Ah, where to start. So, this morning I opened up the book again to see what to write about because the story and the characters are wonderful and unforgettable (to sound trite). So there as his inspiration are two quotes that could not have anything in common except to Childress: Lewis Carroll's Alice observing that in Wonderland, they're dreadfully fond of beheading people and Martin Luther King opining on the need to march in prayer pilgrimages. Then on the first page of the story, Peejoe, now a grown up Peter Joseph, admits to putting the scene from Vertigo on endless loop where Kim Kovak forsakes Jimmy Stewart and drives off in her green sedan.
Okay, now you know what happens in Crazy in Alabama, right? Orphaned PeeJoe and his older brother Wiley are being raised by their grandmother, MeeMaw, in Pigeon Creek, surrounded by eccentric uncles in the family business, funerals, and a frustrated, fertile (of both body and mind) Aunt Lucille. Lucille, like -- in Next Step in the Dance, is compulsive about leaving Alabama and going to California to become a movie star. When she deserts her six children and dumps them on MeeMaw, PeeJoe and Wiley get shunted off to Uncle Dove, to Industry where racial tensions are escalating. Keeping both the adventures of Lucille and PeeJoe running parallel, the craziness spreads to all.
I'm sure if I spent more time this morning, I would find many more allusions to classical literature. But the novel is outrageously funny despite its themes of murder and oppression. There is no attempt to make the characters "speak Southern" nor are there references to family recipes or descriptions of geography. Rather it is the way they express themselves relating to their surroundings, neighbors and place in history that makes this book resonate as both essentially Alabaman and American. This book belongs at the top of the Slackers' list, and not just alphabetically.
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