Southern
ScribeSouthern
Scribe
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Fiction Review |
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Willie Morris was a very special person. He was an
extraordinarily talented writer and editor. He was an entertaining
raconteur. And he was a superb friend. I had the great good fortune to know him, if only slightly.
With Taps, he ends a career that was cut short prematurely when he
died of a heart attack more than a year ago. With Taps, he leaves
behind an elegy for a small Southern town in the 1950s, when the boys from
Yazoo City and other locales were being brought home in boxes from a
strange place called Korea. With Taps, Willie Morris resonates
through the passage of time with an age-old drama about a boy and a dog
growing up together in a soft but unyielding atmosphere. Sometimes the author heaps a bit too much sentiment onto
the platter of life, but I am not sure this story would be nearly as good
if it didn’t have too much honey on the grits. I don’t care for honey
on my grits, but if that’s what it takes to make it palatable, pour it
on. Willie Morris creates a milieu he knows well. Into that world he places a good young man, Swayze Barksdale, sixteen years old and the second-best trumpet player in town. The best is his friend, Arch Kidd. Together, they are recruited by Luke Cartright, a veteran of WWII, to play Taps at military funerals. And throughout the year one of the boys plays Taps next to the grave and the other plays the echo from a distant hillside. Swayze’s relationship with his girl friend, Georgia, whom
he has known “since the beginning,” grows through the pages of Taps
from the girl who hugs and kisses him on the cheek. Georgia, “spoiled,
irreverent, unpredictable,” develops from a close friend to an awkward
lover to someone who is not everything at all times for this young man who
seeks the ideal in everything. Although at times awkward in its own immaturity, reeking
with sentimentality, as sweet as a honeysuckle blossom, Taps mirrors
the maturation of Swayze Barksdale and Georgia and the dog Dusty and their
townspeople. It is a beautiful book that brought tears to my eyes and a
smile to my face. It is a good way to remember Willie Morris.
© 2001 Southern Scribe Reviews, All Rights Reserved |
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