Mother's Worry

The year is 1987, and outlaw Ray Diamond s mother Lorna is the queenpin of a cesspool of crime and perversion in Mystic, Georgia. When Ray is discharged from the Navy in San Diego, he absconds with a .45, planning to rob and drug deal his way east to his hometown. But when Ray arrogantly knocks over a mob-connected El Paso liquor store, he doesn t count on the owner s psychotic son Eli dogging his trail, and his life corkscrews deep into nightmare. Back home in Mystic, Ray s girl Connie Eustace resorts to stripping at Mama Lorna s club to make ends meet. After witnessing a murder by the local sheriff, she goes on a drug and drink bender. Barely holding on until the long overdue Ray returns, Connie jumps from the frying pain into the fire. It takes a sick mind to write a book as thoroughly warped as Mother's Worry. How lucky we are that Chris D has turned his pathological impulses to creative, rather than destructive, endeavors. This novel is of a piece with Chris' work in music, film, and poetry a crazy dive into a universe populatedlargely by monsters and is a classic update of the Gold Medal/Lion Library loser-noir tradition. Great work, man. Byron Coley