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A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Poachers by Tom Franklin
4.0
‘I come back, where life is slowly dying, and I poach for stories.’
This is a collection of ten short stories following an introductory tale of the author’s childhood hunting days. This was Tom Franklin’s debut short story collection, which was first published in 1999.
These are bleak stories, in various settings along the Alabama River. The title story is a novella, and gives a more completely realised dark world which most of the other stories provide aspects of. For me, the memorable stories are ‘Grit, ‘Dinosaurs’, and ‘Poachers’.
In ‘Grit’, Glen, the plant manager of a factory owned by absentees is in debt to one of his employees who happens to be a bookie. Glen is blackmailed and becomes involved in an extortion racket. The arrangement works for a time, but then backfires - badly.
In ‘Dinosaurs’, a hazardous waste inspector takes a huge stuffed rhinoceros in exchange for not closing a gas station with leaking fuel pumps.
In ‘Poachers’, a legendary game warden who is avenging the murder of his predecessor, slowly and separately deals with three orphaned brothers - who have been a law unto themselves.
In all cases, the choices people make have consequences. In some cases, the choices have their own form of twisted logic. As the sign says, in the title story ‘Jesus is not coming’. These are flawed, very human people dealing with a world that is passing them by.
‘I poach because I want to recover the paths while there’s still time, before the last logging truck rumble through and the old dark ways are lost forever.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This is a collection of ten short stories following an introductory tale of the author’s childhood hunting days. This was Tom Franklin’s debut short story collection, which was first published in 1999.
These are bleak stories, in various settings along the Alabama River. The title story is a novella, and gives a more completely realised dark world which most of the other stories provide aspects of. For me, the memorable stories are ‘Grit, ‘Dinosaurs’, and ‘Poachers’.
In ‘Grit’, Glen, the plant manager of a factory owned by absentees is in debt to one of his employees who happens to be a bookie. Glen is blackmailed and becomes involved in an extortion racket. The arrangement works for a time, but then backfires - badly.
In ‘Dinosaurs’, a hazardous waste inspector takes a huge stuffed rhinoceros in exchange for not closing a gas station with leaking fuel pumps.
In ‘Poachers’, a legendary game warden who is avenging the murder of his predecessor, slowly and separately deals with three orphaned brothers - who have been a law unto themselves.
In all cases, the choices people make have consequences. In some cases, the choices have their own form of twisted logic. As the sign says, in the title story ‘Jesus is not coming’. These are flawed, very human people dealing with a world that is passing them by.
‘I poach because I want to recover the paths while there’s still time, before the last logging truck rumble through and the old dark ways are lost forever.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith