Customer Reviews

Death of Sweet Mister

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is about as dark as they come. Wonderfully written by a bloke who has an amazing ability to use the language. The story of a boy growing up on the wrong side of the tracks..violent father, uneducated family, drugs, alcohol, crime, sexual abuse. You name it.
However be warned that the book bites. It is very powerful with a surprising but sadly inevitable end.
Read it if you dare, and think about following up all the author's books. I think he is underappreciated

In every southern high school--or at least, the ones I and the people I grew up around went to--there was always a small cadre of very poor rural kids who all knew each other and stuck close together. And, in that pack, there was always a brother and sister duo about whom whispers were traded. Bad whispers.

This book explores the dysfunction of Rural Southern Family, and does so with an insider's knowledge. Mr. Woodrell, who I believe grew up far enough south to "get it," takes an unblinking look at the trial of Shug Akins, his Mama Glenda and his father? stepfather? Red. Glenda's extramarital suitor also makes appearances.

Glenda is an oversexed dim bulb, Red a violent, drug-addled, sociopathic redneck. What Woodrell allows us to look into is the humorless thought processes of a pubescent boy raised in that environment. It may be too much, but Shug reminded me a lot of Huckleberry Finn: a boy raised so hard and so wild that he was simply making his way without a whole lot of feeling going on. He has been made into a hard wall and the world merely bounces off of him, save for the comforts offered by his mother, when she is in the mood to pay attention to him at all.

The emotional incest and concomitant jealousy in the story are spot-on, and when I realized where the last three pages were headed, I literally jumped, startled, as I sat reading at the breakfast table. Woodrell chose to allow the innuendo to come to fruition, and it was hard to read. The protagonist's protective hardness becomes needy darkness just before the curtain falls.

A recommended read.