Jean-Luc Godard meets Joe R. Lansdale somewhere near Upshur County, Tex., in this dark and disturbing novel, Searcy's second after Ordinary Horror
(2001). Strange things are happening in a small East Texas town. "Scarecrows" stuffed with the decaying remains of small animals appear hanging in trees. The sheriff catches a 300-pound catfish. A little girl disappears. Those inclined to the miraculous find portents of the Rapture in it all. The end of the world, they say, need not be a single cataclysmic event; the world can end a little at a time. Luther Hazlitt, a self-sufficient type who lives in an abandoned camper in a cow pasture and scrounges a living taking care of cattle, doesn't believe in a piecemeal Apocalypse. He's not sure what's going on, but he knows there's no "Holy Spirit" involved. As the damage mounts, Luther builds a series of traps to define and capture whatever is causing the problems. He's assisted by Yurang, his big red chow dog, and no-nonsense Agnes Peeler, whose yard is a raked Zen garden. Eventually, Deputy Willis Beagle joins Luther and Agnes to ensnare what neither characters nor readers know much about other than "it ain't a simple thing." This novel ain't that simple either. As in Ordinary Horror, Searcy employs present-tense, poetic (and occasionally convoluted) prose and intentional ambiguity to build his weird atmosphere, but this time he provides sympathetic three-dimensional characters for it to swirl around. Fans of high-end horror are in for a treat. (Sept. 30)
FYI:The novel's opening section was serialized in
Grand Street.
