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Two new books from local authors are drenched with the feel of this region

by Jeanne McDonald

"Rose is dead."

It's an abrupt beginning, but soon enough you learn that Ruth, the plucky narrator in Catherine Landis' debut novel, Some Days There's Pie, (St. Martin's Press, $23.95), doesn't pull punches. Never. When her father's death leaves the family in financial straits, she refuses to relinquish her pride. "I was the only one [at school] who did not get charged for milk," she relates. "I paid anyway, or else I didn't drink it." At 19, to escape her dismal home life in Summerville, Tenn., Ruth impulsively marries Chuck Allen Pirkle, a stereo salesman who soon becomes a born-again Christian and expects Ruth to follow his example. But Chuck begins to see where the relationship is heading when he says to Ruth, "What's for dinner?" and she replies, "Ask Jesus." So he can't be too surprised when he comes home to find her with her belongings packed in a duffel bag. "Don't say nothing," she warns, and with money from Chuck (who, Ruth observes, probably figures he got off easy) and a 1971 Datsun 210, Ruth heads west to find a new life.

She gets as far as Lawsonville, N.C., where she meets Rose, an 80-year-old former news reporter who rescues Ruth in a dime store when she's overcome with heat and hunger. Despite their 60-year age difference, the two sense immediately that they are soulmates, unbelievers with an innate sense of justice and an insatiable hunger for independence. Finally, they decide to take off together when Rose's terminal lung cancer threatens to imprison her in a sick room in the house of her well-meaning but controlling daughter Carol. Rose wants to return to Texas, where she grew up, but in the Little Swiss Inn in Mount Claire, N.C., Rose succumbs to her illness.. "The problem with sneaking off to Texas with somebody's mother is, if she dies, you've got to tell them," Ruth remarks.

Ruth's endearing first-person narration captures the head-on realistic approach to life's disappointments with which many hard-knock southerners confront adversity. Although there are plenty of off-center characters in this book, they are not the stereotypical portraits you'd expect in a southern novel. The author, Knoxvillian Catherine Landis, has given them dignity and dimension. A Chattanooga native and former newspaper reporter, Landis has a keen eye for detail, a highly-tuned ear for southernisms, and a wry sense of humor. Some Days There's Pie is an impressive debut, and even better news is that Landis' second novel is already on St. Martin's publication list for year after next.

Another admirable first novel, also with a southern setting, comes from Stephen Marion, who grew up in Dandridge and now works as a reporter and photographer for the Standard Banner in Jefferson City. In Hollow Ground (Algonquin Books, $23.95), Marion writes eloquently about Zinctown, a community where extensive mining has rendered the earth so hollow that cave-ins become a regular occurrence. Marion's evocative prose creates an aura of suspense that centers on Taft, who, hit full force with the realities of life in his 13th summer, is struggling to make sense of it all—what to do about Gary, his father, who returns to town after leaving Taft's mother pregnant 14 years earlier; how to deal with the titillating Tanya Mayes, who tries to seduce Taft into murdering her alcoholic mother; how to protect his mother, Brenda, from being hurt again by Gary; what to think of Tony, his violent uncle, who seems to seek affirmation from Taft when he goes on his bizarre rampages; and how to react to his friend Scott, who is constantly challenging Taft's masculinity. "The winter had been long," writes Marion, "and everyone it seemed had been bored for a long, long time, since their very births, or before."

Weighed down by all these problematic alliances, Taft teeters on the edge of danger all summer, tempted by the mysterious Tanya, mesmerized by the outrageous Tony ("It was the kind of flirtation, Taft knew, that preceded a fight, to which he was being beckoned as deliciously as a lover"), drawn to Tony's beautiful girlfriend Clarice, and ambivalent about his feelings for his prodigal father. Although Bid, Taft's grandfather, and Moody Myers, who is married to Taft's grandmother, are temporary leavening elements in Taft's unsettled life, neither seems fully developed, leaving Taft to limp along on his own.

Marion's mellifluous voice softens the violence and hopelessness in this story, but the writing retains an edge that keeps the reader eager to discover how all the characters resolve their problems. The hollow ground of Zinctown—and the hole in Tanya's heart—become metaphors for the lives of people who know that the next step they take might not be on solid ground, but it doesn't stop them from continuing to walk into a vastly uncertain future. m

Catherine Landis will discuss and sign Some Days There's Pie on Thursday, May 2, 7 p.m., at Barnes and Noble.

Stephen Marion will discuss and sign Hollow Ground on Saturday, May 4, 6 p.m., at Barnes and Noble.