The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Chalk Lake by Johnny PayneBrian Evenson
Johnny Payne. Chalk Lake. Limited Editions Press, 1996. 165 pp. $18.95.
Set in Kentucky, Johnny Payne’s novel Chalk Lake is as interesting for the way it thinks about place and the effect of place on people’s lives as it is for its plot and characters. Indeed, the strongest thing about this book is the locale’s ability to become significant while remaining largely in the background.
The main character of the book, Serena, returns to Kentucky both to be with her dying father and to try to regain control over her life. While there, she comes into contact with drifting and struggling friends, gets involved in co-owning a farm as part of trying to keep a dream alive, and concocts a scheme to get pregnant. Though this might sound a little like a Kentucky-style version of Party of Five or a hillbilly Beverly Hills 90210, Payne manages through his writing to make the situation feel both genuine and convincing.
The characters are often intriguing, particularly Serena, her preacher father (one of the few tolerable preachers in literature), and her at times irritating boyfriend Robbie. Payne often uses indirect discourse, his narrative voice becoming effectively colored with the words and thoughts of his characters. There is a sense as well of oral wisdom and closeness to the land that surfaces at times in brief inset narratives. However, Payne’s narrative skills seem to shine out most strongly with his minor characters. His ability to depict a farmer or to portray the younger sister of Serena’s roommate in a few strokes is as masterful as anything in the book.
Though not a book that is likely to push literature in a new direction, Chalk Lake is an effective narrative about the ways lives and dreams both collapse and come to be reborn. It is a promising first novel. [Brian Evenson]