Water Boy

Despite its deceptively simple opening, this first novel about coming of age in 1950s Oklahoma gradually turns into a lurid, albeit fairly compelling, drama of adultery, murder, lust, child abuse and redemption. Narrator William ``Sonny'' Schultz, water boy for his high school football team, finds athletics a means of breaking free from his controlling mother, a religious fanatic who has him performing baptisms by the time he's 10. Sonny and his best friend, quarterback Danny Boone, are both sexually involved with free-spirited Dovie Lasher, teenage wife of the team's star player, sadistic bully Brice ``Killer'' Marden. Longstanding hatreds culminate in Killer's beating and humiliation of Danny, who retaliates by circumcising his tormentor with a knife. The stage is set for a sensational finale, involving the uncertain paternity of Dovie's baby; the revelations here will startle even the most alert readers. Reiswig, himself a high school quarterback and later a pastor, peoples the Oklahoma panhandle with driven characters obsessed by football, sex and religion. (Sept.)