Deepwater

Set in the remote, rural community of Deepwater, in an area of the country the author leaves vague, this eerie psychological thriller tracks the short visit of Nat Banyon, a drifter of unknown origin who stumbles into town and takes up work as a handyman at a local motel. Out of this rather conventional opening comes a story that quickly snaps in a new direction, becoming an inspired tale of suspicious strangers, a secret love affair and one man's slide into madness. The peculiarities begin soon after Banyon starts painting the motel for its owner, Herman Finch, an older man who gives Banyon the creeps by speaking enigmatically, and knowingly, of his new employee. Not only does Finch seem unusually interested in, and overly generous to, the handsome Banyon, but all the townsfolk in Deepwater seem indebted to Finch in ominous ways. Chief among them is Finch's wife, voluptuous Iris, whose guarded conduct in public belies her hardy sexual appetite, which Banyon feeds fiercely and frequently. Nerve-wracked by his powerful clandestine trysts, Banyon is also spooked by the uncanny similarities he sees between Finch and himself. Finch seems to be able to read his mind, and even more alarming, seems to have had a distinct resemblance to Banyon in photographs taken decades earlier. Could Finch actually be Banyon's father, or even Banyon himself, 30 years in the future? Such phantasmal thoughts, mingled with his lusty enchantment with Iris, send Banyon into a ruinous spiral of nightmares centering on his orphaned past and bleak visions of his future. It's a grim story, and one told exceedingly well, particularly through the characters' slangy dialogue. Jones's prose (A Single Shot; Blind Pursuit) is rich with backwoods vernacular and is deceptively spare. He creates tension with remarkable economy and intricacy in a sinister narrative that ultimately reveals itself as a powerful expression of loneliness, dangerous passions and the quest for identity. (Oct.)