Review: Crimes in Southern Indiana, by Frank Bill

The complexity of Tom Franklin, the mesmerizing exposition of Donald Ray Pollock, the gutwrenching poignancy of Ron Rash’s One Foot in Eden, all in one story: The Old Mechanic, included in Crimes in Southern Indiana, by Frank Bill.

Many reviewers have written about how powerfully Frank Bill charges through the gate. The first story sets a pace that will damn near exhaust you. And just as I was beginning to wonder if Frank Bill had enough dexterity and depth to slow it down and make me think hard, I turned the page to the short story, The Old Mechanic.

The story begins heavy on exposition—but not like we’re used to, not the boring, author-filling-in-backstory for the sake of expanding word count, or listing facts that tell you what the unfolding story must become. The Old Mechanic takes about three or four lines and then viola! Frank Bill has hypnotized you. He uses exposition to create a scene, a feeling, an emotional trauma so wounding you check yourself for blood. The details make you remember your own details. The pain vibrates and harmonizes with yours. I haven’t seen anyone but Pollock create such an overwhelming sense of setting that the story could almost end without any action taking place, and it would still be a challenging, effective read.

After the exposition we learn that there’s a solid possibility the story is real. The child protagonist is named Frank, and the more details Frank Bill relates about the child’s fears, the more I thought of my own grandfather, recalled similar realizations, nuggets of grandfatherly wisdom that totally exposed him as a naked piece of shit.

The tension builds, but you’re not expecting a surprise, not feeling the protagonist is in present danger. No, you brace yourself for the reality of it. You trust that the events caused real wounds, and from the nature of the harms so far revealed, you tighten your stomach for the ones yet to come.

And then when the horror arrives, it is not what you foresaw. It is more chilling and haunting than you could have guessed, because the art of the story lies in misdirection, or rather, Frank Bill’s ability to run the gamut of the full range of human emotions and experience. He could have ended the story a thousand ways, and he chose the most devastating.

Crimes in Southern Indiana will knock you on your ass. The Old Mechanic does it a different way. It rounds out Frank Bill’s display of talent, demonstrating he isn’t just a 5.0 liter Mustang doing literary donuts in the parking lot. He’s also maybe an F-150, doing the hard work of opening minds, changing readers by showing paths into themselves that warrant exploration.

Bravo, Frank, for that one. Very nice work.