don't read it, daniel

... this blog post, that is. But read the book, "And the Ass Saw the Angel." I'm definitely going to spoil it for you if you can't resist the temptation to continue reading this before I mail you the book.

So there is a real ass, and there is a real angel. There is already so much to say about this book that I fear I'll make it a jumbled mess. But after the longest prologue ever, I've already gotten to know pretty well the book's protagonist and the town in which he lives. The town produces sugar but experiences a devastating rain pattern in the early 1940s. Euchrid is the baby that survives in the beginning, and his childhood is a tortured one. His father's family is known through "these parts" as the most inbred, violent bunch of hillbilly trash around. I keep picturing them having the same family tree as the killers from the 2003 Eliza Dushku movie "Wrong Turn." Euchrid's father seems to have been the sanest of the bunch, and in trying to escape he was "rescued" by a crazy, drunken mash-brewer who mistook him for her long-estranged husband. Still a far cry from normal, Euchrid's father is a meticulous hunter of small animals and likes to invent traps that maim (but don't kill) them. I haven't yet found out the reason for this.

Some of the book is told from Euchrid's perspective (he's recounting from his position in the sinking mudhole), some of it from a non-character narrator. Incidentally, I like the idea of experimenting with narrators, and I'd like to read something written in second person, but it will have to be the right book. I could try "Ablutions," which came out recently, but I'm not sure I want to envision myself an alcoholic dude in a bar.

Back on point, Euchrid did see an angel, and has since been slowly discovering that he has an ability to understand and influence animals. The family's mule, named Mule, almost died but was rescued by Euchrid's laservision-esque stare. Not the same stare that got his (other) ass kicked for peeping in on a local trailer-trash lady and her sexual exploits. I guess a kid has to entertain himself after being smacked across the face with a flyswatter by his mother all day.