Dark of the Moon

In her short story collection, Going Through the Change, Daugharty offered glimpses of the sordid lives that are the background for this novel, in which ``backward'' is equated with ``backwoods.'' Set in 1953, in the Okefenokee Swamp region of south Georgia, this story of inbreeding and small-town secrets focuses on a pathetic, pregnant 17-year-old who was once the shining hope of her uneducated father. Cliffie Flowers, the oldest, smartest and prettiest daughter of ``Pappy'' Ocain Flowers, considers herself civilized in comparison to her impoverished mother and siblings (among whom are a brother named Roy Acuff and a bed-wetting sister named Pee-Jean). Yet Cliffie's values mirror her family's, and she is doomed to disappointment. When she becomes pregnant by criminally violent Roy Harris Weeks, she waxes romantic and plans to join him on a bus out of town to Fort Bragg; her tragic ``necessary lies'' are told to protect Roy Harris from Ocain's wrath, and later from charges of murder. Ocain, however, knows more than Cliffie guesses--he has told lies of his own. Daugharty ably juxtaposes Cliffie's sentimental notions and the overall hopelessness of her situation: ``Nobody else had been obliged to amount to something,'' Cliffie argues in defiance of Ocain's praise. While this story is ugly--fascinatingly so, in fact--its freakish parade of stereotypical hicks offers sorrow without relief. (Mar.)