From Publishers Weekly
Gone South
Robert R. McCammon Pocket
Books $22 (0p) ISBN 978-0-671-74306-2
McCammon has followed the popular and critical success of Boy's Life with a
book that is much darker, but written with the same headlong narrative grip.
Dan Lambert is a bitter Vietnam vet in Louisiana at the end of his rope: Agent
Orange has condemned him to a slow death, he has split from his wife and now
the bank wants to repossess his truck, his only hope of getting work. In a
moment of blind madness he kills a bank loan officer and runs, followed by two
of the unlikeliest bounty hunters you'll ever meet: Flint, who carries the
half-formed head and arm of an unseparated twin brother in his side, and
Pelvis, who makes a living impersonating guess who , but has a distinctly
better self. As he runs, Lambert picks up another misfit, Arden, an otherwise
lovely girl with a horribly disfiguring birthmark, who is seeking a legendary
faith healer in the Gulf swamplands where Lambert tries to hide. Most of the
book recalls an action-packed popular movie, with car chases, some evil dope
runners, murderous alligators and an explosive climax involving a Vietnam-era
patrol boat. It's a strong adventure yarn, but McCammon seems to want to bathe
it in some sort of cosmic significance, and the attempt to give Flint legendary
stature, as well as a mistily mystical windup at a wilderness hospital run by
nuns (where Arden can be "cured") take some swallowing. Literary Guild
alternate. (Oct.)
From Library Journal
Author McCammon has made a name for himself with well-crafted horror
thrillers but recently has explored other areas of fiction. Gone
South contains danger and suspense, but it is primarily the story of
a quest. Dan, dogged by depression and Agent Orange-induced leukemia,
has accidentally killed a man. On the run, he meets Arden, a disfigured
woman abandoned at a truck stop. He reluctantly agrees to help her on
her journey to the Louisiana swamps where, she believes, the legendary
Bright Girl will heal her. Meanwhile, an unlikely pair of bounty hunters
is on Dan's trail: Flint began life as a carnival freak, with his
Siamese twin's tiny arm and half-formed face protruding from his chest;
he is saddled with training Cecil, a self-deprecating and pathetically
friendly Elvis impersonator. These four misfits collide and, finally,
arrive where the Bright Girl may actually live. What happens then has
the satisfaction of a fairy-tale quest fulfilled. Their wishes come
true, although not in ways they would have guessed. The four characters
are wonderful. Their problems, while unusual, seem very real. And the
scenes between irritated, icy Flint and soft-spoken, naive Cecil lend at
times a slapstick quality to the novel. Highly recommended. Literary
Guild alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert LJ 6/15/92.
From Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1992
If, in Boy's Life (1991), McCammon took a giant step away from horror
(Mine, 1990, etc.) and toward his own potent brand of southern gothic,
here he takes a daring leap—with a captivating but calculatedly eccentric
fable of an outlaw Vietnam vet who learns about the power of redemption. The
vet is Dan Lambert, 41, a hard-luck Louisiana carpenter slowly dying from
cancer (Agent Orange). Dan's story starts out in swift if familiar
thriller-fashion as, through a series of tragic overreactions, he shoots dead
the bank officer who's ordered his truck repossessed, and flees. In fact, this
opening strongly echoes that of David Morrell's First Blood, which
introduced fellow-vet Rambo—but where Rambo was chased by a stalwart
sheriff, Dan is soon hounded by two markedly bizarre characters: Flint
Murtaugh, a bounty hunter whose secret weapon is the Derringer held by his
Siamese-twin brother, Clint, whose arm and head extend from Flint's torso; and
Flint's new sidekick, Pelvis Eisley, a drop-dead Elvis (circa 1977)
impersonator. And after he makes final contact with his estranged wife and son,
Dan finds himself traveling with yet another misfit, Arden—whose
beautiful face is marred by a hideous port-wine stain and who's searching for
the "Bright Girl," a legendary faith healer whose touch will erase
her scar. Improbable events pile up as hunters and hunted race into the deep
bayou, where Flint/Clint and Pelvis run afoul of drug dealers and where Dan,
touched by his hunters' flawed humanity, joins forces with a Cajun swamp rat to
fight to save their lives--and then accompanies Arden to her transfiguring
meeting with Bright Girl. No subtlety but lots of surprises, not the least of
which is McCammon's ability to humanize deeply even the most absurd of
characters. With its careening plot, jackhammer suspense, and very Dean
Koontz-like upbeat moral gloss, then—a real crowd-pleaser.
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