Red Midnight

by Thomas Hal Phillips

In a fit of rage over an insult to his father's grave, young Marcus Oday kills his friend Obie's father, is convicted of manslaughter, and is sentenced to a term in the state penitentiary. Sensitive, vulnerable, and afraid, Marcus is rescued by an older convict named Mims, who tenderly shields him from harm. In the turbulent prison world, where the jolting code phrase of "Red Midnight" is the signal that a prisoner has escaped, an intimate, soulful affection develops between Marcus and his guardian. It blends brotherhood, friendship, and love. When Thomas Hal Phillips's Red Midnight begins, Marcus Oday is newly paroled from prison. In some ways, he would like nothing better than to go back. Charged with mystery and vivid characterizations, the novel is a distinctive coming-of-age story that examines the bonds between family members and between friends and exposes the tensions that can tear them apart. Like other novels by Phillips, Red Midnight is set in the rustic hill country of northern Mississippi close to the primal, natural earth. The clash of human wills, the quest for new identity, and the life-altering encounter with profound friendship are Phillips's themes. His focus falls on the alienated, heart-sick hero, who, without his beloved father and his French mother, now faces life without Mims. A tale of a young man discovering himself, Red Midnight is a haunting evocation of Mississippi during the years after World War II. As the acclaimed author of five novels published in the 1940s and 1950s, Thomas Hal Phillips was in the last wave of the Southern Literary Renaissance. He went on to achieve success as a screenwriter in Hollywood, working extensively with filmmaker Robert Altman. In Red Midnight , after a forty-year absence, Phillips returns masterfully to fiction. Thomas Hal Phillips received the O. Henry award and two Guggenheim fellowships. He collaborated in writing the screenplays of Robert Altman's Nashville and Thieves Like Us . Two of his novels, The Loved and the Unloved and Kangaroo Hollow , are available from University Press of Mississippi. He lives in Kossuth, Miss.

Hardcover

First published August 28, 2002

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had heard of Thomas Hal Phillips as the author of a 'lost' gay classic, 'The Bitterweed Path', and as one of the last writers to emerge from the Southern Literary Renaissance. Being UK based it is often difficult and expensive to get hold of novels like 'The Bitterweed Path' if they haven't received considerable UK promotion or publication by a UK house. So I was delighted when the opportunity arose to acquire 'Red Midnight' Mr. Phillips final novel published in 2002, the first novel he had produced in forty years. I am much less delighted now that I have read it (well I reached page 163 of its 306 pages). This novel is supposed to be about fifteen year old Marcus Oday who kills a man threatening to desecrate his father's. He is convicted of manslaughter and is sentenced to a term in the state penitentiary.

'Sensitive, vulnerable, and afraid, Marcus is rescued by an older convict named Mims, who tenderly shields him from harm in the turbulent prison world...and an intimate, soulful affection develops between Marcus and his guardian. It blends brotherhood, friendship, and love.'

Actually no, what we get is a tale of prison life shorn of all horrors. You would never imagine that a Southern prison might be a dangerous place and a fifteen year old white boy might have a lot to be frightened of but it doesn't. Prison life for Marcus and Mims is portrayed as idyl out of R.M. Ballantyn's 'Coral Island (see my footnote *1 below). I am asking for descriptions of prison rape but it is not even suggested that a fifteen year old was under threat, indeed one wonders why Marcus needed Mims as a shield. The failure of the novel to address the reality of prison life in the 1920s or any of the ugliness of Southern institutions and systems begs the question of why Phillips is seen as the last heir of the Southern Literary Renaissance which, if I might remind you:

"...was a period of flourishing and critically acclaimed literature originating in the American South, primarily from the 1920s to the 1940s, marked by writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. This movement challenged Southern stereotypes and romanticized notions of the past, instead exploring complex themes of regional identity, racial tensions, and the realities of the South's conservative culture with a new sense of realism."

A 'new sense of realism' is hardly how I would describe this book. There was more honesty about Southern prison life in 'Gone With the Wind'.

The 'gay' element of the novel is opaque to non-existent. That was the case with 'The Bitterweed Path' but that was published in 1950. But by 2002 you would have hoped that Phillips would have moved on from his earlier reticence. In 1953 the American author John Cromwell in 'A Grain of Sand' was able to discuss these things with more openness than Phillips could manage in 2002 - and of course there were many, many others. Maybe Phillips wouldn't have wanted anyone to see a 'gay' element in his writing. Clearly it was a way for publishers to sell his books. But is it really there and if it is so hard to find is it worth it.

As I have admitted I didn't finish this novel, it just didn't seem worth the time and effort. Thomas Hal Phillips is a good writer but this novel is farrago of nonsense that is true n either to its setting in the 1920s nor the age it was published in.

*1 For how obscenely corrupt Southern prisons could be I recommend 'Without Mercy' by David Beasely, though it details what prison was like in Georgia in the 1920s I don't think we need be under any illusion that prisons in Mississippi, the setting for 'Red Midnight', were any better.

[ALEARDO ZANGHELLINI · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with another reviewer that the book’s premise (with Marcus’s prison time being central to it) could have delivered a much rawer story. But in the end I didn’t mind the softer approach the author chose - it certainly made it more believable that Marcus would want to return to prison. I feel it’s not quite accurate to say that a heterosexual relationship ‘supplants’ the same-sex one, as the same reviewer suggested, though the homoeroticism in Phillips’s books is certainly understated (which possibly makes it more powerful, however). Red midnight is not as lyrical or haunting as the Bitterweed Path. Perhaps the ending is a little anti-climatic. There are some wonderful moments, but relative to the 5 star perfection of the Bitterweed Path, this is only a 3.5.

[EMM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this book stands on the merits of its prose. The writing carries the book though two major elements threaten to bring it down. Despite a murder and prison time, Red Midnight didn't have the intensity one might expect. The book comes across as mild and sometimes uneventful. There are some very strong passages in terms of writing. The descriptions of grief and the scenes going to and from prison are the most effective.
Though the relationship between Marcus and Mims has gay undertones, you could easily make a case that this book isn't gay at all. This is the kind of book where a heterosexual union ultimately supplants the ill-defined same-sex attachment that here stands in for a gay relationship. The relationship with Mims is understated to the point that it barely comes across as anything more than dependence and comfort. There is a complete lack of anything resembling sex. In addition, Mims never comes across as a real person. Until the end, he remains a blank slate for Marcus to transfer his father fixation onto.
Marcus' time in prison is easily the weakest part of the book. This is a kinder, gentler prison experience than you might expect even for its time. Our boy is immediately granted the privileged status of a trustee so he can spend his sentence in complete safety and comfort. The more realistic prison experience is a threat than never materializes. It really takes a big chunk out of the novel that his time in prison is so ridiculously, unbelievably easy, even idyllic, so much so that Marcus wants to go back there so he can be with Mims.
Though the pleasant prison stay and the non-character of Mims undermine the book, the wonderful writing saves it.