Mary Lee Settle’s latest novel poses andifferent problem. Instead of flight, itndescribes a return. Like the first fournnovels in her tortured exploration of anfamily history, The Killing Groundnexamines a mysterious death in the family’snpast Hannah McKarUe has returnednto her West Virginia hometown to try tondiscover the truth about her brother’sn•’iMarv U-c- Si-tllcl i^ ii nuKlt-rn Il;iiTiL-l hdv iiT MDwe who would I’riv us all.”n—Soir York Tinws Ktmk Ri’vicwnviolent death some years earlier, after henhad been thrown in jail for drunkenness.nThe previous novels in the quintetnexamined family passings ranging fromnthe Cromwell rebellion through thenAmerican Revolution, the War Betweennthe States, and World War L The KillingnGround leaves us dangling in the immediatenpresent.nIf it is indeed unfair to compare contemporarynSouthern writers to Faulkner,nit must be said that some authors ask fornit In Settle’s case, the comparison hasnusually been intended as a compliment:nreviewers call her work “Faulknerian” innscope, structure, and sensibility. Certainlynher book is intended to be read asna Southern novel. The author’s concernnwith family, community, and history arenall part of the trappings of the genre.nEven the old family manse, taken overnby the nouveau riche, is included. HannahnMcKarMe, viho is presented as the authornof four other novels which are—signlficantiy,nI am sure—^the first four tides ofnSettle’s quintet, is a kind of postmodernnQuentin Compson. In Faulkner’s masterpiecenAbsalom, Absalom!, Quentin isnsummoned by a local spinster—^MissnRosa—^just before he leaves Mississippinto seek a Northern education at Harvard.n”So I don’t im^ine,” Miss Rosa tells him,nthat you will ever come back here andnsettle down… since Northern peoplenhave already seen to it that there is littlenleft in the South for a young man.nSo maybe you will enter the literarynprofession as so many Southern gentlemennand gentlewomen too aren24inChronicles of Culturendoing now and maybe someday younwill remember this and write about itnHannah, it seems, has accomplishednwhat Quentin—^the prototypical “modem”nSoutherner—could not face. Shenhas liberated herself from her upperclass.nWest Virginia mining background,nestablished herself in New York as annauthor, and retamed to confront hernpast—and the feet that her brother’snkiller is a poor-white relation.nHowever intensely Settle may feel allnthis, her novel fails either to entertain ornto enlighten. Her stature as a NationalnBook Award recipient generally assuresnher some deference from the reviewers,neven when they are uneasy with hernwork. But The Killing Ground does notndeserve any particular awe. The novel’snstyle is, well, just plain unsettling: muchnof this novel reads like a rough draftnbadly in need of an editor’s blue pencil.nThe author’s good intentions are notnrealized.nAlice Walker’s The Color Purplenadds another dimension to what wenmust now consider as Southern literature,nbut not many readers are apt to bencomfortable with it. Walker’s posture isnunabashedly black and feminist (readnlesbian). This epistolary novel consistsnof letters from two sisters who have beenncapes this trap by fleeing to Africa with anmissionary couple who are raising asntheir own Celie’s two iUegitimate children.nNettie’s letters to her sister arenintercepted by Celie’s husband, whondoesn’t want her to receive them; Celie’snletters, never mailed, are addressed tonGod because there is no one else to confidenin. Celie’s voice is in what Walkernhas called “Black Folk English” rathernthan dialect, and it is a melodramaticnrecord of Celie’s abuse by ironfisted,nmale brutishness until she is lifted up tonthe joys of lesbian love by a glamorousnblues-singer who is, for some reason,nboth available and attracted to Celie.nThe novel is filled with what Aristotlencalls “improbable possibilities,” butnthere is more to the book than a series ofnmelodramatic coincidences.nAn author could hardly limit her audiencenmore deliberately than Walkerndoes here. Almost all of the male charactersnare callous at best, usually worse.nThe women are defiant, courageous, andnenduring. Faulkner’s Dilsey pales besidenWalker’s Celie as amodel of forbearancenand pluck. But if the situations and charactersnare contrived, the author intendsnthem so. Walker has called herself an”womanist,” something she intends toninclude both feminism and lesbianism,nand she does not blush at throwing thesen”ideals” in the reader’s fece. Rape, beatings,nand de facto feminine slavery permeatenthe novel In a Washington Postnprofile some months ago, Walkernexplained her anger:n”/’I.H-(.i>li)rl’iir/)lc… pl.tLVs |.liLT \;illii:i”| in Lhi- oiiuparn of laulUni-r.”n—The .SaliuHnMiT I.Mill- N;I11VITS| galliT> of wonii-ii :ire living i-x;iinplt> (ifm:in’>. Iiihuni:inily icinWDiiien.”n—CommoHirufi/nseparated by fate. Celie, a semiliteratenblack woman living in rural Georgia, hasnbeen raped by a man she mistakenlynthinks is her fether. She is forced to marryna brutal older man and is generally abusednby the oppressive, male-dominated worldnof the Negro South. Her sister Nettie es-nnnBut why shouldn’t I be tough on men?nThis is a country in which a woman isnraped every three minutes. Wherenoneout of three women will be rapednduring their lifetimes, and a quarter ofnthese are children under 12. If I writenbooks that men feel comfortable with,n