A Scarecrow's Bible

by Martin Hyatt

In a house trailer in the rural South, a married, Vietnam veteran, addicted to pharmaceuticals, haunted by memories of the past is on the brink of collapse. Just when he thinks the dream of another life is over, the unspeakable happens. He falls in love with a frail, ghostly younger man who reminds him of youth, beauty, and the possibility of a life beyond the prison he has created for himself. A Scarecrow's Bible is about what happens when love occurs at the most unexpected moment. It is the story of how working-class men and women in a small town adapt to changes that somehow seem impossible. It is a novel of hope and transformation that challenges our ideas about diversity and social change, all the way breaking our hearts.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Gay

201 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Dennis]

A very fine first novel, whose two star-crossed main characters hang around and haunt, long after Hyatt's whip smart story arc has shot through the reader's heart.

"A Scarecrow's Bible" is the only novel I've read to date which is rendered via 2nd-Person Narration throughout (with flashback italics peppered here and there--for tracking the history, POV and motivation of the 2nd main character); the mere fact that Martin Hyatt is able to hold his story together through the utilization of these risky fictional techniques is a cause for a kind of wonder, and celebration.

What makes this book stand out for me is the honesty, together with a unique combination of verisimilitude and hyper-conscious imagery--an accretion greater than the sum of its parts, taking on a "life of its own"-- much like the literal and forlorn scarecrow which makes not a few vivid cameo appearances in the story, as Hyatt draws the reader expertly into his lush fictional world.

"A Scarecrow's Bible" is what you get when crossing "Brokeback Mountain" with "Leaving Las Vegas." It is definitely the finest novel about addiction and alienation I've read in quite some time. I'm looking forward to Hyatt's next work.

[James]

The second-person narration is effective, describing the experience of a man coming to terms with his sexuality by putting the reader in his place. I especially admire the way the author describes the protagonist's experience of reality; the blend of real, remembered, and imagined experiences is effective and appropriately confusing at times. Although the climax is dramatic, it seems forced. The story goes in a common direction that's been done to death (pun intended), and certain characters become flattened types.

[AJ LeBlanc]

I found this book in a used bookstore. I was wandering around the shelves randomly flipping through books, as you do. I didn’t have any specific titles or authors I was looking for, so it was a purely random visit.

A Scarecrow’s Bible had good cover so I took it off the shelf. By the start of the second paragraph I knew it was coming home with me, and I didn’t even know what it was about. Well, except for the back cover, but that can’t always be trusted.

So, why did I pick this? Second person narrative. And it looked like it was done really well.

It’s rare that you read a book where you’re the main character. Well, it’s not actually you, but it’s You. You sit and watch TV. You wait until no one is watching so you can take a few more prescription pain killers. You wash them down with whiskey. You close your eyes and wonder if you’ll wake up back in Vietnam. You wonder how long it will take before your wife looks at you with disappointment before she goes to bed.

You are Gary and you live near New Orleans, but not quite close enough. Sure, there’s a secret gay bar you can escape to, but you’re surrounded by guys who drive trucks, drink beer, and probably secretly long to bash a queer in the skull with a crowbar. You have a truck. You drink beer. You secretly long for something you know, but don’t know, but know you can’t name.

You meet Zachary by chance and he scares you. He’s too young and too frail and you want to love him but you know he needs to teach you how. He’s gay, he lives in the rural South, and it’s no use to try and hide it.

Life fell apart for you, maybe before you went to Vietnam. When you were there too much happened. The man you loved, or whatever it was you were doing, ends his story with a toe tag. And now you’re back home and your wife is afraid of her new life and what you are.

What are you?

You go to your doctor, you get your pills, you act the way you think you’re supposed to as a husband. You go to work, you try to ignore the sounds of helicopters and gunfire that no one else can hear.

You keep going crazy.

And you find Zachary.

And he saves you.

But you don’t know for how long.

This book was beautiful. Gary’s character is incredibly complicated but at the same time completely straight forward. Everything he does makes sense – he doesn’t make decisions that don’t fit with anything that’s happened so far in the book. He’s a solid character from beginning to end, and sitting in his head you get to watch him watch the world and then slowly piece together what he knew was already there.

When things fall apart, they do so violently. Very little happens in this book that isn’t extreme. There are no quiet deaths, quick arguments that are forgiven, nights that don’t end in blackouts. Quiet moments are too quiet and when a truck goes by you reach for a knife that isn’t there and dive under the kitchen table to survive.

It’s heartbreaking and I wanted him to stop circling Zachary and reach out for him, or for Zachary to step in and grab him. Their relationship is pure and somehow completely uncomplicated. It simply exists. Gary doesn’t struggle with how things are supposed to be or who he’s supposed to be or what life is supposed to be. He doesn’t need to close his eyes to hear the sounds and screams and voices and explosions from Vietnam, so nothing is the way it’s supposed to be.

The two find each other, things fall apart, things are destroyed, and Gary and everyone around him has to decide what happens next in order to live.

I read this book cover to cover in one sitting and it was incredibly satisfying. The language, the characters, the structure, the story itself… it gave me a physical sensation of solidness. It made me glad that this book was written.

[Gila Gila]

So many books I read that still live on my shelves, having survived several paring down seasons, yet never mentioned here, not that anyone but me cares or should do - it’s just like seeing an unexpected empty space. I remember images from this book, thinking of Keith Banner who also writes tenderly of lost gay men eking out lonely trailer park lives - and hoping I’d see more from this author.

[Sara Gerot]

It isn't easy to give this book a 3. I really feel so many things about it deserve a 4 or 5, but there were a few things that got in the way of that for me.
For a first novel, this is impressive. The 2nd person that Hyatt employs works incredibly well, and it is a riveting convention that never lost me or overwhelmed me even for a moment. The flashbacks in italics were great. I really appreciated the care and consideration that was taken with the format. It always reflected the limitations of the characters.
The story is great. It is something that I haven't read in other places. Coming from the midwest, and being familiar with the struggle for some to live out their lives because of their sexuality, especially those of an older generation, I think this book is an important one.
It is an enjoyable read. Alternately hopeless and hopeful, dark and amusing. There are some sentences here, at least in the edition that I had, that weren't great. Could be just a copy-editing issue. But either way. I don't like reading over sentences and thinking about how they could be improved.
This issue aside, I would recommend this book to a myriad of people for a myriad of reasons. I will definitely check out whatever comes next from Martin Hyatt.

[Chris]

Melancholy married couple Gary and Gina try to improve their mostly drab life together when Gina moves out of their Mississippi trailer to live with her longtime boyfriend, Eddie. While drowning his sorrows at a nearby gay bar he had been frequenting not-so-secretly for years, Gary is rescued one night by young, waifish Zachary, a former kept boy from New York City. The two begin a passionate (albeit unusual) love affair and Zachary moves in shortly thereafter. The happily-ever-after ending is spoiled, however, when Gina--and later, Eddie--takes notice of their living situation.

I can't decide whether author Martin Hyatt should be lauded or chastised for creating perhaps the most sullen atmosphere I've come across in recent literary history.

[Katie M.]

An unusual, moving story that utilizes second-person narration so well that I'd already forgot it did so until just now, reading a few other reviews. The main character is a (closeted, and then not) Vietnam vet, and he rang very true to me as a reader, but then I don't actually know any closeted Vietnam vets - I'd be curious to know whether he's a believable character to readers who are more familiar with that world than me, or whether he just comes across as a young gay author's imagining of that type of character. Either way, it's well-written, and it's very solidly Another Heartbreaking Work of Gay Fiction - consider yourself forewarned.

[Shawn]

Loved the writing and the subject (gay Vietnam vet with broken-down marriage falls in love with younger man and the two of them begin to overcome some serious psychological problems and drug addictions) but hated the ending, which seemed to me a bit of a cliche. But see the author's website (http://martinhyatt.net?index.htm) for some very different opinions from some very prestigious people.

[Ray]

Loved the second person. Not as crazy about the third person bits in between.

I really appreciated what this book was trying to do. Telling the story of white working class people in small towns, prescription drugs, alcohol and sadness about a life not lived. I am not sure how believable it was. Especially the tidy ending.

Very affecting though. And hard to put down.

[Christian]

Heartwrenching, touching, poignant, and so incredibly well written you will need a quiet moment once you finish this book about love between two unlikely men. Themes of class pervade, and you will most likely be done in one sitting as its one of those books you. just. can't. put. down.

[Valerie]

I Adore this book - it's dysfunctional, dark, with beautiful imagery and wraps around itself...in the style of magical realism. And after all that, is almost a story of love...

ps...it's gay. with no 'coming out' - hooray.

[Tim]

The author uses lavish descriptions of events, places, and feelings to flesh out the characters who are, for good reasons, deeply troubled. War, drugs, discrimination, and violence all figure prominently and are woven together into a story of loss and redemption.

[Christopher]

A book that reads like a wonderful slow dance, mournful and wistful.

[Rusty]

Familiar story, unusual execution--I'm glad I read it.

[Jennifer Moody]

Enjoyable from beginning to end.

[Liam Ostermann]

I wish I loved this novel as much as I expected. There is no denying the quality of the writing, this is a very fine first or any other novel. It deserves it's encomium from Edmund White "The writing is so skilfull it's hard to believe that this is a debut. If this is a gay novel, it's unlike any other I've read."
Which aside from begging the question of what a 'gay' novel is or was supposed to be in the year this book was published (2006) does leave me to wonder if Mr. White was less enthusiastic, or at least had unexpressed (or maybe unquoted) concerns, then at first appear. I certainly do.

To begin with I had trouble settling on a date for when the novel is supposed to be set. One of the characters, Gary, is a 47 year old Vietnam veteran; the other, Zachary, is 27 years old but that isn't much help because so much depends on what year Gary was in Vietnam and how old he was at the time. Depending on many variables this novel may take place in the mid to late 80's which makes this historical fiction rather than a description of events current to the date of publication.

I also wasn't convinced by Gary's addiction which is a bold thing to say about an author who has apparently written extensively about his own addictions but my problem may be cultural, drug culture and addictions in the UK are, and were, very different to that in the USA. But even allowing for that Gary doesn't appear to have an opiate addiction as I have understood it or how any other author has previously presented it. It is very hard to believe that he has a drug addiction but then maybe he only has a drug 'problem' which, if I understand the author, is something entirely different; or maybe he does have an addiction but either way the author has failed to present in in a convincing way. Zachary is said to have had a heroin addiction, we don't really see the reality of what this means and the way Zachary loses it does not convince either as a story element or as evidence that the author has any familiarity with addiction or addicts.

Gary's sexual proclivities and history is somewhat confusing, while clearly not 'out and proud' he doesn't really qualify as closeted (one Goodreads reviewer wonders if there are such people as gay Vietnam veterans and I would refer anyone who doubts that there were gay soldiers fighting in Vietnam to the utterly delightful and grotesquely forgotten 'The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up' by Charles Nelson). Gary is married but his promiscuous and relatively frequent gay sex life doesn't appear to be very hidden. But that is why the date of setting would at least provide context.

Finally I can't help thinking the novel's denouement makes no sense - spoiler alert - if the police officer who runs off with Gary's wife finds Gary's open homosexual activity a hindrance to his plans to run for sheriff then the solution would be to discard the woman, who is still nothing more then a live-in girl friend. It doesn't make any sense to kill Gary's boyfriend and dump the woman at the same time. It is all too grand guignol and even has traces of the cliche of older gay novels of having the gay man either kill himself or be killed but assuredly suffer greatly and certainly have neither a long nor happy life.

My disappointment with a novel I had waited a long time to read and which I had anticipated liking may have caused me to be more unkind to this novel than it deserved. Maybe if I had read it closer to its date of publication I would have felt different. I still can't bring myself to rate it less then four stars and I hope to read Hyatt's other novel if I can ever get hold of a copy in the UK.

[Ron Mohring]

I wanted to like this, but couldn't. And it's absolutely riddled with typos, which sets off my OCD response big-time. So there I was, wielding my red pen, alternately trying to feel empathy for the protagonist and throwing down the book while muttering "Find an EDITOR!" (I know, I know, and I *love* what this press is trying to do. But jeez, Louise, even an undergraduate could have proofread this better.)