Weep No More Brthr

by Sterling Watson

Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews A Southern prison drama with a revenge plot and a sense of thickly textured events that recalls, somewhat crudely, early Robert Penn Warren novels. Rich Clare and her farmboy stud Charles, the high school football star, pass through the zenith of their affair on graduation eve. She senses that Charles' younger brother Farel has scholastic possibilities (he gets a doctorate in 18th-century Lit) that will take him outta the Carolina farm country, but that Charles will always be a lowbrow. So she starts bedding young Farel on the side and gives Charles back his ring. The two lads set out on a hitchhiking trip, and Charles is shot dead by vile, fat Lester Macabee, a psycho who has given them a ride. Lester escapes. Ten years pass with Farel writing to mournful Clare. He gets a job teaching English to prisoners at North Florida state prison. One day Lester is brought in as a new prisoner, and Farel gets himself involved with some blacks, including a mass murderer, who will kill Lester for him if Farel will help them escape during a performance of Genet's The Blacks, which they are mounting for the inmates. Farel agrees but finds that revenge is sweetest when you do the bloody part yourself, and the climax is a horror of killer's delight. Musky motives and survival choices in Florida's state prisons, with a mess of dialect rendered with the authenticity of a lynx-eared linguist. A first novel with plenty of grab.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

STERLING WATSON is the author of seven novels, including Deadly Sweet, Sweet Dream Baby, Fighting in the Shade, and Suitcase City. Watson’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Georgia Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review, and the Southern Review. He was director of the creative writing program at Eckerd College for twenty years and now teaches in the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College in Boston. Of his sixth novel, Suitcase City, Tom Franklin said, “If this taut literary crime novel doesn’t center Sterling Watson on the map, we should change maps.” Watson lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Committee is his latest novel.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is the story of a man who goes to teach in a prison in order to gain access to the convict who murdered his brother. He wants revenge. It’s a decent story and I thought the language was quite good.

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

this, i believe, was watson's 1st published story. bout this man who lost his brother to some murdering s.o.b. but unlike the modern world, the murdering s.o.b. is still in prison and...the protag gets a job there, at that prison...as i recall, he either uses an alias or something else is at work...since the murdering s.o.b. is there...one of those conflict of interests...

anyway, things are plotted, things happen...and for the life of me, i don't recall enough about how the story ends to spoil it for you....ha ha ha ha ha!


does he do the murderin s.o.b. in? does he let him live? he does plot, plan, connive, all to get to a point where he can look the murderin s.o.b. in the face...

good story, i thought, worth a read.

when did i read it? '82 is close, give or take, library copy....his second, the calling, had a hard back of that one, gone now, things happen and so it goes

[Jude Hardee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must read if you have a brother