In this novel of social drama, a casual murder in the small Georgia town of Cotton Point just after World War II and the resulting court case cleave open the ugly divisions of race and class. The man accused of shooting a black girl, a storekeeper named Paris Trout, has no great feeling of guilt, nor fear that the system will fail to work his way. Trout becomes an embarrassment to the polite white society that prefers to hold itself high above such primitive prejudice. But the trial does not allow any hiding from the stark reality of social and racial tensions. Dexter, a former newspaper columnist, is also the author of Deadwood and God's Pocket. Paris Trout won the 1988 National Book Award.

A respected white citizen of Cotton Point, Georgia, Paris Trout is a shopkeeper, a money-lender, and a murderer of blacks. And his friends, family and foes do not realize the danger they face in a man who simply will not see his own guilt.#Penguin.

Paris Trout is a novel of limited scope, but what it takes on it accomplishes brilliantly. This is not a novel about racism, or life in a Southern town circa1960. The title of this masterful little novel clues us to the author's intent. Paris Trout is primarily a character study. What we have here is a portrayal of anti-social personality disorder. We have all crossed paths with Paris Trout. He is the man standing in line in the supermarket, which for reasons we can't put into words, makes us uneasy, makes us want to put as much distance between him and ourselves as quickly as possible. It is not his racism that sets Paris apart from his neighbors. Sure he is a bigot. However, his assumptions about race and White privilege are not out of step with the rest of his community. Given his comments about how deep down we are all really them same, he may in fact be relatively enlightened on the subject of race. No what sets Paris Trout apart is his mental illness. His refusal to accept societal norms of behavior, his lack of empathy and remorse for those he harms, his proclivity towards violence, his blindness to his own outrageousness, his inability to maintain healthy relationships, the wake of mayhem and chaos he leaves in his path, and the sense of dread he instills in all who come into contact with him, are all hallmarks of anti-social personality disorder. Dexler accomplishes two things with his writing that I find remarkable. First, he skillfully conjures up the same sense of foreboding that meeting Paris Trout in the flesh would induce. In every scene that he appears, even before we have seen the violence he is capable of, we are afraid for what will come next. Again, and again I had a palpable sense of relief every time Paris moved off the page. Second, I found it remarkable, that despite his despicable acts and his complete lack of admirable traits we feel at least a modicum of compassion for this individual. I suppose this is because, while there is more than enough misery to go around, clearly no one in the novel suffers as profoundly as Paris. Especially by the end of the novel I found him more pathetic than evil. His illness profoundly separates him. It precludes him from enjoying even a taste of the wealth of Human experience. This is all the writer is asking us to take from this novel: to acknowledge this man as the Human being that he is. The bigger questions of societal culpability and the impact of racism on our culture, while they are perhaps brought to mind by this novel, are not directly addressed. Paris Trout succeeds so completely in part because of its modest ambition and narrow focus. It is well worth the read for anyone interested in understanding psychic pathology, aberrant behavior and the extremes of Human character.

When this book came out I was in high school and I thought, that's all we need, yet another book about racism and a small southern town..I mean how many books can be written on this subject? I recently sat down and read this book, it's quite a page turner, but still it's a one trick pony..on part Harper Lee, two parts John Grisham. Granted, Paris Trout, is a racist monster, conjured up from Redneck Hell, but he is a total caracture, it's like the author read To Kill a Mockingbird and said, I'm going to make my cracker worse, and to his credit, he suceeded, Paris Trout is one of the most vile, base characters i've read in fiction, but in making him so totally vile, he's not as effective. I just felt the book treaded over well worn road, yes we know people were and are like this..I grew up in Texas, I'm very familiar with the genus Redneckus Southernus, but I dont exactly enjoy reading about it..again and again and again...this book won several awards, and frankly I dont understand why..its not a bad book, but it's hardly, To Kill a Mockingbird, and frankly I like A Time to Kill better..read this if you must..but only if you must.

Paris Trout is a novel of great speed and explosive power, and it begins this way and never really lets up. It is Dexter's great achievement here: he creates and atmosphere of suspension and tension that can be, at times, nearly unbearable. He has also crafted a character, Paris Trout, so sinister in his dimensions that the reader can not help but feel sorry for him despite his innumerable acts of evil. Trout is both cipher for events and the catalyst for the events themselves in this novel which bears his name. Again, Dexter does this to great effect. Paris Trout is an enigma. His motivations are buried in some deep, hardly discernibly place, moving darkly and with little apparent motivation (beyond some obvious ones, like race hatred and greed for money). Yet this dark spot in the novel is the story's hinge, whereby all the action moves. Dexter creates a novel that is rich in psychological movement and style and at the same time a comment to the colossal errors of American culture at large in the pursuit of justice.

The title character of this novel, Paris Trout, is an insane loan shark who keeps all the numbers in his head and his money hidden. He murders a fourteen year-old black girl. The structure of the book is such that the perspective shifts, we see the murder and its aftermath from the POV of Paris Trout, his lawyer, his wife, and several other characters. The social and historical world of the small Southern town in the late 1960s (just a guess, I don't know that the date is ever actually given) is credibly drawn. The characters are complex and interesting. There is tension and some exploration of grand ideas. But in the end, the book comes up short.

The main points of softness in the novel (I would not go so far as to say it is a failure, the novel does work) surround the issue of motivation. The central action of the novel--the murder of Rosie Sayers--and the lesser actions of the novel--Paris Trout's spousal abuse, the condition of their marriage, the lawyer's handling of the murder case--do not seem to be entirely justified.

We never really find out why Paris murders Rosie. Although reasons are given, they all seem to rest on the idea that he is nuts. And in the end, his insanity does not seem like enough of a justification. And at times, his insanity is even negated by his observations. At one point, while explaining to his assistant how to "handle" the Blacks from the community who come to borrow money, he says "they're not different than you and me, that's the secrete." This statement seems to undermine much of his initial motivation for murder.

At other times, Trout demonstrates such calculated and reasoned actions that I often forget that there is anything wrong with him. The narrative reminds us that he is nuts by revisiting the floor of his room which has been covered with glass or it brings us back to some other similar artifact of his insanity.

I could also never figure out why Hanna married Paris. The book attempts to explain it through the pressures of social custom, the desire for companionship, the idea that people change and are apt to never show their true selves during courtship. But in the end, Hanna is such an intelligent, strong, and perceptive character, a character that does not demonstrate weakness; that I find it difficult to believe she would be married to Paris.

Dexter covers all his bases. There are no great failures in the novel. But the characters seem better suited to some smaller action. Their motivations, relationships, and eccentricities are never quite at home with the sodomy and murder that give the novel its shape.

I was assigned to read this book in a Southern Fiction class and for the life of me, I don't understand what I was supposed to get out of it that was beneficial. The book is basically about a white guy who has lent money to a brotha for a car. When the car gets into an accident, the brotha takes the car back to the white guy thinking he's going to repair the car because of the insurance he got. Instead of the car being fixed, this situation turns into a shoot-out, in which conniving lawyers, crooked judges, honest judges, and a guilty town come to honor and loathe the man on trial.

Cons: The principle of the book about racism and how rich people can bypass the government was important to those gullible people who believe that the law is ALWAYS on your side. But, I don't understand why the author even bothered to give the young girl who died a history--when the trial comes, her history becomes irrelevant besides knowing the psycho's wife. The last few chapters were a pointless story about lawyers and judges arresting people for having facial hair; I thought that dumbed the book down quite a bit. It amazes me that there's only one ambulance in the whole town and all the cops are partying, especially in a town that thinks there are so many troublemakers (i.e. blacks) running rampant, so the way this story ended was like "Yeah right." Minus the psycho and his wife, the two other relationships in this book seemed to be in there for decoration because they didn't lend to the story.

Pros: The book was a pageturner, no matter how many scenes were unnecessary. I also liked how honest the author was about how the legal system really works for upper class people. When the safes were opened, what was inside had my mouth on the floor--how CRAZY was that guy?