PETE DEXTER - THE PAPERBOY

Image: still from the film adaptation by Lee Daniels

I see Pete Dexter as a masterful craftsperson. He knows what makes for a good story and checks off each box relentlessly. Reading him usually leads me to recheck those boxes in my own stories. And so, through no fault of Pete Dexter’s, when reading him I often get so caught up in what makes his stories tick that I find myself somewhat distanced from the magic. The experience of reading The Paperboy was sometimes like that. It made me fully appreciate moments with such emotional impact that they made me forget about construction and craft. One example: on the face of it, this story is about a family of white newspapermen that frays apart over a piece of investigative journalism; it’s not really about race; but events toward the last quarter of the story turn the volume up on song about racism that’s been humming in the background the whole time. A potent emotional effect. Read, June 2020.