The Bayou

Paperback, 144 pages

English language

ISBN:
9798587040106
Goodreads:
56424673
4 stars (1 review)

"Eugene didn’t know if he believed in the devil beyond the wicked things people did of their own accord, but if the devil had a face, it would look like Johnny Walker’s."

Small-town Louisiana, 1935.

When Eugene was twelve, a girl from town disappeared. Everyone said the gators must have got her when she strayed too near the bayou. No foul play, just a terrible accident. But Eugene can't shake the conviction that Mary Beth's death had something to do with the man who used to haunt her—the man no one else could see.

Now, nearly two decades later, there are more dangerous things than gators in Chanlarivyè. People are disappearing again, and this time, no one can find the bodies. As the town's unease grows, charismatic fugitive Johnny Walker arrives on the scene, shedding bullet casings and stolen bank notes in his wake.

He tangles himself up in Eugene's …

1 edition

Deep, slow, creeping

4 stars

I have to say, Eugene might be the single most passive protagonist I've ever seen. Not a flaw in the writing: a deliberate character choice. There's depression and all-pervading anxiety, yes, but the level of passivity here - of learned helplessness - was deep enough to be engrossing, to have me wondering: what caused this? How did he get to be this way?

The question is answered. It is one of many questions raised and answered, or first answered and later raised: as short as this novella is, there's a many-layered depth to it that rises the more I think about it.

There's also a very consistent atmosphere to it - thick, oppressive, uneasy; dread so creeping that it feels more like depression than fear. Might be a hard read, if it were longer. Though, again: there's more to it than its length implies.

Selling points: gay, hella atmosphere, depth, …

Subjects

  • historical fiction
  • queer
  • horror