CITRUS COUNTRY

An adolescent boy in rural Florida attempts to find himself in this Southern Gothic novel from Florida native Brandon (Arkansas, 2008).

Toby is a minor delinquent in Citrus County whose rebellious behavior belies his dangerously unemotional state. Constantly abused by his uncle, the boy has shut down, operating on instincts uninformed by any moral grounding. To punish his classmate, an overzealous girl named Shelby, Toby kidnaps her little sister and imprisons her in a remote bunker. To his credit, Brandon’s dispassionate portrait of his offender is made even creepier by its lack of true menace. “He did not feel alone,” he writes. “He felt egged on by something greater. It wasn’t Kaley’s fault, and it wasn’t even Toby’s. He would be different now; he would be new. He would possess a secret that would put him above his uncle and his teachers and Coach Scolle and all the convenience store clerks and all the nameless punks of Citrus County who thought knocking over mailboxes and stealing cigarettes would save them.” But Toby is far from being the sole freak in the county. Brandon also focuses much of his attention on a secondary character, Mr. Hibma, an arrogant, masturbatory teacher who struggles to maintain control of his emotions, even as he plans to smother another teacher to death. He’s a classic phony, but the character lends much-needed humor to an ominous tale that jangles the nerves. Toby and Shelby fall into that unlikely and inevitable gravity of adolescent attraction, exploring their desires even as Kaley wastes away, while Brandon dares readers to avert their eyes.

If Flannery O’Connor wrote Holden Caulfield as a child-snatcher, this is the mess she would make.