DATE: Wednesday, November 26, 1997          TAG: 9711250107

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: BOOK REVIEW 

SOURCE: BY AUDREY KNOTH 

                                            LENGTH:   73 lines

AWARD-WINNER OUTLINES BOY'S LESSONS

A NORTHERN CITY child who moves to rural Florida is the center of ``The Thang That Ate My Grandaddy's Dog.'' This first novel by Floridian John Calvin Rainey was a finalist in the 1997 Lillian Smith Book Award for Fiction, which honors excellence in writing about the South. Rainey presents an imaginative tale of a young boy whose plunge into a new and different world teaches him much about life.

The novel's narrator is Johnny Woodside, who moves with his mother and sisters to his father's family after his dad is jailed for drug dealing in New York City. It's quite a change for Johnny; his new home is on the edge of a swamp. Regardless, its wonders immediately captivate him. Rainey demonstrates a poet's feel for rhythm as Johnny tells of the snakes that are now his neighbors:

``King snakes and coral snakes and rat snakes and chicken snakes! Rattlesnakes and joint snakes and hog snakes and wood snakes! Water snakes, pine snakes, grass snakes and tree snakes! Cottonmouths! Copperheads! Blue indigoes, blue racers, black racers and coachwhips! Snakes that climb, burrow, swim and even glide from trees! Snakes! Creepy-crawly slithering serpents!''

Johnny's new existence includes many other children as well as aunts and uncles - all of whom find that the homestead that's been in their family for generations is a sanctuary from the outside world. ``That gone generation began drifting back. All the gone souls, with nowhere else to go, feeling the oppression of their prodigal weight, returned to the house from which they came.''

It's from his relatives that Johnny begins to learn life lessons. For example, there's the fact that people aren't always what they seem - something he comes to realize when he and other boys make the assumption that girls are no good at playing marbles. He's taught otherwise in an encounter with his Aunt Sally, who after removing her high heels and artificial fingernails, hands the youngsters a loss that makes Johnny feel ``like Fast Eddie Nelson falling flat on his face the day Minnesota Fats beat the dookey out of him, too.''

One of the greatest influences on Johnny is the group of dogs that live with the family. He sees many parallels between the animals and people. ``Like humans, dogs are dependent creatures, needing love, affection and a sense of worth . . . Dog is man's best friend, but our dogs were family, bound in obligation and duty. My dogs would have searched and sought a master worthy of them . . . Some men are worthy, some men are not. Some dogs are worthy, some dogs are not. The difference between worthy dogs and worthy men is sublime, but not indiscernible.''

His relationships with the dogs teach Johnny that calamities can ensue from irresponsibility. This discovery comes when he and other boys encourage the dog Shack to chase a boar, and Shack is badly injured as a result. The children are tempted to lie to their elders about what happened, but ``We look down at our most beloved dog and realized that a simple lie was not going to do it. What we were going to need was not just a good lie, but a red-hot, odious, magnanimous lie with a lid on it! What we realized was that this was trouble only the truth would help.''

Telling the truth doesn't ease the tragedy. It does, however, reinforce to responsibility to the children - something Johnny now understands is the focus of what the adults around him are trying to teach.

Rainey has previously published short stories in Florida and taken honors in writing competitions in that state. The publication of this well-told novel is sure to now earn him a much wider reputation. MEMO: Audrey Knoth is a free-lance writer and vice president of Goldman

& Associates in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: BOOK REVIEW

``The Thang That Ate My Grandaddy's Dog''

Author: John Calvin Rainey

Publisher: Pineapple Press.

360 pp.

Price: $18.95

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