Hello Down There

by Michael Parker

A young aristocrat paralyzed by morphine and disillusion. A beguiling teenager from the poor side of the tracks. A love affair that rouses a drowsy North Carolina town to social civil war. In his luminous first novel, Michael Parker recreates with subtle detail and sharp sensuality the texture and nuance of a tobacco town in 1952, a community caught in its own slow decay. Hello Down There weaves suspense and romance into a haunting story of passion gone wrong, as its rich cast of characters - the druggist who claims to see through every deception; the stoic janitor who longs for his abandoned farm; the town's grande dame, who wields her prominence like a weapon; the imaginative eleven-year-old whose love for his sister wrenches him away from her - circles around the couple on currents of loyalty and rage. This saga of small-town life illuminates the crucial conflicts that mark all of us: conflicts between different classes, between parent and child, between body and heart. Michael Parker explores the dark underside of the Southern obsession with family, poignantly revealing the desires that drive and define us.

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

MICHAEL PARKER is the author of five novels – Hello Down There, Towns Without Rivers, Virginia Lovers, If You Want Me To Stay, The Watery Part of the World and two collections of stories, The Geographical Cure and Don’t Make Me Stop Now. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various journals including Five Points, the Georgia Review, The Idaho Review, the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, Oxford American, Shenandoah, The Black Warrior Review, Trail Runner and Runner’s World. He has received fellowships in fiction from the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His work has been anthologized in the Pushcart, New Stories from the South and O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia, he is a Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His website is www.michaelfparker.com

Reviews

[Golda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edwin Keane is the boyfriend I’d want at seventeen: smart, troubled and intense. He rescues a girl from her boring life and her strict father. And on top of that, he tries to explain himself in long long love letters, and she desperately wants to understand. The girl, Eureka, is true to him even when tested, a scene that reminds me of William Defoe coming on to Laura Dern in Wild at Heart. Also, like Wild at Heart, Hello Down There has an incredibly freaky road accident and characters on a road trip to disaster. But best about the book is the word choices of the author; the language is on a whole other magical surreal level like how Parker describes Eureka’s brother being sucked up into a tree, the foliage shaking. It has the best mix of truths: the gritty reality, the different perspectives and the impossible being sometimes possible.

[Sarah Honenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A former writing teacher, very talented. Dark stories, but his characters are so real and in such pain.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

(no 18 of 2019)

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I decided to stick to what I know and I know that I like Michael Parker. If You Want Me to Stay was a fave of mine from 2007 and I read Virginia Lovers this year and enjoyed it as well.

What I have learned about Parker's 'style', after reading this one, is that he captures the voice of his characters, whereby you know them so well. And it's not just one, it's several personas. And they are unforgettable and linger, at least in my mind, for days, weeks even.

They linger too because there is tragedy involved in his story lines.

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it because the author is one of my professors, and it was amazing.