hat the hell is a Beluthahatchie? Beluthahatchie is a suburb of hell,
one of the many places and times visited and made tangibly real in Andy
Duncan's first story collection.
Duncan sings the blues beyond hell with
Robert Johnson in the title story, twists a strange insight into the
personal and public battles of George Patton in "Fortitude," imagines a
forgotten speech in "Lincoln in Frogmore," captures a doomed survivor of the
Titanic in "Saved," creates an alternate history of old-time radio
and television in "Liza and the Crazy Water Man" and "Fenneman's Mouth,"
visits the "Grand Guignol," exposes the centuries-old manufacture of
religious relics "From Alfano's Reliquary," explores Victorian fears in "The
Premature Burials" and tells a tale of "The Executioners Guild" that can
stand on its own when compared to Stephen King's The Green Mile. "The
Map to the Homes of the Stars" is a very contemporary account of teen-aged
angst; the development of technology as applied to entertainment is shown to
be breaking down people's sense of reality.
The mood and tone of these stories are as varied as the
characters and settings. There doesn't seem to be such a thing as a typical
Andy Duncan story.
Ordinary people made extraordinary
So Beluthahatchie is more than just a suburb of hell, but a wide
and varied world that contains a lot fascinating places to visit. The people in Duncan's stories,
whether historical figures or original characters, black or white, young and
old, come alive just as much in the shorter pieces as in the longer ones.
Through ghosts, memories and vivid descriptions, the past is re-examined and
made fresh, making this book seem like a grand tour with a time machine.
And what a ride.
Some of the stories in Beluthahatchie have a nostalgic tone. Andy
Duncan gives the impression he is decades older than he really is--but
these are not a series of odes to the kinder and gentler "good old days."
Horror, war, racism and inhumanity are all shown to be things that were not
invented in the last couple of decades. The reader may not want to ride this
train past hell, but Duncan tells it all with a skill and subtle wit that
make these stories irresistible. It's almost like reading one of Ray
Bradbury's collections for the first time.
Which makes this all terribly literary. Duncan isn't long from his college
years, so most of these stories are ideas triggered by encountering things
in books rather than scratching around in real life, the mother of all truly
great fantasy. But he has the ability to delineate convincing firsthand
grittiness, especially when he writes about the South. His stories about
well-known historical and cultural icons work far better than most attempts
at such things, and his plain folks, the "ordinary" characters based on real
people, are even more convincing.
This particular suburb of Hell holds a lot of wonder. I wouldn't want to
visit the real thing, but the book leave me wanting more.
-- Ernest
hat the hell is a Beluthahatchie? Beluthahatchie is a suburb of hell,
one of the many places and times visited and made tangibly real in 
Duncan sings the blues beyond hell with
Robert Johnson in the title story, twists a strange insight into the
personal and public battles of George Patton in "Fortitude," imagines a
forgotten speech in "Lincoln in Frogmore," captures a doomed survivor of the
Titanic in "Saved," creates an alternate history of old-time radio
and television in "Liza and the Crazy Water Man" and "Fenneman's Mouth,"
visits the "Grand Guignol," exposes the centuries-old manufacture of
religious relics "From Alfano's Reliquary," explores Victorian fears in "The
Premature Burials" and tells a tale of "The Executioners Guild" that can
stand on its own when compared to Stephen King's The Green Mile. "The
Map to the Homes of the Stars" is a very contemporary account of teen-aged
angst; the development of technology as applied to entertainment is shown to
be breaking down people's sense of reality.
