Reviews and Responses

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2005:

A folksy debut poignantly and humorously renders the vernacular of small-town Ohio. Once readers get over the initial shock of Lehman's creatively misspelled phonetics, their euphonious rhythm makes perfect sense. In rural Granton, Ohio, during the mid-1980s, 34-year-old Lori, "a fine focksy lady" who works at the local hospital, gets along modestly with her two daughters. Mariah ("already in addlelessons") and eight-year-old Carrie Ann ("the brane's around here") have to tolerate Lori's vulgar new boyfriend, Roy—"bad news like most of her mothers boyfriends," according to the younger sister, who is onto his empty pockets and swagger. Lori's brother Mocky, a French professor in Columbus, is coming to stay for the summer, which is rather mysterious; he hasn't visited for years due to a falling-out with their father, Papaw. Kindly, bald, mustachioed Mocky is just what Carrie Ann needs for a playmate. While sulky teenager Mariah shirks babysitting duty, slipping out with her sleazy boyfriend, Carrie Ann and Mocky amuse themselves grandly at the drive-in, the "put-put" golf course and the fair. In a fit of drunken anger, Roy reveals to Carrie Ann the shocking truth of Mocky's sexual preference. "Roy told me your a sissy boy and a dirty pet-her-ass," she says, sending Mocky sadly away. Yet after Papaw's death, Mocky returns for the funeral, and the motley group begins to function as a family when Lori reveals that she is pregnant with Roy's baby. It may be slender, but this short "novelette" conveys a full-fleshed humanity, thanks to the author's savory use of language. Retired after 32 years as a freshman comp instructor, Lehman could easily have titled his winning, experimental work The English Teacher's Revenge.

Copyright © 2005 Kirkus Reviews

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From Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2006:

Imagine cartoonist Lynda Barry rewriting Tobacco Road, and you'll have a decent idea of what Lehman, a retired University of Cincinnati freshman comp instructor, is trying to achieve in his debut novella. "Revenge" in the title is misspelled because the story is narrated by soon-to-be-eight Little Carrie, who mangles the English language phonetically and otherwise. Carrie lives with her mother and older sister in a small town in Ohio. (Little Possum is based in Cincinnati.) A visit from Carrie's uncle Mocky and her mother's marriage to an aspiring auto restorer drive the action: Mocky is a gay French prof, and the stepfather is an angry, bigoted loser with a chip on his shoulder. The story is as slender as the book--Carrie adores her uncle and despises her new father--but Lehman does a charming job presenting Carrie, whose sister is a "pre-Madonna" and whose stepfather "reeks havick where ever he goes."

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Told from the point of view of a little girl with big pitchers for ears (and a hilarious knack for double entendre), Mocky’s Revinge is an old-fashioned comedy of manners disguised as a ‘children’s story.’ Sweet, ingenious, and funny, Mocky turns a child’s grammatical errors into a sly commentary on the misbehavior of her bumptious kin. A delightful first novel from a writer with a very grownup sense of fun.

--Jonathan Valin, Edgar and Shamus Award-winning author of the Harry Stoner detective series

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Dear Mark,

Finished Mocky last night and just wanted to thank you for sending and to concur with the Kirkus review. To my own ear your perception of Carrie Ann's voice and sensibility was just right, and I really admired how marvelously alive and well defined the characters became through her descriptions. Yes, the phonetics took a little getting used to, but once I was immersed in the narrative (and the always engaging voice), the language and spelling seemed entirely natural. The issues you embrace are edgy, at times even menacing, and all the characters have enough ambiguity and complexity to keep them from veering into the sentimental. In fact, the mise-en-scene is pretty raw, and without Carrie's sensibility, you'd lack the nice counterpoint. Carrie's voice functions as a kind of constant shock-absorber for a narrative that deals fairly head-on with death and dysfunction, and this seems to me a stylistic coup. I'm not sure if you aimed this at any particular audience, but I imagine it would have great appeal for a young adult market. Which is not to denigrate the book's richness in any way—it's a young adult book the way To Kill A Mockingbird is. I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

All the best,
Steve Stern (author of The Angel of Forgetfulness and A Plague of Dreamers)