Preview of Hey Jack! Summary:

As in Ray (1980), death and despair are all too much a part of life in the Southern town Homer describes. Jack implies that without death and despair, we cannot know life and joy. Even though Jack has suffered the loss of a wife and daughter, he is able to continue living. Even though Homer cannot forget the war, he falls in love.

The past weighs heavily on Homer's community. "These old men . . . you cannot ignore their wisdom and you cannot ignore the fact that it takes a certain strength to sit out in such a hot shade . . ." Family and the despair it can pass on to the individual recurs throughout Homer's storytelling. The addictive characters of Delia and Alice continue a family tradition of self-destruction — a tradition passed on like holiday celebrations. Alice and Ronnie cannot escape their family traditions of violence. Ronnie and his family cannot...