Sugar Among the Freaks

April 1, 1996
Nordan, a Southern gothic writer in the Harry Crews tradition, is best known for Wolf Whistle (LJ 9/1/93), which managed to turn the lynching of Emmett Till into a black comedy. The present collection reprints stories from two earlier books, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair (LJ 9/15/83) and The All-Girl Football Team (Louisiana State Univ., 1986), with an informative introduction by Mississippi bookseller Richard Howorth. In "The Storyteller," a typical Nordan tale, a retired football coach sits at a drugstore counter sipping spiked coffee and reminiscing about the execution by hanging of a renegade circus elephant. The coach's boozy digressions constantly introduce new story lines, which are then sustained in a delirious backwater counterpoint. The stories involving Sugar Mecklin, a recurring character who also appears in the novel Music of the Swamp (LJ 8/91), seem at least partly autobiographical. Delightfully eccentric situations and colorful language add up to a work that is even stronger than Wolf Whistle. Recommended for all collections of Southern fiction.--Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles