Easter Weekend [Feb 01, 1990] Bottoms, David

Two brothers, small time hoods who dream of the big score, kidnap a rich local college student and discover that the mob is muscling in on their easy-money scheme

Poet ( Shooting Rats at the Bibb Country Dump ) and novelist ( Any Cold Jordan ) Bottoms has written a quiet, economical novel about a botched amateur kidnapping in a small Georgia town. Connie Holtzclaw, a failed boxer of limited intelligence, is enlisted by his brother Carl in a plan to kidnap a rich college student and hold him for ransom. They abduct the young man only to find their scheme foiled by a local gangster attempting to collect on one of Carl's bad gambling debts. Both Carl and the gangster have sadistic inclinations that complicate the plot; the scenes of graphic violence are among the most vivid in the book, which otherwise alternates between somewhat platitudinal dialogues and quietly impressive prose passages. Connie's troubled relationship with his brother is sensitively rendered, as are his wistful yearnings for his girlfriend Rita, a waitress at the local Waffle Shop. Using realistic details to convey the monotony of life in a decaying community, Bottoms moves the narrative determinedly but sometimes ploddingly along; yet the conclusion, with its seemingly requisite act of violence, is taut and shocking.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Set in Macon, Georgia, this novel-length character study covers three days in the life of "nice guy" Connie Holtzclaw, small-time prizefighter and would-be dreamer turned kidnapper. Connie and his older brother Carl, the mastermind behind the scheme, kidnap and hold a rich college kid for $200,000 ransom. With his hoped-for cut of the money, Connie intends to lure Rita, his waitress-girlfriend, to Montana to start a new life together. As dark events unfold, Connie's naivete is juxtaposed against a reality of double murder and betrayal. At tale's end, Connie, hiding in a cemetery on Easter Sunday morning, has lost what little he had in life. A somewhat unusual central character, Connie, the savage innocent, holds the reader's attention throughout this otherwise largely unsentimental novel. By an established poet and novelist, this is recommended for select collections.
- James B. Hemesath, Adams State Coll. Lib., Alamosa, Col.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.