The main character of Bitter Milk is 9-year-old Loren Garland, who has spent his life sequestered in the mountains of East Tennessee, fed nonstop by his gender-dysphoric mother, Avery, and ridiculed by his backwoods extended family, who seem to despise Loren's obesity as much as they do (or perhaps because of) his mother's identity issues.

The story is narrated by Luther, who might be Loren's imaginary friend, Satan, or his dead twin. McManus alludes to the Book of Job in interviews, but what about the most famous southern dead twin of them all, Jesse Presley? Maybe I'm reading too much into this.

The story unfolds with the death of Loren's Mamaw. Nothing like a funeral at the local Primitive Baptist church to bring out the family strife--Avery, in her man's suit, and Loren, in his husky suit, are clearly the outcasts of the family, yet you get the impression that they may be the most normal people in the whole Garland clan. Shortly after the funeral, however, Avery disappears "up the mountain" with her new inheritance, and Loren is heartbroken, having lost his only nonimaginary friend.

Loren is very much like his mother in that he is as uncomfortable in his skin as she is--but for different reasons. His weight doesn't concern him until he is forced to stay with his uncle Cass, who mocks Loren's girlishness until it's clear that he, too, may also have doubts about his own masculinity.

Loren then finds himself at his aunt Ruby's house, living with his uncle Dusty and his step-cousin Eli, recently arrived from Knoxville. He's envious of Eli's carefree attitude. At school, Eli's unafraid of their comically awful teacher, who paddles him on a daily basis. At home, the two end up drinking in the woods, at which point Loren decides that he spends too much time not saying the things on his mind.

This is part of the troubling beauty of the story: Loren begins to mature rather quickly. The alcohol frees him from the confines of his inner monologue (he bids adieu to Luther, though Luther still sticks around to tell the story) and from his former comfort, food. He begins to suspect that his mother may be dead, or never coming back, which doesn't particularly bother him.

But how often do 9-year-olds have revelations like this while drinking Thunderbird? Loren's intellectually ahead of his classmates (not to mention his teacher and his family), but it's a tricky point in the story. Still, the sympathy I felt for him, and the hope that he might find something more in the future, kept me from calling bullshit. He's a tremendously perceptive child, and the alcohol seem to quiet the nonstop inner narrative that he suspects no one else has.

He leaves his aunt's house and walking through the woods, up the mountain, in search of his mother, whom he doesn't find, of course. However, he begins piecing together the real reason for her departure. He then heads to his Papaw's house.

I had difficulty understanding why Loren would choose to do this, given that his Papaw was the cruelest of all his family members. However, in the time he spends there, Papaw emerges as perhaps his closest ally, and as incredulous as I felt about this turn of events, I was relieved that Loren could find an adult who didn't somehow manipulate him. The story ends on the roof of Papaw's barn, with Loren's aunt and uncle arriving to convince their father to sign away the rights to his property. It's a bit ambiguous, but Loren learns something about his mother--and about his family--that changes much of what he thought he understood as the truth.

The prose is beautifully crafted, with an ear for both a child's intellectual curiosity and the cadences of the mountain-speak. The dialogue reads as part of the narrative--other critics compare McManus' writing to Faulkner's--and although it's a bit confusing, it's not so important to discern who's speaking: they're all saying the same thing.

It's a testament to McManus' writing ability that the narrator, being imaginary and/or dead, is credible. Luther interprets Loren's thoughts and also speaks directly to him, sometimes as his friend and conspirator, and others as his enemy. Loren ultimately dismisses him once he learns that no one, even his imaginary friend, is trustworthy. Loren's character is sometimes unaccountably sophisticated in his thoughts, but McManus uses a voice that makes him somehow believable.

Bitter Milk is disturbing, but not in the way that, say, (two influences/brothers in arms) Harry Crews' or Pinckney Benedict's work is. I felt a certain relief that Loren wasn't victimized in predictable ways--the alcohol, for example, or the small sexual undercurrent in his interactions with Cass, Eli and the principal of his school (who might also be his father). I'm tired of standard depravity.

It's a small book--not even 200 pages--and I read it in two days, putting it down only when the clock read an obscene hour--I enjoyed it tremendously. It's story of the existence and absence of hope--shit in one hand and want in the other, as the saying goes.

You can read an excerpt of Bitter Milk here.