Haley, Texas 1959 : two novellas /

The two atmospherically rich novellas combined here have the feel of literary time capsules. As Watt explains in a prefatory note, they draw on his experiences growing up in East Texas. Both explore the kind of watershed experiences that change perceptions of the past while shaping the protagonists' futures; the narratives, he says, are "faithful to the emotional ground of my remembered truth." In "Seven Days Working," set in 1954, 14-year-old Donnie is given a seemingly impossible task: his father orders him to clear out 70 acres of mesquite trees in just one week. Armed with little more than an ax and a lot of peanut butter, the boy obediently spends long days in the pasture, methodically chopping and thinking back on his life so far. The mix of love, hatred and pride inherent to farming is neatly depicted, and Donnie's stamina is mirrored in the quiet strength of the prose. In the title novella, Watt attacks the weightier theme of racial prejudice. Tired of being branded "the preacher's boy," 12-year-old Damon Wilson goes on a "nigger knockin'" joyride with three older friends, and watches helplesslyÄand mutelyÄas events take a murderous turn. In the nightmarish aftermath, he must decide whether to tell the truth about his redneck companions' actions, or to lie and avoid becoming a social outcast. The consequences of Damon's moral dilemma weigh heavily on his preacher father's conflicted existence and failing career. Watt resists facile conclusions, and the justice meted out at the end is both surprising and redemptive. The author's clear-eyed vision of his native state makes this slim volume a satisfying followup to his short story collection, Can You Get Here from There?, and novel, The Journey of Hector Rabinal. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Two deeply disappointing, pallid novellas, identified as fictionalized autobiography, by the author of the story collection Can You Get There from Here? (1994). Both are set in small-town east Texas in the 1950s. ``Seven Days Working'' describes its adolescent narrator's reaction to the task set for him by his phlegmatic father: to clear 70 acres of pastureland choked by soil-killing, useless mesquite trees'on his own, in a week's time. Donnie, 14, stoically accepts this burden, hoping to prove his worth. But his labors provide only a framework on which Watt hangs a loose assortment of the boy's memories: of his father's undistinguished career in the oil business, of growing up ``in a house of distrust, of judgment, a house imbued with the fear of failure''; of strained relations with his distant father and his fundamentalist mother, casual racism, glimmerings of sexuality, grieving the death of a beloved dog'it's all generic and predictable, and it slows this already meditative story to a crawl. The title novella, developed from a briefly mentioned incident in its companion story, recounts the consequences of a vicious ``game'' of ``nigger knockin`'' played by a carful of white youths'who accidentally kill the black pedestrian they intend only to harass. Watt examines this act from the viewpoints of 12-old Damon, the contemplative 'preacher's boy' who unwillingly participates in it, and of Damon's father, a forgotten-man minister who (quite unbelievably) reasons that the excitement created by the murder will restore his reputation, once the news media have ``spotlighted [him] as the voice of reason, a moderate leader in a red-neck, racist town.'' Then Wallace learns the full truth from Damon, and Watt rushes their story to its inconclusive'and unearned'conclusion. A bad miscalculation by a writer who's surely better than this. Watt is a capable stylist, but he needs a subject.