Word: bastardly
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...Publishers Weekly blurb for the novel Billy Dead notes that it is "reminiscent of Dorothy Allison," and on the surface this comparison is very apt. Like Allison's most famous work, Bastard out of Carolina, Lisa Reardon's debut novel deals with the effect of abuse on the children of a working-class white family and is narrated by one of the children, Ray, now grown up. Ultimately, however, for various reasons Billy Dead is a weaker and less interesting work than its predecessor...
This is despite its more shocking plot. Unlike the Boatwrights of Bastard, a lively and tightly-knit group of ne'er-do-wells, the Johnsons are isolated from their extended family and ruthless towards each other, each one capable of horrible acts of cruelty. The main culprit is the father, Bill Sr., a vicious drunk who between jail stints beats his wife and children and sexually abuses his daughter Jean. Billy Jr., the dead man of the title, responds to the abuse by becoming his father's replica, repeating his father's acts first with Jean, then with...
Part of the problem may be that Reardon, attempting to be original, has eschewed using the vengeful, violent Jean--who in her viciousness somewhat resembles the protagonist of Bastard, Ruth Anne Boatwright--as the narrator, instead picking her ineffectual brother Ray. This could have been an interesting switch in points of view, and the structure of the novel, as a series of flashbacks illuminating the present-day situation, could have worked...
...back porch when we were younger, practicing slow, deep breathing through our noses. According to his martial arts comics, a true warrior always breathed through his nose...". But ultimately, Ray's narrative voice is unconvincing more than it is funny, like a poor imitation of Bastard. Perhaps it's all the "likes" she uses:"...where I can see a couple of the guys turning away like they didn't see the whole thing. Like they don't know the whole damned story." She writes like her only option is to use that four-letter word ad nauseam...
...with Ray's skewed vision of the world and, what is worse, his sometimes hideously rambling narrative. To pull a novel off with a hero or heroine essentially isolated from society, the protagonist has to be vivid and interesting, which is why this novel suffers by any comparison to Bastard out of Carolina or any other tale of an abusive childhood. While Ruth Anne Boatwright remains in the reader's memory, Ray Johnson is easily forgotten, with only the horrible tales of abuse to vaguely haunt the readers, tales of suffering with blank-faced victims at the center...