The Half-Mammals of Dixie

August 12, 2002
Singleton expands upon the peculiar conceits of his debut collection, These People Are Us, in these 15 offbeat stories. Set mostly around the little South Carolina backwater of Forty-Five, they take on everything from racism to alcoholism to head lice, with plenty of laughs along the way. A hapless father clumsily tries to use his nine-year-old son to win back his high-school sweetheart (now the boy's teacher) in "Show and Tell," sending him off to school with old love notes, corsages and jewelry he had given her and making the boy pass them off as precious antiques. Another father launches a one-man crusade against a racist newspaper deliverer in "Fossils." "What Slide Rules Can't Measure" details the bizarre lives of denizens of the flea market circuit, while the title story follows an aquarium salesman to a bizarre motivational seminar, where he meets a scarred woman who sells audio books to the blind. "This Itches, Y'all" features a boy who fled youthful ignominy as the star of an educational film on head lice, then returns to his 25th class reunion to find unexpected celebrity. As in the first volume, the narrators tend to be relatively sophisticated men (or boys) who find themselves surrounded by feckless "pallet-heads." Some may find the tone of intellectual superiority condescending, but it's usually tempered by self-deprecation, to wonderful comic effect. Agents, Liz Darhansoff and Kristin Lang.(Sept. 13)Forecast:Singleton seems to be building up a reputation, as evidenced by a recent NPR feature, as well as appearances in
Harpers, the
Atlantic and other literary reviews. A national ad campaign and 10-city author tour will help keep up the momentum.

August 1, 2002
To some readers, the mere threat of 15 stories about lovable southern eccentrics is enough to prompt a quick retreat north. Fortunately, Singleton's quick wit, keen intelligence, and empathy for his characters mean we can issue an "all clear" rather than a hurricane warning. Set in and around fictional Forty-Five, South Carolina, these often-hilarious tales depict ordinary people's struggle to evolve and adapt in an environment of religiosity and sometimes backward ways. Characters pop up in each other's stories as if demonstrating how interwoven our fates can be, or that--to use a metaphor of which the author might approve--we all shop at the same flea market. Whether writing of flea-market vendors, fishing-lure collectors, aquarium salesmen, or faux primitive artists, Singleton has a gift for rendering goofy situations poignant even as he slyly sticks a sociopolitical barb. No matter what their needs or dilemmas, we see ourselves in his characters. This fine collection reveals an author who, despite his penchant for evolution, has a gift for the act of creation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)