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Critic's Corner
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CARNAL INNOCENCE Reviewed by: Patricia Ann Jones "Summer, that vicious green (harlot), flexed her sweaty muscles and flattened Innocence, Mississippi. It didn't take much. Even before the war between the states, Innocence had been nothing but a dusty flyspeck on the map. Though the soil was good for farming if man could stand the watery heat, the floods, and the capricious droughts Innocence wasn't destined to prosper." Even the railroad tracks betrayed Innocence by veering away, linking Memphis to Jackson and leaving the sleepy town in the dust. Innocence had no battlefields, no natural wonders to draw in tourists with cameras and cash. No hotel to pamper them, only a small painfully neat rooming house run by the Koonses. Sweetwater, its single antebellum plantation was privately owned by the Longstreets, as it had been for two hundred years. It wasn't open to the public, had the public been interested. Taking the above into consideration, one wonders why Caroline Waverly, a professional violinist with a successful career chose to return to her recently deceased grandmother's home near the Sweetwater plantation. The truth of the matter is simple. Caroline required a much Caroline knew nothing of the brutal and mysterious killer claiming the lives of the town's most attractive women. Once Caroline has met the smooth-talking charmer Tucker Longstreet, she is too deeply embroiled in the town's lifestyle to escape. Roberts takes readers deep into the confidences of her characters. She develops full lives for each and causes you to care about all of them, even the worst of the lot. The Gossipy women of the town you can whisper a secret at the edge of main street and find it waiting for you when you reach the other side of town each has a secret to tell and tell it she does. The men of Innocence are a rather red-necked lot except, of course, for Tucker Longstreet and his brother Dwayne who is a piece of work all on his own, but that you must discover for yourself. Tucker intrigued me with his southern drawl, old world manners, and a story for every occasion. He is a character you can't resist with a depth you cannot plumb. You know there is more to Tucker than Roberts is revealing and yet you hope against hope that he isn't the serial killer. Josie Longstreet is a real puzzle. At first you love her, then you sit back on your heels and study her. Wild is hardly the word for Josie. She is past wild into something much uglier and out of control. Yet, like all the Longstreets, she does have her charming ways. As usual, Roberts has done her homework, not only are her characters real but her locale is perfect. You can see the Spanish moss dripping from the trees and hear the bees humming in the magnolias. Her bad guys and gals are as bad as they should be yet not without some redeeming qualities. The heroes and heroines are lovely to look at and easy to identify with even with their flaws. It is, however, the story that totally intrigued me. Something different, something just a little over the edge of reason that rings true and twists the reader like a knife in the heart. ### |
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