"O Brothers, Let's Go Down " (OBLGD) is a prequel to the Coen brothers' movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (OBWAT) As OBWAT is based on the Odyssey, so OBLGD is based on the Iliad. New Orleans-1934 stands in for the fabled city of Troy, three years before the action of OBWAT. The story opens in a dark barn in Mississippi's Arktabutta Valley. It first appears that a man is being brutally tortured. Then it becomes clear that the "victim" is 34-year-old Ulysses Everett McGill. He has paid two men to pull his own hair out by the roots to induce artificial baldness. He then goes to New Orleans with a truckload of Dapper Dan pomade and establishes his bogus ministry in Jackson Square. Posing as the Reverend Jordan Rivers, Everett preaches from a bandstand in the Square, and prays daily for hair to grow on the bald pate of his planted sidekick Archie Killian. Each time he prays for Archie's hair to grow, he offhandedly smears balm on his own "bald" head. When his hair grows back and Archie's doesn't, he makes a fortune selling tins of Dapper Dan, relabeled as "Dr. Gilliead's Heavenly Balm, the Pomade that is Stronger than Prayer." As Everett conducts his scam, Priam and Hecuba Troy, proprietors of the renowned House of the Rising Sun, scheme to recruit Penny McGill for service in their house of prostitution. Pete and Delmar try to pass themselves off as black musicians. Their antics eventually end them up on the wrong side of the law. A Pagasus-themed Mardi Gras float becomes part of a ruse to spring Everett from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. OBWAT fans will finally know the answers to many questions such as: Why does Penny count to three? Why does Baby Face Nelson hate cows? How do they come to know the term "paterfamilias?" Why is it so important to be "bona fide?" How did Everett hook up with Pete and Delmar? Where did the Soggy Bottom Boys find their name? How did Everett wind up in jail for "practicin' law" without a license? O Brothers Let's Go Down remains true to the storyline of O Brother, Where Art Thou? Yet the story also remains remarkably true to the general story line of Homer's Iliad. If you take a few minutes to read OBLGD, "your time will not have been illspent."