose keen eye, subtle irony, heart and extraordinary sweetness give this novel lift. Author tour; U.K., translation, first serial, dramatic rights: Don Congdon. (Apr.) FYI: HarperPerennial will publish a trade paperback edition of Pawpaw Patch to coincide with the publication of Earl in the Yellow Shirt. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
"Sister Louella preached her own funeral while she was living," writes Daugharty (The Paw-Paw Patch, LJ 4/15/96) of matriarch Louella Lay, who lived according to Christian precepts that viewed death as a reprieve from the drudgery of a woman's existence in 1960s rural south Georgia. Daugharty's brilliant fourth novel, which recalls Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, shows that there is good and evil in every family. The family, four nearly grown children and the "Old Man," must devise ways to pay to have "Mama buried proper." The boys trade with the devil while their sister, Loujean, tends to the newborn their mother lost her life delivering. The one strong and clear hope is Earl, the good-hearted boy who pines for Loujean and goes against his nature to earn some fast money and help the family. If you loved Faulkner's tale, you will enjoy Daugharty's clear and simple view of family struggle. Highly recommended for public libraries.Shannon Haddock, Bellsouth Corp. Lib. & Business Research Ctr., Birmingham, Ala. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An audacious novel, hilarious and moving by turns, offering some sharp and startling variations on southern themes. Daugharty (Pawpaw Patch, 1996, etc.) has always exhibited a special empathy for outsiders and eccentrics. Here, the hardscrabble Scurvy children, down-and-out even by the low standards of Swanoochee County in Georgia, face their greatest challenge to date when they have to come up with the money to bury their mother, who has died soon after giving birth to her fifth child, a girl. The two grown sons, Buck and Pee-Wee, are willing but hobbled by the nature of their lives. Buck is a talented idler. Pee-Wee is a mild-mannered but dedicated drunk. Alamand, only 14, is an extraordinarily gifted artist, usually lost in his imagination. It's left, finally, to Earl, an unlikely hero, to save the family. The laid-back Earl is quietly, thoroughly in love with Loujean and manages, not so much by plan as by pure luck mixed with decency, to get the money, leading to a funeral at which old Scurvy scores with the community are settled, in a scene both wonderfully funny and moving. The story is narrated in the alternating voices of the characters. While all of them are distinctive and convincing (Daugharty has a gift for rendering the pace and color of southern rural speech without making it seem either corny or unbelievably inventive), it's Loujean who stands out. She's bright, despairing, tartly aware of the nature of her family and her life, and quietly determined to do what's right. She accepts, without much complaining, the job of raising her new sister (whom she names Joy- -short for Joyful Noise). Calmly, too, she accepts Earl. In Daugharty's world, women are the only true realists, the ones who know the worst and go on anyway. Another strong, highly original work from one of our most promising, and idiosyncratic, authors. (Regional author tour)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
