Book Review: Back to the Dirt by Frank Bill

Miles Knox came home from his service in the Vietnam War forever changed. Decades later, he has a well-paying job in a rural Indiana factory, but still can’t shake the ghosts of the dead who haunt his daily life. He also hates feeling the increasing burdens of age, and resorts to steroid abuse in order to help maintain his weightlifters’ physique. A road-rage-fueled incident with his dealer jeopardizes both his supply and, more significantly, the job he’s worked so hard to keep for so long.

On top of this are his worries regarding his much younger girlfriend Shelby McCutchen. Their connection is strong and their affection genuine, but they haven’t seen or talked to each other in over a week now. He doesn’t want to come on too strong – they haven’t been dating for all that long, after all – but he can’t help worrying that something is wrong.

Meanwhile, his drinking buddy Nathaniel Timberlake is on a mission of vengeance. A regular customer of his oxycontin dealing brother gunned down both Bedford and Bedford’s wife Judy, forcing their young son to hightail it out into the night in search of sanctuary. Nathaniel used to be a cop, but quit in disgust over local corruption. Now a licensed gun dealer, he isn’t afraid to take the law into his own hands.

As Miles and Nathaniel are drawn into the search for Miles’ missing girlfriend and the man they believe is Bedford and Judy’s killer, they find themselves navigating a nightmarish terrain of rural crime and depravity. Miles reacts as conditioning and experience have trained him to:

Miles and Nathaniel followed, felt the tension that grew all around them; for Miles it felt as if he was entering a VC village, as if they were walking into an ambush. His body becoming more and more anxiously pumped. Muscles hardened with an underlying tension. He tightened his fists, making his way through the swarm of bodies, wanting to clothesline or punch the people who surrounded him, there was a rage and violence from within similar to the air he was inhaling and exhaling from his mouth as he stepped onto the creek rock that led to the creaking wooden steps that gave with the girth of his weight.

Frank Bill’s prose is as muscular as its main protagonist, describing Miles and Nathaniel’s pursuit of justice for the dead in almost a fever dream of writing. Some parts of this brutal exposé of cruelty and trauma can be hard to read. Perhaps surprisingly, the best parts occur when the story slides into full-out horror territory, as the specters that haunt Miles and Shelby take form in order to torment them beyond the bounds of rational existence.

Shelby was, in fact, my favorite character here. Her presence adds dimension to the narrative, as the young, beautiful woman contemplates the future in defiance of the terrible things standing in her way:

Getting to the pool, she thought about Miles: regardless of age, she’d marry him, even though they’d only known one another a short time. Kneeling to slide into the water, she thought about her brother and her father, their addictions, her responsibility to care for them, and then she slipped, her legs hit the water, and the rear of her skull hit the concrete lip around the pool, next thing she heard was the ringing in her head, the bells sounding in her ears from the black cloth that swelled and dispersed like dye within her mind’s eye and she fell into the pool.

The shocking twist at the heart of the book is well handled, underscoring the parallels in our main characters’ lives. The ending is realistic but bleak. The hint of redemption for Miles feels well-earned: he may make poor choices on occasion, but it’s hard not to root for someone who’s trying his best despite the odds. Mr. Bill’s Afterword detailing the basis of Back to the Dirt lends further perspective on the contents of this meaningful, if unapologetically heavy read.