[amazon_link id=”B00D8G4GIU” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Title : White Trash
Author : Alexandra Allred
Publisher : Writer’s Coffee Shop
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Pages : 286
Source : Netgalley / Publisher ARC
Rating : 4.2/5

Thia Franks has returned to her small hometown with her tail between her legs. Desperate to leave as a youngster, she left to study at Duke. Along with her degree, those 4 years have brought some hard times too. So when it starts to go south, Thia is persuaded to go back home to her mother’s house in Granby, Texas, and work at the local town newspaper, The Recorder.

Granby seems to be the same, filled with the same people with unchanging mind-sets, judging her and being judged in turn. Thia is conscious of the way she is being perceived – that for all her high-talk she has ended up like the other losers – back home, right where she started, with a child in tow and a husband nowhere in sight.

She settles into her old life grudgingly. Old friends have moved on with their tired, desperate lives. The multi-racial town seems calm and uneventful on the surface, but is a hotbed of abuse, racism, incest, drug-use and gunrunning under the hood. When a hispanic man is severely injured in a grisly prank, tensions get heightened. Then one of Thia’s Afircan-American friends is murdered and she starts getting mysterious phone-calls hinting at the identity of the murderer.

This book is an atmospheric account of small-town life in rural Granby. We are introduced to the many local townspeople from Thia’s perspective. There is Thia’s family – her mother and aunt CiCi, squirrel hating, trigger-happy geriatric neighbor Ms. Riley, the trash-man Bubba Peters whom CiCi has a thing for. There is the local lawyer, doctor, and a bunch of no-good youngsters. There is also the small police-force led by Chief Teague who has quirky female officers – Officer Tina Wolfe and Officer Rosa Fox – on the force. Partners and steadfast friends, they are able policewoman tackling the myriad problems of country life – fainting goats one day and a criminal on cocaine another, with humor.

Thia is no longer the wild child that she used to be as a youngster and her 4 year long foray into the outside world has widened her perspective so she is able to see the narrow-mindedness and petty rumor-mongering for what it is. Surrounded by folk with dissimilar views, Thia has a hard time curbing her tongue and her temper at work. As the protagonist, we get to hear of her philosophy on trash:

You can’t live in the South, particularly Texas, and not hear that word a dozen times over in just one day. The way a body might walk, talk, dress, or smile could put you on the trash-o-meter. How you wore your makeup, touched another person, or named your baby were indicative of your trashiness.

If you haven’t lived in a small Southern town, Allred brings it to life for you. There are many characters in this book but all were fleshed out beautifully. We root for Thia herself because she is a bold, upright sensible young woman who cannot tolerate racism and injustice. She also has a spry sense of humor, and we get to read her tongue-in-cheek accounts of the townspeople. Also endearing are her mother and aunt, while Officers Wolfie and Foxie add spice to the mix with their no-nonsense philosophy of hating everyone equally.

Allred excels in creating a sprawling story with nuanced details. The many characters in the book are tied through to the main story with well-etched out back-stories. The book’s tone feels authentic. Allred displays impeccable command of the story’s pace – she balances out the humorous, quixotic segue-ways about life in Granby with plot elements which keep the book chugging away. White Trash is well-paced, sauntering through Granby giving us a good feel for the place and its people, but ratcheting up the tension as things hot up.

This was an engrossing read. If you liked “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, I’d highly recommend White Trash.