REVIEWS

"The writing is so skillful it's hard to believe that this is a debut. If this is a gay novel it's unlike any other I've ever read."
—Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story

"The characters in A Scarecrow's Bible are the kind of people novelists too often discard as insignificant and unworthy of our notice. In Martin Hyatt's compassionate hands they come fully to life in all their haunting despair."
—Jaime Manrique, author of Latin Moon in Manhattan

"Martin Hyatt's narrative tour de force takes us deep into the unchronicled heart of rural working-class gay life in the Deep South. Hyatt is a merciless, merciful storyteller, showing us the people sacrificed to bigotry, and those who snatched themselves, scarred and beautiful, out of its murderous jaws."
—Minnie Bruce Pratt, author of S/He

"When wounded souls connect, the miracle can be explosive. So it is in this rapturous debut novel, a tragic love story set in the hardscrabble working-class Deep South. Gary is an emotional wreck of a Vietnam vet whose daily existence--in a ramshackle trailer-park home shared with a distant wife he wants to love, but can't--is tethered to hard drinking and prescription drugs. Zachary is a defiant waif of a young man--skinny as sin, ethereally handsome, and bedeviled by his own traumatic past--who flirts foolishly with bigotry and hate by flaunting his queerness in the unwelcoming rural Mississippi town they both call home. Their pairing is certainly unlikely; one is a closeted older man not even sure he's queer, the other a flamboyant younger man forever on the edge of flaming out. But both of them are brutally scarred by life, and that's their bond. Their romance is something haunting and precious, even though it's doomed and desperate from the start. In Hyatt's skilled hand, it's also truly lyrical."
—Richard Labonte, Book Marks "Top Ten Books of 2006"

Hyatt has created a wonderful group of dysfunctional characters, who live and breath in every small town. He shows the working class life and struggles with compassion and grace. At first, the second person viewpoint takes a couple of paragraphs to get used to, but once, the reader accepts the role of Gary, the story takes over. My partner struggled with the second person narrative and couldn't read the book, but I loved it. After he meets Zachary, there are a few passages in italics, which are in third person, to allow the reader to understand his perspective on life. This is a gay love story not like any I have read before. In fact, it is so much more. This is a literary masterpiece from a debut author. He handles the characters, their struggles, and triumphs with a skill of a seasoned author. I couldn't believe this was his first novel. An example of his mastery of the character and language is "As you go down the steps you realize that it's not looking so rainy anymore. The light is a little stunning to you, causing you to almost drop the dresser. Once you dropped a dead man, and you never went back to pick him up. Then you began to drop them all of the time because that's what you did when people became heavy. And now Gina has done it to you." This passage shows how Hyatt interweaves various times of the character's life into a single moment of moving a dresser. Amazing skill. I highly recommend this book.

-Fred Towers, Rainbow Reviews

"Drugs, music, sexual discord, repressed memories and budding passion all form a grim backdrop to this Southern writer's slim, potent new novel, but they ultimately converge in a dark, haunting harmony. Life in a rural Mississippi 'house trailer' is no picnic for Gary, a carpenter, who finds himself stuck in a marriage that has seen better days, saddled with Gina, an aloof wife; and a daughter, Lula, whom he doubts is his (she's 'too big' to be his genetic offspring). Gary is closeted, and the only respite he gets is either from popping Valium (washed down with Jagermeister) or visiting a neighboring saloon called Jack's Place for some real living. It is here that he meets Zachary, 26, rail-thin and scarecrow-like, with whom Gary has a few things in common: namely, the reality-numbing effects of drugs and alcohol. Gary's memories of time served in Vietnam weigh heavily upon him in the same way that Zachary's abusive childhood does, and scenes of both nightmares are vividly outlined with great care by the author. When restless Lula heads for a 'bigger life' in the French Quarter, Gina decides she's had enough too, and tearfully leaves her husband for Eddie the cop. This opens the door for a drug-hazed reunion with Zachary, when Gary is in New Orleans visiting Lula. But this is no happy-ending fairytale. Trouble is brewing in Petulia, the small town Gary and Zachary eventually call home together, replete with a zombiesque populace that has turned into a virtual night-of-the-living-homophobes. Can love survive? Possibly not. There are no musclebound, drama-drenched beach bunnies spewing barbed one-liners in Hyatt's world. This is dark, seamy stuff that's written with an artist's eye for detail and real-life, believable situations: a work of intriguing and unique blue-collar fiction. We are thankful." 
—Jim Piechota, Bay Area Reporter

"Shell-shocked survivors find unexpected solace in A Scarecrow's Bible, an original and riveting work of modern fiction from first-time novelist Martin Hyatt. Vietnam veteran Gary Slope returned from the war a changed man, and the suffering caused by frighteningly vivid flashbacks and torturous hallucinations is made that much worse by a nearly debilitating addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol. With a grown daughter ready to leave the nest and an already-rocky marriage on the verge of collapse he can no longer deny where his true desires lie. And with the help of a much younger man Gary hopes to find much needed relief, if not emotional salvation. A masterfully written page-turner, A Scarecrow's Bible combines several styles and voices. Gary's struggles for personal happiness are echoed in those of his surprisingly well-suited soul mate, Zachary, whose own troubled history is revealed in an inventive way. By being unafraid of such literary and social taboos Hyatt tackles issues of homophobia and small town insularity with a brave and refreshingly honest perspective. His characters are both vibrant and true to life, and the readers will be hard pressed to put this spellbinding book down for more than a moment."
—Shawn Revelle, EXP Magazine

"'Then he takes the yellow tie and gently raises your head, putting the tie around your neck. The soft silk makes you want his tongue all over you.’ A Scarecrow's Bible is an engaging, sensual, powerful novel about two lost souls that connect and collide.  Gary, a tormented veteran with a penchant for self-destruction lives in a trailer in Petulia, a rural southern town. The open spaces around Petulia include the field across the highway from Gary¹s trailer. It is where a scarecrow resides. Where, in its own uncanny but inanimate way, it observes and reflects Gary's life, a life filled with secrets and desires. But Gary finds someone to ignite hope in the form of twenty-six year old Zachary, who is described as 'a gorgeousness of bones and messy blonde hair.' Zachary, too, is damaged, having returned to Petulia after a series of austere incidents and relationships in New York. Gary is drawn to the field, the scarecrow, and to Zachary. 'You turn to him, wanting every bone of his to belong to only you and him. He looks puffy around the eyes, but they glisten, blinding you like the earlier lightning.' "A Scarecrow's Bible is a remarkable book. After only a few pages, the concept and voice draws the reader in, and doesn't let go. Hyatt's eye is analytic but delicate; erotic and beautiful. The author demonstrates a controlled, unsentimental grace with his characters, but not without compassion and candor. This unexpected story naked emotion is a must-read."
—Max Vicarro, Freshmen

"Although 50-ish construction worker Gary has a home in a battered trailer on the outskirts of Petulia, Mississippi, his heart is somewhere else. Still haunted by his experiences in the Vietnam War, Gary is devastated by what he sees around him; after all these years, the destruction of the war is almost impossible for him to fathom. Gina, his emotionally fraught wife, is having an affair, while his twenty-something daughter, Lulu, is about to pack up and leave for the bright lights of New Orleans. Existing only by shutting out the world, Gary turns to drink and drugs, spending his days downing vodka and prescription medications, choking on the memories and the way his place keeps changing shapes. Deeply closeted, Gary has spent much of his life struggling with his sexuality, haunted by the dreams of when was younger, mixing drinks and dancing seductively behind a bar, love coming his way in the forms of beautiful ones. Gary knows that he can't go back, so now he drinks alone at the kitchen table, 'knowing that all the bottles have run out.'  One night at a local gay bar, Gary meets Zachary, a skinny, ghostly twenty-six year-old. With his crooked teeth and his obvious addiction to drugs, Gary spies a kindred spirit, a similarly troubled soul. The two eventually go home together, coiled in a type of shared intimacy.  Gary, however, regrets that he has disappointed Gina again. Tired of her husband's drinking, Gina moves in with another man. For Gary, it's easier just to swallow the pills and hear the music no matter where it's coming from. Ironically though, it is in this time of great melancholy that Gary does try to embrace life once again.  He asks Zachary to move in with him, much to the mortification of the townsfolk who are beginning to whisper and gossip about their relationship. When Gina discovers what her husband has done, she's disgusted, her small town bigotry and homophobia all too visible. Gary, however, sees it a second chance as the world he knows shifts beneath him and he begins to become wiser.  In this deeply intuitive and exquisitely written novel, two very conflicted men find themselves in the heart of turmoil and a society that refuses to accept them for who and what they are. Tired of the constant 'rattrap of pain,' Gary and Zachary find tenderness in the midst of profound grief.  Growing old, Gary sees that he has missed his chance at a love like Zachary. In his vibrant youth, maybe Gary could have been his lover. But he is no longer youthful, perhaps not even sane. On the other hand, Zachary is the lost puppy, the vulnerable soul and the disconsolate drifter who is desperate to be mothered and loved.  Author Martin Hyatt beautifully traces Gary and Zachary's journey through the landscape of working class Mississippi, skillfully exploring their angst, grief and, ultimately, their doomed love.  True love can turn up in the unlikeliest of places, but menace can also lurk just around the corner. These men are 'prisoners of war' lost in a cage of 'soft sighs and sharp images,' struggling to find hope in the face of impending danger."
—Michael Leonard, Curled Up With a Good Book

"Gary is a construction worker in a shanty town way down South where nobody ever admits to being gay. His only friend, like Gary himself a homosexual trapped in a loveless marriage, has put an end to his life in a shocking way, and this makes Gary think about how to proceed, for what's the point in living if you can't be who you really are? In Gary's case, this involves coming to terms with painful memories of service in the US forces in Vietnam, visions of which come to haunt him whenever he lets his guard down. To medicate himself, he does the Rush Limbaugh thing and has built a fragile mental economy on counter prescriptions, including heavy doses of Valium. I wondered if author Martin Hyatt hadn't originally written this book sometime back a decade ago, for to me it seems that Viet Nam vet Gary would be an older man than the vigorous, drugcrazed stripling we encounter in the pages of this book. How old are Viet Nam vets? Surely the youngest of them must be in their fifties? Oh well, the point is the same, for the Viet Nam material actually isn't all that compelling nor is it linked to the present day story in any meaningful way. However, it gives him something to be haunted by and that's what's significant to the plot. The story is told largely in the second person, with italicized third person sections describing the back story of Zachary, Gary's new love interest. Hyatt uses the second person beautifully, although from time to time he stumbles into the inevitable traps of that seductive way of writing, so that A Scarecrow's Bible tells the hero things he must already know, or if he doesn't, he's a dope, an effect which Leonard Cohen brought off in his song 'Suzanne,'-'And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind, and you think you maybe love her, for she's touched your perfect body with her mind. In this story, it's scarecrow Zachary who's touched Gary's aging body, and not with his mind either, though both speak in lovely, elliptical, almost Biblical cadences, and it's not just the drugs, though both men are really, really drugged up in a way that Hyatt seems to link with being working class, though to my eye they seem more like the French symbolist duo Rimbaud and Verlaine. I found myself hoping that Gary and Gina would repair their tattered marriage, not a good thing in a book so plumb full of tragedy. An astounding debut with a sex scene so explosive my fingers still have burns on them.
—Kevin Killian, author of Shy