Life in the Land of the Living

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In Daniel Vilmure’s riveting, powerfully tender first novel, two nameless boys take off on a rampage through a seedy Florida port town on a hot, roiling August night, courting disaster with all the reckless abandon of boys until disaster turns and runs them down. They are brothers, out of a background just better than redneck, with a hard-drinking father and a faithless, despairing mother who has moved out. The older brother is a drunk like his daddy, illiterate and, he suspects, illegitimate. One moment he is hair-triggered, ready to snap. The next moment, he’s James Dean—cool, dancing on a high wire between grace and damnation. His kid brother—the little smart ass, the one with sense—goes along to save him but is no match for such hell-bent momentum. They race through the night, the older boy pushing the kid away, yet implicating him. They move helter-skelter through the town, fleeing a brawl at the bait and tackle shop, lifting their supper and a bottle of Gatorade from the all-night Stop ’n’ Go, sneaking into the Double D drive-in where they witness a killing (the first death in a night rife with mayhem), dodging sanctuary when it is offered, pitching themselves headlong —almost lovingly—into harm’s way, until they are moving too fast to be saved.