Hemphill borrows themes from Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood
and a plot point from As I Lay Dying
in this impressive debut, set in July 1972. After a rift with his preacher father, 14-year-old narrator Harlan Q Stank apprentices with a local mortician. The boy's first meets his grandfather (Harlan O, just back in their north Texas town after a 20-year estrangement from his son, Harlan P) in his employer's basement. Grandfather, having suffered a fatal heart attack at a nearby motel, lies smiling on the cooling table. After learning that an inheritance of $50,000 and an Eldorado convertible await—provided that the body arrives back in Sin City for burial—Harlan Q talks Paps into driving Grandfather back—the cash inheritance to be cleansed by funding The Sunnyside Savior Church Radio Hour
. A road trip in the church station wagon ensues, with Grandfather casketed and crated inside. A flat tire leads to an addition, handsome 19-year-old Warrior (aka Warren Ducklo), actor wannabe, dabbler in alternative religions and an estranged "PK" (preacher's kid) himself. Warrior and Paps's unceasing religious haranguing, while driving Harlan Q nuts, underscores his own painful, even panic-stricken quest to tear himself from his father's wrathful grasp. Laugh-out-loud scenes, a marvelous narrative voice, period details and appealingly quirky characterization outweigh the too-tidy ending, making Hemphill a writer to watch. Ages 13-up. (May)
