Indie review of new literary humor<\/p>\n

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A Feral Chorus<\/em>, the debut novel from former Texan Matthew J. White, offers readers a clever and entertaining mixture of comedy, mystery, social commentary, romance, and road-trip misadventures across America\u2019s South. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Born in England, the author grew up in Southeast Texas, and was a lawyer in Houston before returning to the United Kingdom in 2017. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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In A Feral Chorus<\/em>, White\u2019s central character, Guy Hastings, realizes his life is a mess. He\u2019s about to turn 30, and he still hasn\u2019t finished law school. Indeed, he\u2019s no longer even enrolled. He\u2019s selling cars at a Houston dealership and just drifting along, commission to commission, until he\u2019s blindsided by two events. First, his favorite uncle, Harry Fentress, dies suddenly at his desk, leaving no one to manage his failing law firm. And Guy\u2019s wife Whitney declares that she\u2019s fed up with Guy\u2019s faded ambitions and lack of concern for upward mobility. Demanding a separation, she throws him out of their house. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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White uses deft combinations of small details, realistic dialogue, and internal monologue to add depth to his wide-ranging tale. And his previous connections to Texas still shine. One example: when Whitney criticizes Guy\u2019s lack of ambition by telling him, \u201cYou\u2019re like some college kid, whiling your way down the Guadalupe in an inner tube,\u201d Guy\u2019s response is mostly internal. \u201cI turned over and attempted to go to sleep. As I lay there on the expensive memory-foam mattress, ensconced in the high-thread-count sheets, I tried to take my mind off Harry\u2019s untimely passing by considering the flow of the esteemed rivers of the Hill Country. I was rusty on Central Texas\u2019s riparian geography, so when I was done with the Guadalupe, my mind went blank.\u201d  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Guy wants desperately to win back Whitney\u2019s affection. But he also knows his beloved Aunt Imogen, Harry\u2019s widow, can\u2019t run the once thriving and now fading law firm. So he attempts a madcap scheme: Work at the law practice by day and sell vehicles during the car dealership\u2019s night shift. Soon, however, Guy is distracted by a chance to make $100,000 quickly if he can collect a large, overdue legal settlement payment owed to his late uncle\u2019s firm. With that money, Guy is sure he can show some \u201cupward mobility\u201d to Whitney and entice her to take him back. All he has to do, he thinks, is go to Tampa, and collect the money from the client who embezzled it. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Life seldom flows that smoothly, of course. Guy keeps encountering people and awkward happenings that reveal the thin veneer between \u201cdomesticated\u201d human behavior and the wildness within us that can bubble up and burst to the surface. The author uses these quirky detours as opportunities for Guy to react to people and places in several parts of Texas and the American South. Often, the asides are funny, yet some readers could argue that cutting a few of them would enable the story to advance faster in a book that spans more than 300 pages. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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In this first book, White also demonstrates a knack for entertaining descriptions. For example, summing up a touristy Florida seafood restaurant, he writes: \u201cIt looked to be the sort of place that served frozen drinks in hollowed-out pineapples, then had to find a use for all of the pineapple innards, so pretty much everything on the menu came with pineapple.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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A Feral Chorus<\/em> seems almost like two books in one, with Tampa marking the dividing line between the final collapse of Guy\u2019s domesticated life in Texas and his impromptu escape into the wilds of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana driving a dilapidated truck for a hapless British winemaker who\u2019s attempting to launch his brand in all the wrong places.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Some of the scenes soar a bit over the top. But Matthew J. White shows consistently that he\u2019s an entertaining storyteller with a sharp eye for Texas quirks and atmosphere, as well as recent social, religious, and political tensions in America\u2019s Deep South. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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And, even though he once again calls England home, he probably could still float lazily down the Guadalupe River with the best of us. He\u2019s a writer to watch.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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