Friday Book Review: Matt Baker’s Drag the Darkness Down

Right from the beginning, there’s something a little off about Odom Shiloh, the narrator of Matt Baker‘s Drag the Darkness Down (No Record Press, 212 pages).

When he introduces us to himself and his sister, Bridget — everyone calls her Birdshit — he talks in an Arkansas twang:

So my sister ran off, out of Frothmouth, with a black boy from around here. She ran away with him to north Louisiana, we think. Thirty-six years old and not married ever a once, not even any kids to boot; she falls for this eighteen-year-old boy who tied for second in the state in total high school rushing yards last season.

But 60 pages later, Shiloh uses the word opprobrium correctly in a sentence.

Clearly, Odom Shiloh isn’t a regular hillbilly. He takes some pains, for example, to explain that the race of his sister’s boyfriend is not the thing that troubles him about her disappearance. In fact, he says, “through the years we’ve managed to expel most of them violent combative racist types up north where they belong, to live their segregated lives amidst talk of peaceful reconciliation and Christian harmony.”