FICTION

THE COOTER FARM by Matthew F. Jones (Hyperion: $18.95; 282 pp.). It takes a certain amount of nerve to commence a first novel with a well-known saying about cow dung, to the effect that one can’t work in it all day and come home smelling like a rose. In the case of “The Cooter Farm,” fortunately, the reference is appropriate: Matthew Jones’ story takes place on a dairy farm in Upstate New York, and a few of its inhabitants seem to revel in their coarseness. The worst offender is Hooter Cooter, who gives this book its plot by making life hell for his extended family, particularly his brother Scooter and his sister Mary Jean. The tale of Hooter’s tyranny, which encompasses just about every sin you can name, is told by Scooter’s son, young Ollie, who makes a good witness because he is the family member closest to Hooter’s victims; he admires his father despite the fact that Scooter, a failure at farming, is reduced to selling bull semen, and has fallen pre-adolescently in love with aunt Mary Jean, just three years Ollie’s senior. As a novel of childhood, “The Cooter Farm” hardly ranks with “To Kill a Mockingbird,” as the publisher would have you believe, but it’s a sensitive portrait of pre-teen bewilderment.