Life in Indianola, Mississippi, has some rough edges. In this earthy novel of Ned Rose and his sister Daze, we learn what it's like to grow up as a poor white in a state which is very class and color conscious. Ned works as an oxygen man who checks the oxygen level in the catfish ponds of Mack Bell, while his sister is employed as a bartender at the Beer Smith Lounge. We get glimpses of the sibling's often-absent, beer-in-hand parents, Ned's macho high school football buddies, and the gritty, more well-to-do employers of the common black and white folks.

The Oxygen Man is an unsettling story which gets down and dirty right from the start. It's neither a pleasant book nor one for the lighthearted. There's a strange uneasiness about it. You'll hope for the best as your read, all the while expecting the worst. The very real characters are not people you'd like to know. But the author, in a surprisingly good first novel, gets you deeply involved in their feelings of scorn. If you like the creepy characters in Pete Dexter's The Paper Boy, Ruth Hamilton's The Book of Ruth, or James Dickey's Deliverance, you'll like this book. The chapters are very short and interesting. It's a book that's very easy to read in short spurts, pick up and put down at any time, and the appeal is always there. ( )