Review - Southern Fried by Rob Rosen

Trip returns home to his family’s South Carolina mansion for his grandmother’s funeral. The woman raised him after his parents were killed in a car accident, but she sent him away to university up north and never allowed him to return home. It’s a bittersweet return, of course. Many of the staff he knew as a child are still there, as well as a very friendly new stable boy, but there’s still the loss to mourn. There’s a surprise in store for everyone when the will is read, revealing the existence of a brother Trip never knew about.

“Southern Fried” is a humorous take on the Southern Gothic genre. We have old families, with lots of skeletons in their closets, and a large cast of eccentric characters. The humor largely comes from the narration, which is from Trip’s point of view. Trip seems to see the humor in a lot of situations.

While the Southern stereotypes are portrayed in all their glory, the humor is not cruel or denigrating. There’s a genuine warmth to how each of Trip’s friends is described. The characters may be eccentric, but they’re not to be looked down on.

Despite Trip’s somewhat flippant personality, he is a very likeable character, and definitely not the flighty young man he sometimes seems. Trip is determined to do right by the brother he’s never met, when most people would probably take the money and run.

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“Southern Fried” is available from Smashwords or Amazon (commissionable link).