John BrandonArkansasMcSweeney'sFeb. 28, 2008224 pages
There is a certain kind of trust that I have come to have in McSweeney's. Their quarterly literary journal, aptly titled McSweeney's Quarterly, is popular among artsy types who appreciate the avant-garde stylings of the publishers. The consistent quality of the quarterly - and the publisher's trumpeting - led me to try one of their "rectangulars." This past month, McSweeney's published their new flagship novel, Arkansas, by John Brandon.
McSweeney's gears its products toward bibliophiles, and the result is always impressive. Arkansas is solidly and artistically bound. The embossed title and sunken car image on the front cover is real gold. The paper is pure white, opaque and acid-free, and the text is neatly set off from the page. There is not a dust jacket, and instead one feels the heft and texture of the book as it is held. The book is almost worth the price simply as a piece of publishing mastery.
Yet, of course, the content of the novel is the real prize here. Brandon's debut novel follows the drama surrounding a Southern drug-distribution outfit. Kyle and Swin are two oddball thieves who end up working for "Frog," the mysterious head of the organization. They hold cover day jobs in a state park during the day, and run drugs when called upon by Frog's messengers. Swin gets himself a nurse girlfriend, and they interact with various others in the chain of command, most notably a woman known only as "Her."
It is difficult to say exactly what kind of novel Arkansas is. One could throw it under the "contemporary fiction" header, but that seems a cop-out. It certainly has more of an artistic feel to it but not enough to be called experimental. It's a drama about criminals, so "crime drama" comes to mind, but much of the novel takes place in the minds and homes of Kyle and Swin, raking leaves in the park during the day, picking up girls, checking up on their families. Arkansas is dark, exciting and fun - and about drug runners.
Brandon's dialogue is clever and natural ... or, at least, it seems natural for a bunch of off-their-rocker thieves. Kyle and Swin's personalities are very disparate but not forcedly so, creating a tension that leads to conversations that are absurd but believable in-context.
The crime aspect is something different. There are no secret meetings with the mob boss in the local smoke-filled saloon, no car chases or encounters with gruff detectives. Instead, Frog runs his operation without ever meeting his underlings. Kyle and Swin work only perhaps ten hours a week in their illegal jobs, mostly just picking up packages and driving them across a state or two.
Kyle and Swin are natural, unsympathetic criminals but aren't the Reservoir Dog, bank-heist type. Rather, they are criminals because that's all they can relate to, not because they dream of vast fortunes.
Brandon chooses to jump between two major perspectives to relate his story.
First, there is the present-day perspective of the several main characters, which is told in a more or less standard way. There are some interesting points of style, like when Swin talks about writing a book about these adventures, just as they happened, taking an unbiased view. The reader realizes that he holds that book in his hands; the fourth wall is nearly - but not quite - broken.
The second, more striking, perspective is that of Frog, whose story is told in the second-person "you." It starts much further back in time, when frog is just starting his career in crime, and jumps forward towards the time of the main action.
The two perspectives play off each other and, combined with Brandon's storytelling, form a cohesive whole.
Arkansas is the kind of novel you want to pass off to a friend - not just because it's a good read, but because it makes you feel cool recommending it. It's also the kind of book you want to have sitting on your shelf, its gold embossing glimmering in a ray of sunlight - hopefully catching the eye of a nosy guest.
