Mr. Tall

Starred review from June 30, 2014
Earley has grown up. The author of the critically acclaimed novels Jim the Boy and The Blue Star, both set in the 1930s and 1940s American South and concerned with the childhood and teen years of Jim Glass, has moved on. Although the seven works (a novella and stories) in this collection still take place in the South, it is often the New South: for example, rather than a train coming through a whistle-stop town with the famous ball player Ty Cobb aboard, as in Jim the Boy, there’s a Birmingham abortion-clinic bomber on the run in “The Cryptozoologist.” Earley’s attention to aging protagonists is a fresh direction. In the opening story, “Haunted Castles and the Barrier Islands,” a middle-aged couple that runs a little newspaper tries to bring a little zing to their marriage by booking a room at a costal inn, only to find themselves on the verge of slipping into the Atlantic, thanks to rising sea levels. Still, there are many familiar Earley touches. In the title story, a very tall widower living in the mountains silently mourns the death by drowning of his wife and child. But even if apple orchards still conceal secrets, mountain hollows house strange denizens, and the trains rumble reassuringly in the distance, there is undoubtedly a hard edge to this collection. “Jack and the Mad Dog,” the novella that closes the book, riffs on the “Beanstalk” tale with postmodern mischeviousness: the protagonist refers to himself as a “limited omniscient narrator” and proceeds to walk into a “Jack and Jill” story. Welcome, perhaps, to the Late Earley.

July 15, 2014
Over several decades, in small towns scattered throughout North Carolina and Tennessee, young and old couples attempt to connect in Earley's (The Blue Star, 2008, etc.) quirky and penetrating story collection.In "Haunted Castles of the Barrier Isles," a long-married couple is bereft when their only child, a college freshman, is less than happy to see them during a surprise birthday visit. With nothing better to do, the couple embarks on a trip to the nearby barrier islands, where they wander into a lackluster beach resort soon to be swallowed up by the encroaching ocean. This desultory vacation is colored by the shock and disappointment of the college visit, and their resulting marital crisis is described with mastery and subtlety. In "Mr. Tall," 16-year-old newlywed Plutina Scroggs sets off in 1932 with her new husband on a seemingly endless rail and mule journey from her hometown to his remote mountain cottage. Earley conveys with genuine humor and insight Plutina's bewilderment about sex and her initial regrets about the hasty marriage. Plutina later becomes obsessed with her never-glimpsed nearest neighbor, a hermit known as Mr. Tall, during the long weeks she spends alone. These first two stories are the strongest and most memorable of the collection. Additional tales are linked through the use of repeating characters; Plutina reappears as an aging neighbor in "The Cryptozoologist," in which a new widow becomes infatuated with the yetilike "skunk apes" she glimpses in the woods behind her home. In "Just Married," a collection of shorter anecdotes, characters appear and cleverly reappear in different phases of their lives with different partners. The only misstep in the book is the novella "Jack and the Mad Dog," a well-crafted but tedious postmodern fable about "THAT Jack, the giant-killer of the stories," that is out of keeping with the rest of the collection.The rest of the book is punctuated by sharp insights and wry observations on the human condition, featuring strong, idiosyncratic characters having small epiphanies in their small towns.

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March 15, 2014
The author of the heartfelt "Jim the Boy", which has sold more than 170,000 copies across all formats, returns with a story collection whose characters range from a bride in the secluded mountains intimidated by a looming neighbor, a widow who is sure she's encountered the Southern version of Bigfoot, and the ghost of Jesse James. Southern charm; with a five-city tour.

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July 1, 2014
In this collection of six short stories and a novella, Earley, best known for his beloved novel Jim the Boy (2000), continues to display an enviable control of tone and an elegant, stripped-down prose style. But perhaps what comes through most clearly is his sly sense of humor. In Haunted Castles of the Barrier Islands, a North Carolina couple get into a vicious argument after an unpleasant visit with their college-age daughter. But their long history together sees them through, prompting their philosophical musings on the nature of domesticity: Find me a Hardee's. Find me a room. Stay with me until I die. It was all the same thing, really. The novella, Jack and the Mad Dog, finds a weary Jack the Giant Killer, long past his glory days, encountering a talking dog, a flying boat, and some surprisingly familiar characters from other fairy tales. And in the title story, a lonely farm wife longs to connect with her widowed neighbor but only succeeds in offending him deeply. Both funny and bittersweet, these stories offer vivid characters and imaginative scenarios.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)