With his novel "The Worthy: A Ghost's Story," former frat boy Will Clarke has tried to expose the comic darkness of college fraternities. Featuring outrageous hazing and abuse, rampant drug use, deviant sex, spirits occupying living beings and controlling their behavior, it's a bit of a satiric stretch.
Get one thing straight: although the tale is set in the deep south, Clarke is not the second coming of William Faulkner. His novel is a dark read, but is not intended as serious literature.
Conrad Avery Sutton III narrates the tale from beyond. Conrad, at 19, is a member of Gamma Chi fraternity at Louisiana State University. His murder by arch-nemesis and fellow frat brother Ryan Hutchins has gone unnoticed by everyone, largely because of the fraternity's hard-partying lifestyle.
"The Worthy" - described in its publicity as a cross between "The Lovely Bones" and "Animal House" - features everything from slipping the depilatory Nair into hair conditioner to bestiality and frat boys parading with doughnuts on appendages.
Conrad's questionable behavior during his short life puts him in a type of limbo after death. He's not doomed to hell yet, but isn't quite ready for heaven. As a result, he hovers overhead, observing characters from the Gamma Chi house.
The only person who can see him is Miss Etta, a black housekeeper who converses freely with spirits. She tries to steer Conrad onto a path toward redemption so he can enter heaven, but he is more interested in seeking revenge on Ryan.
Ryan is a nasty villain. In addition to murdering Conrad, he is responsible for the death of a Christian sorority member, repeatedly beats his picture-perfect girlfriend, attempts to rape Conrad's former girlfriend via the drug GHB, and abuses his authority as chapter president to torture new pledges, causing one boy to hang himself. Frequently high on cocaine, he is wonderfully handsome, respected by grown-ups, and is, stereotypically, the fortunate son of wealth.
Conrad is able to see through the facade that others cannot. A few of the pledges are skeptical of Ryan. Conrad's plan for revenge takes root when he is able to temporarily enter the body of Tucker Graham, a goofy 6-foot-10-inch pledge with a heart of gold. While occupying Tucker's body, Conrad impregnates Ryan's battered girlfriend.
Suspension of disbelief is clearly essential for this book to work. It's tough to listen to a 19-year-old party boy impart wisdom from the afterlife. Clarke writes such lines as "I'm telling you, when you've been dead it feels good just to be able to touch something. . . . Having a body is a blessing you never realize until you lose it. It feeds you in a way that you will never know until you die."
Perhaps "The Worthy" should be considered "fratire," the male equivalent of chick-lit.
It may possibly cause readers to wonder about the usefulness of college fraternities.
It is, to be sure, a male tale best read by an audience that strenuously avoids overtures toward literary analysis.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20 ... 065717.asp
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