Helpful Score: 1
Too bad there is no two and a half star rating. While the author puts out a reasonably well-written book with some colorful turns of phrase, I had a hard time liking or relating to most of the people in the book. The cover sub-titles this "A Country Noir", and the cover blurb calls it "One of the best-written suspense novels of the decade...joyously vulgar and as raw as three-day old corn whiskey". It is certainly vulgar and raw, but hardly suspenseful and certainly not the best-written novel of any decade.
The protagonist was raised rough back in the hills, and has somehow become a "hillbilly novelist" with four moderately popular books to his credit. He is called back to the depths of the Ozarks to help his nere-do-well family with a problem, and quickly reverts to type.
He seems to have no moral scruples of any kind, and is joyfully into drunkeness, drugs, lots of sex (including anal) with his sixteen year old niece, pretty much total disregard for the rule of law or civilized behavior of any kind up to and including murder. He is somehow able to justify all this because it's in the family genes, most of the male members of his family having spent time in the pen. When I started the book, I was entertained, but by the time I finished (only 210 pages, thank God), I just wanted to take a shower.
Having spent 21 years in the military myself (the first ten years single), I am not a prude, but this is way over the top.
The protagonist was raised rough back in the hills, and has somehow become a "hillbilly novelist" with four moderately popular books to his credit. He is called back to the depths of the Ozarks to help his nere-do-well family with a problem, and quickly reverts to type.
He seems to have no moral scruples of any kind, and is joyfully into drunkeness, drugs, lots of sex (including anal) with his sixteen year old niece, pretty much total disregard for the rule of law or civilized behavior of any kind up to and including murder. He is somehow able to justify all this because it's in the family genes, most of the male members of his family having spent time in the pen. When I started the book, I was entertained, but by the time I finished (only 210 pages, thank God), I just wanted to take a shower.
Having spent 21 years in the military myself (the first ten years single), I am not a prude, but this is way over the top.
Fun, sensual, and murderous all in just 210 pages.
