This is a clever but frustrating novel from 1994. I was very impressed by its rich literary style as the novel opens. The author directly addresses the reader in a Southern homespun style, and appears in complete control of his characters in the small town of Monroe, Louisiana.

But disappointment slowly grew on me. Because there were too many homespun Southern characters whose lives intermingled but did not come together to produce a single dramatic whole. I also sensed too much local color, too much surface cleverness, and not enough exploration of these characters in depth.

This reaction was not unlike a comment in the Kirkus Review: “We soon realize Dufresne is rambling on about his characters’ lives, never once entering their emotions or examining their motives….[And his] plot is continually interrupted by narratives about minor characters. Dufresne wastes so much time telling readers he’s telling a story and expounding on the art of storytelling that we lose interest in the characters and, thus, in the story.” And as Jill McCorkle in The New York Times suggests: Dufresne “offers a plot line as complex as the network of backwoods roads these people and their ancestors have committed to memory,”

And while I decided to finish this novel to see where the author was heading, what he was trying to say, I also decided that this novel was perhaps not going to be worth writing about.

What prompted to me to pick up this novel in the first place was that its main character, Billy Wayne Fontana, was training in a novitiate to become a priest. This is before he became involved with the citizens of Monroe. It would be interesting, I thought, to learn how that background carries into the secular world. And it is quite secular. For Billy Wayne’s story begins with a family curse that has produced generations of unfortunate sinners, all males; and the authorities have believed they can help end that family curse if he is trained to be a priest.

But, alas, he is seduced by Earlene—an unstable woman who writes country music lyrics—while pretending to hear her confession in a hospital; and then he marries her and leaves the novitiate. Moreover, they soon become incompatible, and she leaves him; whereupon he marries Tammy Lynne, another unhappy woman, and sires two boys, Duane and Boone, the latter also known as Moon Pie. This second son is born with flippers instead of legs and is confined to a wheelchair. Is this the curse again at work? But Moon Pie is a genius, and he becomes interested in God and in the meaning of faith.

And this is why I finished this novel, and why I am writing about it. For the author, in his own idiosyncratic way, is addressing an issue that interests me and that surely is one I should address. For one can regard original sin as, in fact, a curse, and can see this Fontana curse as a way of addressing, in more worldly terms, one of mankind’s spiritual conditions. In other words, this author is addressing a basic religious issue, albeit through quirky Southern characters who live a hardscrabble life, encounter many dead ends, and are often frustrated by the life they lead.

Moon Pie finally convinced me to write about this novel when he becomes a radio evangelist and introduces a lengthy spiritual discussion of the presence of God and how we should relate to Him. Added to the guilt Billy Wayne feels for having abandoned the priesthood and failed to meet the needs of two wives, this suggest the author is indeed addressing more than the foibles of Southern hicks.

The title of the novel also supports this spiritual aspect. While the power company itself plays a minor role here, merely serving the town of Monroe and offering employment, its name suggests the primary characteristics of God that are under discussion here—in terms of both the power He has and the light He generates and offers to others.

Unfortunately, the reviews seem to relate more to the quirky nature of these Southern characters, even calling the novel a blend of comedy and tragedy, than to the spiritual search introduced by Moon Pie and Billy Wayne. Indeed, Billy Wayne asks how he can justify abandoning his priestly vocation, since he has become a failure in his relationship with two wives and has prompted the death of two others. The answer he reaches is not a satisfactory one for me, with its crown of nettles, although it may be for the author, his creator, who seems to rate the symbolism over the reality.

Of course, once things go wrong, humans beings do tend to look in various directions for the reason. Some ask if what happened is their own fault. Others ask if it is the fault of circumstances, or fate. Still others ask if the fault is God’s. In this case, Billy Wayne faults mainly himself, as he takes on the burden of the family curse. But the author, in his approach to the entire novel, seems to suggest otherwise, that the fault, or much of it, rests with God.

In fact, when Billy Wayne sees himself as a failure at the end, he himself begins to question God. “Surely, there had to have been a purpose,” he reasons, “elsewise this world and everything in it were all merely accidental and random—not the kind of world a God would create.”

The implication seems to be that God has failed mankind by instituting this curse called original sin. For allowing a family to be destroyed through no fault of its own. And for leaving survivors with little understanding of the reason, either for their own existence or for the eventual fate of every human. Asked the meaning of life, one character says: “That it ends. Just that.”

The narrator concludes with speculation about the next story people will hear about. “Whatever it is, we’ll feel different when it’s over. We’ll feel wiser, even if we aren’t. Wise and fortunate.” For life will go on. They will discover more about fate, questioning it at the same time that they accept it. But they will not have the answer to God’s role in their lives. Just as Billy Wayne himself did not, which does lead to this novel’s tragic consequences. (December, 2018)