Lovesick

Starred review from February 16, 2015
Four powerful, long stories constitute Driggers’s debut collection set in various periods in the small town of Morris, S.C., and though crimes are a common denominator, the crimes themselves are uncommon. In “Butcher, the Baker,” set in the 1930s, black felon George Butcher, a self-taught baker, partners with ambitious white Virginia Yeager to enter the white-only Mystic White Flour baking contest in Atlanta. The Bramble sisters, Freddie and Jewel, make a killing out of marriage, literally, until a pregnant, unmarried girl comes into their lives, in “The Brambles.” When Sandra Maxwell is unexpectedly widowed in “Sandra and the Snake Handlers,” she becomes obsessed with TV evangelist Shep Waters. Florist M.R. Vale, the eponymous narrator of “M.R. Vale,” is gay in a time and place not known for tolerance, but he manages to avoid trouble until he gets involved with rough mechanic Lonnie Flowers. Each plot line appears to lead to a predictable outcome, but Driggers consistently surprises. Agent: Mitchell Waters, Curtis Brown.

April 15, 2015
Driggers' first collection of novellas could be titled SickLove, since the four stories, all with a connection to Morris, South Carolina, feature damaged characters who make unfortunate choices heavily based on money or sex or both. In Butcher, the Baker, set in the 1930s, the titular character, whose mother was a sharecropper, thinks he sees a way to get the money he needs to buy a bakery shop, but his trust in an attractive female grifter dooms his plans. The Brambles spotlights sisters Frankie and Jewel, whose unorthodox way of supplementing their father's insurance money leaves several corpses behind them before they buy a farm outside Morris. In Sandra and the Snake Handlers, a woman loses her bearings after her husband's death and unwisely joins a Pentecostal congregation led by a sexy TV evangelist. M. R. Vale, the florist in Morris, becomes sexually enthralled by an ex-con with a taste for other people's property. Lovesick, with its abundance of sociopaths and an underlying thread of menace, is the perfect pick for those who like well-written fiction that is dark and twisted.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)