The Little Friend

The Little Friend

It started out promisingly enough:

For the rest of her life, Charlotte Cleve would blame herself for her son's death because she decided to have the Mother's Day dinner at six in the evening instead of noon, after church, which is when the Cleves usually had it.

The author seems to have been ripped apart, unable to decide whether she was writing a southern gothic novel, a Nancy Drew mystery or an Elmore Leonard crime blockbuster. It's a fat one that could have benefitted from efficient, even ruthless, editing.
Harriet Dusfrenes' older brother was murdered when Harriet was just a baby leaving her family damaged beyond repair. Harriet is a clever, tomboyish twelve year old, left to her own devices and bored beyond belief. She decides to solve the mystery of her brother's murder and becomes involved with a family of trailer trashey meth addicts, the Ratliffs, complete with a wizened old granny, a retarded brother and a snake handling preacher. Of course, Harriet has a young male sidekick, Hely, who worships her inventiveness, her daring and her feistiness.
I much preferred the passages that centred on Harriet's maternal relatives, the Cleves. The great aunts are straight out of Tennessee Williams, faded southern belles who don't recognize that their era is gone forever.
The story jerks back and forth between these two worlds in a jarring way. I found myself skipping over chunks of the Ratliff passages but truly enjoying the parts about the Dusfrenes. I didn't put it down until I finished it but did so more out of compulsiveness than fascination - I'm of the school that mandates finishing what you start unless it's absolutely impossible. Take from that what you will.