It may be called "twisted," but it's anything but. Don't expect a horror show. This ingeniously constructed novel by Kent Meyers is an elegant deconstruction of a seemingly simple town nestled along a freeway in South Dakota. No one would ever notice the little rancher burg if it hadn't been the home of a victim of a recent murder. Here's where the sicko part makes its brief appearance: the murderer prowls the freeway looking for anorexic girls to kill, and found one named Hayley Jo Zimmerman in Twisted Tree, S.D.
For the rest of the book until the ending, the murder steps out of the picture, and author Meyers proceeds to probe the nature of the town in a series of disconcerting yet enlightening short stories. Some stories focus on people who knew Hayley Jo, some ever so slightly, some only to brush against her at the grocery store. But they have other tales to tell: stories of lost opportunities in their youth, tales of cruel parents now left to their care, a dreamy man's vision of buffalo that save his life but can't save his foundering marriage. The stories make some sort of surface sense—everyone knew Hayley Jo—in the beginning, but soon, even that kinship disappears. Meyers is after something much deeper.
This is where less than profound thinkers begin to complain. Amazon's reviews are full of readers carping about the fact that "this is just a book of short stories." One even asks "Is this even a book?" The careful reader can only suggest that the impatient ones only look beyond the obvious. Just as the efficient killer is going about his nasty business, Meyers is peeling back layers of myth and superficiality that surround the town. He focuses on the agony of one family, the Valens, who lived in total madness in Twisted Tree, passing their insanity down to a man named Shane, who sold off part of the property to Hayley Jo's father. Shane is crazy as a loon by any standard, but story by story, the reader finds out just how, well, twisted this man really is. Writing to his dead mother, he creates a whole world for himself that other people seem to believe. Living on poached animals and guarded by the ghosts he projects, he wards off everyone, until the sheriff finally finds out the unimaginable, crazy truth.
Article comments
1 - A Geek Girl
That sounds like an awesome read.
I can't wait.