November Mourns

Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli's last novel, A Choir of Ill Children, did more for the southern gothic genre than any single book since Flannery O'Connor was in her glory days. Now, with November Mourns, Piccirilli gives us another piece of that same pie, and like the last one, it's mighty tasty.

Piccirilli is less in Peyton Place mode and more in the realm of Sam Spade in November Mourns. Shad Jenkins has been in prison for two years after assaulting a boy who attempted to rape his sister. Shortly before he is released, his sister is found dead on Gospel Trail Road, with no mark but a light scratch on one cheek. Shad goes home to find out what happened to his sister, and in the process find out why it is that everyone in town has said for many years to never go up Gospel Trail Road.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's still more than enough of Grace-Metalious-meets-Appalachia here for the most ardent tabloid reader to get a real kick out of this book, but there's more of a focus on an actual goal here. Shad wants to find out what happened to his sister, and just happens to uncover a bunch of dirty little secrets along the way. Because of the goal, November Mourns ends up being a slightly easier read than *A Choir of Ill Children* was, and Piccirilli's seemingly native ability to pace a novel has more influence here; this is one of those books where you start out looking up every so often and seeing you've gone ten pages, then halfway through you look up and see you've gone fifty, and you've no idea where the time went. His main characters are well-drawn, though some of the minor characters suffer (mostly for simply not having enough time in the book; there's a much bigger cast here than there was in Choir), and Shad Jenkins is one of those characters who will stay in your memory for quite a while after you've finished turning pages; it's almost as if someone uprooted one of S. E. Hinton's urban youths, turned him redneck, and dropped him into the mountains. Great stuff. If you haven't experienced Tom Piccirilli yet, this is a good starting point.