European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 7, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A i term Agazine Southern Othic a la Pete Dexter by Glenn Collins new York times Merica s Reading Public will never have a Chance to savor perhaps the Best part of Paris Trout the novel by Pete Dexter that won the 1988 National Book award for fiction. Sixty Days work i reckon about 110 pages he said were instantly and perpetually digested by his word processor. Every writer s Nightmare happened to Dexter at Home in Sacramento calif., in july 1987, when he completed the Middle Section of his novel about a town s response to an interracial murder in the Early 1950s in the deep South. I gave the f1 and f8 commands to Paginate the text Dexter recalled the other Day and i got this message disk drive error. Correct and reset " to make the insult More unbearable All he could get the computer to disgorge was a line of Little yellow Happy  he was so angry he stalked into the Kitchen and aimed a punch at a wooden Stool. I broke a knuckle noticed i did t even Dent the Stool and realized that i d also lost my punch he recalled. After recovering from his rage and his injury he reconstructed the missing Section. But my first version was better and 10 pages longer he said. Ill bet those 10 pages were the most Brilliant i be Ever written he said laughing. If the Book award is to be seen As Sweet vindication in the worldwide struggle of writers against word processor dependency the 45-year-old Dexter said he never counted on beating the four other fiction finalists Don Delillo Anne Tyler . Powers and Mary Mcgarry Morris though i went in feeling  it was the second straight year that the fiction award committee selected a relatively unknown novelist Larry Heinemann won in 1987 for Pace s Story. By Trade. Dexter is an Ink stained wretch a computer stained wretch actually he said who has written a column for the Sacramento Bee three times a week for the last two and a half years. Previously he wrote a Street column for the Philadelphia daily news and i d still like to be writing a Street column but we Don t have any streets in  these Days Dexter is getting offers to write his column in other cities. He does not believe that winning the fiction award will take him away from journalism or change his working style despite the prize winning sort of Guy i be now become he said self mockingly. I like being in the paper three times a week he said. I got to get out and talk to people. I m not interested in becoming a Hermit because then you la ust listen to your own  Paris Trout which was published in july by random House got some Good reviews but i think it sold 11 copies he said. Actually it sold 26,000 copies from a first printing of 33,000, and Dexter s award May help sell a few More. Much Given to laughter easy profanity and the Well timed punch line the wiry Dexter has also thrown a few Pete Dexter a computer stained wretch Winner of the 1988 National Book award for fiction. Not real punches in his time. Mickey Rosati the owner of a celebrated Philadelphia gym bearing his name where Dexter used to Box six Days a week is among those to whom he dedicated Paris Trout. At 5 feet 10 inches tall and 155 pounds Dexter is a Light middleweight he said but if i were in shape i d be a  he was born in Pontiac mich., moved to South Dakota at the age of 2 with his Mother after the death of his father and moved again to Milledgeville ga., when his Mother remarried. Milledgeville is the Model for the fictional Cotton Point of pan s Trout Dexter spent four years living in the South As a child Between the Ages of 5 and 9. The violent fictional denouement of the Book was inspired by the real murder in Milledgeville of a prominent and beloved local lawyer. I was 9 at the time and i think i remember hearing the gunshots he said. That was a time and a place so vivid to me that it was something i had to write  Paris Trout has been nominated by the National Book critics Circle among five finalists for its fiction award which is to be announced Jan. 9. Paris Trout in Dexter s Book is the name of a White store owner and part time moneylender who tracks Down a Young Black Man who has failed to pay a bet he lost. Instead Trout s fusillade of bullets kills a 14-year old Black girl. The subsequent trial and its aftermath puts Trout in direct and violent confrontation with his wife his lawyer and the citizens of Cotton Point. It is a Southern gothic tale of insanity murder and physical and sexual abuse and William Styron in a Book jacket Blurb likened Dexter s ear for speech to that of Flannery o Connor. Dexter while grateful for such Praise insists i m not a Southern writer and i would never presume to speak to or for the  he laughs at reviews that have compared him to William Faulkner and that have characterized the depravity of his villainous character Trout As Snope Sian. The time in College i was supposed to be Reading Faulkner he says of the University of South Dakota i got the Cliff notes for Faulkner and i could not even understand  to those who see his novel As a symbolic vision of racism class War and inhumanity in the pre civil rights Era South he says this could have happened anywhere. The South has no lock on violence. In fact South Philadelphia is More violent than the  despite his comic opera View of the universe Dexter said he s very comfortable writing about violence since i understand a lot about  indeed seven years ago in a Case that made the newspapers he participated in the most celebrated bar fight in the history of South Philadelphia he said. He and a pal the heavyweight Boxer Randy Cobb fought about 30 angry and inebriated local people who were angered by a Dexter column. Dexter suffered a broken leg a broken Back Scalp lacerations and chipped Teeth. The author used his recuperation to finish his first novel god s pocket which chronicled the Oft risible Oft macabre doings in a working class South Philadelphia neighbourhood called god s pocket. His second novel was Deadwood a Black comic Romp through wild West lawlessness in the Dakota territory. Both books were also published by random House. While working on Paris Trout which took him 18 months to finish Dexter wrote 900 words of fiction a Day the same length As his newspaper column because after that the freshness disappears he said. The five judge National Book award fiction panel singled out Dexter s Book for the Quality of the prose said Joel Conarroe chairman of the panel. Know what Beautiful lyrical writing is and i Don t even try to do that Dexter commented. But i try to make each sentence As Clear and clean As it can be because the integrity of the Book is tied to the clarity of each individual  he feels that his $10,000 award just might partially pay for this stay in new York for a few Days he said. Sitting in the random House Headquarters in Manhattan he speculated that his second wife Dian and their 10-year-old daughter Casey were buying an 11 foot something or other at Fao Schwarz even As we  when he was a child in Milledgeville his Mother took him to see the peacocks at Flannery o Connor s farm on the outskirts of town and he reveres the author s courage for writing so Well while she was dying and she knew it he said. Dexter had wanted to name his daughter Flannery but my wife bridled at the idea that she d go through life with a handle like that. So we named her after someone else whose use of the language i admired Casey  saturday january 7,1989 the stars and stripes Page 13