A review by lawyergobblesbooks
Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

5.0

Bleak in spirit and richly atmospheric, the novel, set in 1949, centers around a small-town Georgia shopkeeper named Paris Trout who murders a black child over a debt. Trout is a staunch racist who doesn't consider his actions criminal, and the characters followed throughout the novel hold varying views on whether the status of his victim will keep him from paying for taking a life. Dexter enters the minds of various characters to tell the story of the murder and subsequent trial, including the sheriff, his wife and Trout himself. This all takes place against the hot and dusty yet chilling background of a place where the old order shows no signs of budging, and where the morality we know in the post-civil rights era has only just emerged at the edges of some characters' consciousness. It's easy to see why this novel won the National Book Award in 1988; it displays the mid-century South's flaws without parodying or judging them, plugging forward with a realism that never quite sacrifices empathy for every player in the small-town drama.