Roger Alan Skipper

This is a tragic story about love in hard times. Sid and Janet's love story. To describe Janet is to think of a quiet running stream. She is shallow and it is easy to see to the bottom of her personality. Sid is more like a deep rushing rapid. He is turbulent and complicated. The violence that springs up between them is defiant and born out of a survival mode of sorts. They meet as children, innocent enough, outside of a church. Both come from volatile homes so it's only natural they continue that chaos as a couple. Everything about their relationship is tragic. As children the tragedies start small but as adulthood and poverty put them into a stranglehold they have no choice but to lash out in violent ways. What surprised me the most was how Janet's violence altered Sid's emotions more than Sid's violence got to Janet. She could hurt Sid without even trying. One of the heartbreaking things about Sid is his heart was in the right place but he couldn't catch a break. Ever. He kind of reminded me of my cousin in that respect. Most of the story is told from Sid's perspective and only at the beginning and end do we know what Janet was thinking or feeling.… (mehr)

This book was recommended by a library patron who was familiar with the author, who lives in nearby Western Maryland. My enjoyment of the story was enhanced by familiar terrain, as he described some familiar places, including a few roads I drive on a somewhat regular basis.

That said, I feel the story stands on its own merits. Lane Hollar, a curmudgeonly Vietnam War vet, is fishing with his grandson when something happens on the "reservoy" (reservoir) near their fishing spot. A man, Billy Bean, winds up dead. Was it murder, as Lane suspects?

Skipper skillfully evokes the changing world of Appalachia, and creates multi-dimensional characters who fit the story and setting. Relationships are complex. Motives are cloudy. The book has a hard edge, but does not contain an excess of graphic violence. There is humor, love, anger, and suspense.

Skipper does dispense with some conventions of punctuation, specifically quotation marks. (I've encountered this before, in some work by Cormac McCarthy, for instance.) It requires some thought on the reader's part to discern who is actually saying what. Sometimes it's not altogether clear what is spoken and what is internal dialog. Sometimes, I think that vagueness is intentional.

That vagueness extends to the ending, where one major loose end is left somewhat untidy. It left me wanting to know more about what is going on in the mind of one character -- but, then, life is full of unanswered questions like that.

The Baptism of Billy Bean is more than a mystery/suspense tale. It's a slice of Appalachian life. I plan to read more books by this author.
Message edited by its author, Today, 10:52am.… (mehr)