Mostly Redneck : Stories
By Rusty Barnes

Reviewed by C. Wallace Walker

sunnyoutside press, August 2011
ISBN: 978-1934513323
perfect bound, 156 pp., $18

With Rusty Barnes' collection Mostly Redneck: Stories,  "mostly" is the operative word.  Interspersed among the stories of a VW van being used as a rabbit hutch and refrigerators on the porches of flannel-shirted men are other tales, including one of Charon, the ferryman of Hades, and another about a plastic surgeon dating a poet.  The book is divided into three parts, the first consisting of all-redneck stories, with the second and third parts venturing further afield, including stories set on a college campus, a boat carrying Vietnamese refugees and the historic district of Boston.  Even the settings of the redneck stories vary widely, from the local home for the mentally disabled to a Chinese restaurant.  

Barnes' writing is clear and strong.  His depiction of characters is sympathetic, not an easy task when some of them are promiscuous drug users or ex-cons.  Barnes provides honest, sometimes raw snapshots of his characters' lives.  Most of the stories detail a quest for love whether at the shoppette, in the Nova, or at a tattoo parlor.  Barnes employs dogs, pickup trucks, guns, booze, and cigarettes without ever cheapening his characters so that they become mere caricatures.  While Barnes is an accomplished poet, the language is not flowery, but rich with metaphors. Along with the use of metaphors, the dialogue also rings true.  

While many of the story endings are unexpected, Mostly Redneck is not the land of happy endings.  These are well-crafted, bleak tales of struggles with love, children, and aging, many of them ending in tragic hopelessness that will leave the reader feeling better about his or her own lot in life. 

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C. Wallace Walker's work has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Southeast Review, Monkeybicycle, and The Copperfield Review, among others. Wallace was recently awarded a PEN Short Prize.

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