|
MISS SALLYSally Halm’s initiation into womanhood, the discovery of sex without hope of love and grief without the release of tears, takes place in rural Texas during the 1930s, a rough and tumble environment in which the thirteen-year-old struggles to reconcile the concepts of “sin” and “salvation” that seem to dominate her life. Inspired by the testimony of a woman evangelist who recounted rising from degradation to achieve happiness and prosperity Sally tries to emulate her but “everything I do I do backwards, I can’t even sin without people laughing at me.” Her decision to run away from family, from the life she’s leading and has led, thrusts her into even greater entanglements that make her realize how difficult it is to have one’s immortal soul saved, even when it’s the only thing one has left.
Robert Joe Stout inaugurated a long journalistic career in Texas as an assistant editor for Western Publications. Miss Sally burst upon the literary scene in 1974 and won immediate if short-lived acclaim and for many years was out of print but has reemerged as a Kindle ebook. The Austin area setting is one with which the author and his family were very familiar. Sally Halm, the novel’s teenaged protagonist-narrator, and all of the other personages are fictional but the Depression-era setting with its dust, its poverty, its open air revival meetings, is accurately portrayed. The author of nearly a hundred published shortstories, Robert Joe Stout also has published the novels Running Out the Hurt and Where Gringos Don’t Belong, both also available as Kindle ebooks, two nonfiction titles and two collections of poetry. He currently lives in Oaxaca, Mexico. |
Excerpt |
For a moment Cousin Matty and I faced each other. My hands were around his arms, my eyes reflected in his eyes. For the first time in my life I felt strong. Jesus, I thought, truly had descended . I slumped to my knees and in a controlled, if weak, voice I whispered to him, “Hit me, Cousin Matty. I love you.”
He stood, frozen, puzzled, blinking at me as though I were a stranger and he were trying to remember who I was. “Hit me, Cousin Matty. I love you …” I repeated. Or were the words in the air, floating between us? He shook his head. Then, abruptly, he began to laugh. Perhaps, standing there, I fainted. Vaguely I remember his back as he turned from me and grabbed the Mexican woman. Hosay and Victoria were halfway across the field toward the ravine. Had they spoken to me? I blinked, looked again. They walked with their arms around each other, their heads bobbing slowly as they talked. From the shacks behind me I heard a slow thumping and (but I might be mistaken) the high, coarse whine of Cousin Matty’s laughter. I pressed my fist against my cheeks and began to run. |
|
Review
This is a bleak view of Texas in the 1930s offered by a young girl lost in a dust bowl of sin, confusion, and lust. Bleak may be a polite term as I am sure some readers would find Robert Joe Stout’s 1973 novel “Miss Sally” a trying read. Scenes of torture, rape, and blasphemy run throughout yet the young Sally begins innocently enough - her and her sister spy on an older sibling having sex. The conversations that ensue are enchanting and darling as the girls try to explain for themselves the ins and outs of adulthood. This fuels a dangerous and naïve plan to experiment with sex and local boys. After the domino effect of curiosity takes its toll, she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Raped by several local boys and teens, Sally is ferried out to the countryside days later not only to recover but to allow the gossip to dry up for a few years. Things go from bad to worse as Sally barely reaches womanhood, but not without a roller coaster of joy and sorrow alike. There are some very poignant scenes that take place in various revival services. While many around this little girl vacillate between heathen attitudes that do not practise religion at all - which are the most benign - and those who are dangerously enraptured with Christianity in one form or another who come across as the most dangerous and detrimental. The path to her saviour blocked by thorns, and even though she pursues religion right to the end, it would appear to be the cause of so many of her misconceptions and troubles. For a little girl who thinks herself dumb and ugly, she has some deeply philosophical reasons for her actions that keep one interested to see what she will do or say next. An example is when she first assumes she must look like a sinner since everyone at church looks at her as if she has sinned. Since she hasn’t sinned it makes her sad, and certain something must be wrong with her when the entire congregation agrees that everyone has sinned. A very confusing concept for a simple girl barely thirteen years old. Sally shows no shame in what happened to her, proving to be a very tough little girl taking the world at face value. With the exception being her erstwhile brainwashing at the hands of religious fanatics of the time, she otherwise has a very balanced and non-judgemental core to her. At one point she compares her rape to animal husbandry she helps with on a cousins farm and the insight offered is simplistic but refreshing. Her philosophy is simple throughout and hence, incredibly thought-provoking for a reader brave enough to take “Miss Sally” herself at face value. There are several scenes of sex in the book, most are not consensual. Some are alluded to but many happen as we are on our journey with this young girl, so the reader is given an unflinching view of brutal treatment by Stout. As a very dark coming of age tale, there is no way around it, so fans of stories like “Go Ask Alice”, “The Girl Next Door,” or the film “The Seasoning House” will understand the merits of being able to see into how much like beasts - or worse - humans can behave. While this is a fictional story it serves as a reminder that worse things happen in life, and anyone we stand beside could endure what little Sally winds up witnessing. This is a sure four-and-a-half stars, as I was left with one small question that needed addressing. Aside from the cover art being far too plain, through all of this learning and witnessing sex, rape, torture and confusing religion, fighting families and all - there is no mention of a woman or Sally herself menstruating. That was one point I was waiting to see addressed. Would it fill her with more questions, drive her deeper into her warped sense of righteousness, or had the trauma her body went through so young have damaged her to a point that it was impossible? That seemed to be missed given her age by the end of the novel. Being written in the mid-70s originally - this is a re-release by Robert Joe Stout and we are lucky for it - perhaps that sort of womanly medical truth was too racy a topic among all of the brutality surrounding this young girl. --Lydia Peever |