One of the main features of Grit Lit is constructing characters whose present-day life is affected by a history of questionable decisions and a current palette of limited possibilities. Next Wave Grit Lit often trades the fundamental slow-burning emotive driver of "We didn't have a lot" for "Look what I had/could have had." In Harry Crews or even Truman Capote, we have the benefit of viewing events in the past. So the missing necessities or harrowing events can always be comforted with thoughts of where they are now. However, a great fiction creation like a character from Dorothy Allison or Larry Brown takes on a life of its own within your the barriers of your life.
The familiarity of territory is important in Michael Farris Smith's writing. Walker Percy may mention a day trip to Hattiesburg and pique your interest in locality, but Smith is talking about Mississippi downtown, in town, and just outside of towns that could be viewed from your window. 2018's "Desperation Road" opens in the middle of nowhere. A woman and her child can be seen walking beside the interstate. This is a striking disparity. Cars around this pair in peril are never known to stop. Moreover, these two are likely the ones who need to speed away from this hostile environment the most. Thankfully, an old man stops and picks them up. He heaves the leaden trash bag full of the remnants of their lives into his trunk and takes them ten miles (at their request) to a motel/cafe/truck stop. Smith keeps this description purposefully vague to cement how this combination of a Western-style "last chance saloon" awaits anyone adrift from society in any part of the world -- especially in the American South.
The kind hand of this stranger passes the mother forty dollars. She wisely finds the location of a possible shelter a few more miles down the road. She also feeds her daughter and gets them a room for the night. This part of the odyssey is short but heartbreaking. Like "Cannery Row," it is easy to miss the lack of humanity around them and how those who have occupied a similar orbit are compelled to help but wind up short because of the implied experience of their own lives.
This is Maben. She does not just make the choices for herself. She does for her daughter Annalee as well. You feel how they take comfort in water, towels, sheets, and a brief night of safety. Unfortunately, these small victories chip away at their minuscule funds. So Maben has to revisit her past and make some decisions where the choices are only grim. Smith deftly handles her rationalization but leaves the subtext to us as readers to decide what she could have done instead. This is a dangerous sliver of territory. Being in an unknown place that one thinks they know, perhaps too well. The tradition of Greek theatre would call it "hubris." However, Maben is not arrogant or even confident. The reality boils down to their current situation and the past that Smith illustrates as "choking her like a wild, poisonous vine," making this her only choice.
Russell spent the last eleven years in Parchman. Now he is flooded with memories on his way back home. His mother passed away while he was behind bars. His father wrote letters that were never sent. As the bus wheels carry him closer to home, his possibilities seem to diminish with the falling number of miles to go. His life is reduced to its bare essentials. His first week out was spent in a Motel 6 going through a deprogramming/reprogramming that confines his new life to a manila folder and never strays too far away from the percentage of recidivism (four out of the seven in his group will return).
Stepping off the bus, he is quickly beaten down by the two people waiting for him. Again, a kind stranger intercedes and gets him to his home, where his father, Mitchell, has cobbled together everything he could need to start anew. Russell's conflicts surface in an inner voice that Smith turns into a brief dialogue. Like Maben, Russell does not have many choices at all. Unlike Maben, he has enough comfort around him to enjoy the air of freedom.
Characters and their decision-making in Literature often tend to thread the plot lines. Thinking reductively, a classic serial hinges on these choices. Thinking modernly, games are always asking you to choose between items, paths, or people. However, 20th Century Literature leans heavily on these wrong moves and the consequences of their actions. Sometimes, even defining the characters on how well they cope with making the wrong choices. However, most of those trade this pattern in life for a stored-away emotion or secret longing that only we know. Grit Lit will have none of that. These towns are too small to veer too far away from your history. In addition, they are changing around you while you are in the same place. The subtext of pitiful off-page lives and stagnation does almost as much to limit your path as a character as the post-Parchman seminars about adjusting to life in Smith's novel. When it dawns on you that you are damaged and everything is the proverbial "damned if you do/damned if you don't," any choice looks palatable.
Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose nothing.
William Faulkner, "The Wild Palms" (1939)
NEW MUSIC THIS WEEK
TUNE-YARDS - Better Dreaming [BLUE LP/CD](4AD/Beggars/Redeye)
Oakland, CA duo Tune-Yards are blessed with one of Indie Rock's most dexterous and elastic voices in Merrill Garbus. Where the earlier albums used Garbus like an instrument with vocal hooks and cut-up lyrics weaving in and out, "Better Dreaming" captures Garbus and Nate Brenner as collaborators and starting a family. Listen as their 3-year-old sizes up the opening of the funky "Limelight" and you finally see the duo evolving into their Talking Heads-ian period. "Heartbreak" is almost entirely Garbus's vocals and a funky bass line. However, when she injects passion and urgency into the chorus' repeated "numb numb numb numb," Tune-Yards single-handedly prove how much they want to move those who listen.
SLEEP THEORY - Afterglow [ORANGE/CLR LP/CD](Epitaph/AMPED)
Another in the growing mass of Metal-based Active Rock-ready bands. Originating from Memphis, Sleep Theory brings back the rage of Nu-Metal (those subterranean Deftones-style basslines) and overlays today's double-pronged attack of a clean vocalist from Cullen Moore and grinding vox from lead guitarist Daniel Pruitt. Moore's singing is the best feature on "Paralyzed," where it boosts the track to an anthemic burst of angst. As they reprise a few cuts from their earlier EP (including the original breakout single "Numb,") it makes you wonder what else they have on the board as Active Rock is finally morphing into welcoming more Metal-based artists.
ARM'S LENGTH - There's a Whole World Out There [KOI POND LP/CD](Pure Noise/The Orchard)
As a new Emo band, Canada's Arm's Length is at their best when they update Nineties-style Post-Rock riffing ("Funny Face.") Paired with Allen Steinberg's crisp vocals, Arm's Length come on like a classic Emo band complete with bashing breaks. Where they are smarter is the incorporation of Pop-Punk style changes that lift "The Weight" into double-time/stop-start recall of the real hitmakers of the Emo craze. Still, it is a hope that "Whole World" will at least revisit their Quicksand-ian skills like their best song to date, 2022's "Object Permanence."
BLEED [LP/CD](20 Buck Spin/The Orchard)
With all the newly renewed focus on artists sounding like the new Deftones, Dallas's Bleed gets it right. Accompanied by turntable scratches, those looooooooooooooooooong vocal phrases that trail off across crunchy riffs, Bleed's ten-song debut comes from the "school" of "White Pony-meets-Deftones" but never quite imitates it. Their songs are structured like curveballs hammering like Helmet ("Fixate") and then settling into an almost Turnstile (without the 311-ness) sound ("Killing Time.") Even when their flaws show up (this is their first release, give them credit for not exactly playing it safe,) Bleed never strays away from the hook/riff/central idea of a song. Like Deafheaven's still exciting "Lonely People" or the first hints of the new Turnstile coming in June, "Bleed" floats on its wave of shoegaze radio-ready Alt. Metal by only mixing up the ingredients and rarely sounding like the sum of its parts.
FLOCK OF MOONS - In The Wake of the Trembling Hand [LP](Jib Machine)
Akron, OH's Flock of Moons calls their pummelling guitar Pop "Space Grunge" because it switches from Ty Segall-like Psych/Garage Rock to muddy, thunderous thumping. "Trembling Hand" comes out of the gate like Cactus circa 1970 - minus the Bluesy underpinnings. "Inside" is as swirling as your best throwback Garage RAWKers but features a midsection for both headbangers and guitar nuts. "Rivers" bumps along like a lost "Brown Acid" gem on its acidic surges and zombie-like groove
Ghörnt - Bluetgraf [LP](Soulseller SWI)
Swiss Black Metal continues to rage into the Metal arena with this brutal duo. On their epic (but strangely brief) retelling of "Dracula," they bludgeon you with swooping guitar figures (the title track) and punishing double-kick madness (the Gothenburg-ian "Vlad.") However, there are a couple of moments that hint at their future in adding elements like no other (not even well-respected fellow countrymen Paysage D'Hiver.). "Jagd" digs into a wild enough melody to feel like you are on horseback heading for that infamous castle. About 2/3 of the way through the perilous journey where tri-tones pass you like lanterns in the windy black night, it drops down to bass-and-drums only break that is thrilling. Later in the album, "Wit Waag vo de Sonne" ramps back up to a dangerous pace with swarming dissonant guitars surrounding you like bats. In the blink of an eye, the mood switches, but they do not lose the tempo as the melody regains control like a swashbuckling hero arriving to do away with them all. A true Black Metal thriller.
FRIENDSHIP - Caveman Wakes Up [LP/CD](Merge/AMPED)
Philadelphia's Friendship have been through several paces on the evolution from Pop to Guitar Rock. Suddenly, Dan Wriggins sounds like Jason Molina delivering David Berman lyrics complete with Neil Young-ian guitar squall. Slowed down to a squelchy Crazy Horse pace, "Caveman" bathes in dissatisfaction (like the underrated Wild Pink album from last year.) Wriggins is not droning about "the world being a scary place" as much as he is announcing it to himself and all in shouting distance. "All Over The World" is the real slice of brilliance, incorporating a Bonnie "Prince" Billy-ish shuffle and letting Wriggins hold on to every consonant and vocal quiver like these are the only words he can summon to carve his place in this world. When it warms up with the harmonious, lantern-lit chorus, it glows with hope.
M(H)AOL - Something Soft [LP/CD](Merge/AMPED)
Irish band M(H)AOL (pron. "Male") made an angry but pointed attack on the world on "Attachment Styles." A sweltering set of noisy Post-Punk, it was a feminine vision of an honest but messed-up world ("Bored of Men.") Stripped down to a trio, "DM:AM" bursts out with air-raid guitar and This Heat-style minimal but off-beat rhythms. The urgency of "Attachment" is still there, but now enveloped in more barreling layers of sound. The rhythm governs everything though ("Snare,") with Constance Keane and Jamie Hyland's vocals purposely obscured in the mix. As M(H)AOL again bash away at the barriers, their lyrics and hooks disappear in the mix ("Pursuit") only to reappear in almost percussive, repetitive, rat-a-tat style salvos. "Something Soft" is a complete revamp of attack.
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
