Pamela Parker’s 'Second Samuel'

The fictional town of Second Samuel, Ga., is populated with characters right out of Faulkner, had he been funny, or Thornton Wilder, had he been wilder. The town has a mixed bag of gossips, barflies, sad souls and, in a single notable case, the possessor of an unbelievable secret. They all live in the memory of a single, simple soul. B-Flat, the central character in Pamela Parker’s Second Samuel, is a character of limited mental capacity but a keen observer of the human condition. Acting as narrator and Greek chorus, he documents and comments the comings and goings in a small Georgia community in the years after World War II.