Everybody Knows

The rain-sodden, southern world of David Wesley Williams' overflows with satiric fun as it churns up a rich detritus of Biblical allusions, political backstory, musical opinions, literary puns, and local anecdotes. The story, set a decade hence, introduces a raft of characters, too, including musicians, an escaped felon, a tyrannical governor atop his state's old electric chair, various and likable sidekicks and mistresses, and even a writer, the ironic double of the work's author, whose enthusiasm for his subject matter spills over into strongly opinionated footnotes. And that's all before the pirates arrive. Original, energetic, and obsessive, recalls the worlds of Faulkner, Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, and John Kennedy Toole in its broad wit and sorrowful joy.