Feature Book: Over and Under, by Todd Tucker (US)

Over and Under, by Todd Tucker (US)
St. Martin's Press, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-312-37990-2 (275 pages)

There is a kind of American novel which is profoundly steeped in local geography -- think the deep South of To Kill a Mockingbird, coastal South Carolina in The Prince of Tides, and, more recently, the steaming Texas bayou of Kathy Appelt's The Underneath. To read Tucker's Over and Under is to lose yourself in the leafy woodlands of southern Indiana, where you find yourself a complicit witness to the actions and reactions of a community floundering in labour unrest.

Andy, the protagonist, is the son of a junior manager at the local coffin-production plant, shut down by ugliest strike in the town's history. On the picket line stands the father of Tom, Andy's best friend and fellow adventurer. Somewhere is the background lurks the mysteriously attractive Taffy Judd, on the run from her abusive father. And deep beneath the surface of all of this action runs a chain of connected caves, offering shelter, and the promise of new freedom....

A wildcat act of violence at the plant has tragic consequences, including the death of the plant manager, and subsequent escape of two fugitive strikers. The importation of a busload of scab workers and sinister "security forces" continues to put pressure on the struggling community, and Tom and Andy, expert hunters, take on the quasi-heroic role of vigilantes, searching for the escapees, to restore a kind of balance to the town.