THE PAPERBOY by Pete Dexter

Finished Th 5/11/18

While waiting for the Mike Bergen crew to finished the installation of the new AC unit.

I ordered this book after watching, DEADWOOD, the HBO series on Amazon Prime. This book arrived with TRAIN. Although this is an excellent novel, it's my least favorite of the Dexter books that I've real so far.

PREMISE-

Set in rural norther Florida. Two brothers and a 'star' reporter from a larger paper. One of the reporters has a younger brother who acts as their driver, and this guy is the narrator of the story.

Two newspaper reporters are contacted by a woman. She has fallen in love with a man who is scheduled for execution for murder. She is convinced that he is innocent, and the two reporters are charged with writing an expose of the case to force the authorities to declare his innocence.

This violent man lives with an extended violent family in the swamps. The two reporters journey to the home/camp. These people are almost prehistoric; this is my favorite section of the novel;
naked, eating ice cream out of cartons

They learn that the man was out stealing sod from a golf course on the night that the policeman was knifed to death. However, the proof of this theft is the person that they sold the sod to, yet this person probably doesn't exist.

Ward is probably homosexual and while on assignment he meets several sailors in a bar and is violently beaten and raped. The premise is that the reporters have lied to keep this rape incident a secret.

Jack is bitten by jellyfish at the beach and a group of female nursing students piss on him to prevent him from dying. Very odd...

And, a scene that I remembered from the movie.
The film was lurid, over-the-top, and you felt like you could not believe what you were seeing- worth watching.
Mathew McConaughey/ Nicole Kidman/ John Cusak

The man is freed, but he kills (or his clan) Charlotte Bless. Later, he's re-incarcerated.

THE CAST-

Thurmond Call- the knifed policeman
Charlotte Bless- the woman who has fallen for a murderer
Jack James- the young man who is a swimmer and expelled from college and acts as the driver
Ward James- his reporter brother
William Ward James- their editor father; called 'W-2' and also (by his close friends), 'World War'.
Ellen Guthrie- writer at WW's paper; and becomes his girlfriend- takes over the paper
Helen Drew- a reporter who uncovers the lie that wrongly led to the Pulitzer prize award
Yardley Acheman- the reporter who pushes the lie; he has higher aspirations, writing a book NYC
Hilary Van Wetter- the vicious killer who later kills Charlotte Bless. "open your mouth"

I would still read anything by Pete Dexter, but this was not my favorite. Still, it's way better than almost anything one might pick up off the shelf.