cover image Beautiful Dreamer

Beautiful Dreamer

Christopher Bigsby, . . St. Martin's/Dunne, $21.95 (183pp) ISBN 978-0-312-35583-8

English author Bigsby unflinchingly explores a mushrooming tragedy that begins when a black man walks through the front door of a white-owned store in turn-of-the-century rural Tennessee in his fourth novel (first published in Britain). The black man is lynched for raping the store owner's wife, even though Jake Benchley, a white widower in his 50s who witnessed the confrontation, argues the only crime the man committed was not using the back door. The lynch mob beats Jake nearly to death and brands his chest with an "N" (as in "nigger") for his insistence on the truth. The dead man's boy, James, latches onto Jake after witnessing the lynching and shoots dead twin brothers of the notoriously spiteful Steadman clan who show up at Jake's home to wreak more havoc. The two mismatched fugitives flee hunting dogs and the murdered twins' brothers, as well as the sheriff and his agents, who catch wind of the shootings. Bigsby's tale gains a full head of suspenseful steam through concrete description ("There was a groan and the first brother moved an arm like something that had been run over on the road") and the relationship Jake and James forge, equal parts brothers-in-arms and father and son. (Aug.)