Joe [Paperback]

Larry Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1992

Hailed as an important voice in contemporary American literary fiction, Larry Brown is the critically acclaimed author of the antiwar novel Dirty Work and the short story collection Big Bad Love. In Joe, an unfulfilled 50-year-old and a desperate 15-year-old team up and follow a twisting map to redemption--or ruin--in this "raw and gritty" (Kirkus Reviews) Southern novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With this powerful novel of poverty-mired Mississippi, which received a boxed review in PW in cloth, Brown comes into his own, illuminating the painful lives of his characters with compassion and eloquence.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (October 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446394386
• ISBN-13: 978-0446394383
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #951,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A literary tour de force, July 1, 2004

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joe (Paperback)

I struggled for days to come up with a way to start a review for Larry Brown's "Joe." Heck, I am still not sure how to do it. My difficulties have little to do with comprehending what the author tries to say with the story; "Joe" is hardly a difficult book to read in terms of structure or language. No Edward Gibbonesque prose here, no Proustian run on sentences or post-modern psychobabble to resolve either. Nope, you won't spend a whit of time banging your head against problematic prose with this book. Brown's writing style is simplicity itself, a smooth, cut to the bone technique that oddly reminded me of William Somerset Maugham, if you can imagine. Come to think of it, Maugham and Brown share a lot of similarities in subject matter too. If you thought the author of "The Razor's Edge" and "Up at the Villa" tossed around moral quandaries fast and furious, you haven't seen anything until you pick up Larry Brown's "Joe." One of the cover flap blurbs said something to the effect that "Joe" deals with the big themes in life, like honor, redemption, good versus evil, and temptation. Yeah, for once a cover flap got it right. Brown's book does deal with the important stuff in life, and it does it in a way I won't soon forget.

The main character is Joe Ransom, a forty something ex-convict spending his time poisoning trees for a large lumber company. He's got a wife who left him after years of dealing with his gambling, drinking, and carousing. He's got a couple of kids he rarely sees. Joe's got a broken down truck, a pit bull guarding his house, a girlfriend roughly the age of his own daughter, and blood vendettas going on with several dangerous locals. He's also got a huge authority problem, a problem that landed him in the stir a few years back and threatens to do so once again if he doesn't keep his nose clean. For all of Joe's faults, and there are many, many faults, he's essentially the good guy of the story. His work ethic is exemplary; in fact, he seems to be about the only person in this region of Mississippi who actually holds down a decent job. Moreover, the guy actually has a sense of the wrong he's committed in his life against his family. Even as Ransom heads towards another confrontation with the men in blue, fate is about to plunk down in his lap the opportunity to redeem his past sins. This manna from heaven takes the form of one Gary Jones, a teenager with a bleak past and an even bleaker future.

Young Gary's family constitutes the second significant plot thread in "Joe." Led by patriarch Wade, the Jones clan wonders the highways of the South from Oklahoma to Florida, always in search of food and a place to stay. This family suffers such excruciating depravation, such a horrific hand to mouth existence, that they make the Joads look like pleasure seekers taking a scenic trip to the seashore. The Jones find an abandoned cabin up in the woods in which to settle for a time, long enough for Wade to head out and perform his usual tricks. Papa Jones steals, connives, and even kills as he embarks on a perpetual quest for another jug of liquor and a pack of smokes. Abuses of the most horrible descriptions reign supreme in the Jones household, abuses so hideous that Fay, the eighteen year old daughter, decides to strike out on her own. Gary stays out of a sense of misguided loyalty-and out of sense of complete ignorance since he can neither read nor write. The boy does work, though, and a special bond forms between Ransom and Gary when the lad hires on to the older man's work crew. But in the background roams the monstrous Wade. The inevitable showdown between Gary's father and Joe Ransom is shattering in its implications.

A whole lot of stuff goes on in this book, always wrapped in the heat blasted landscapes of rural Mississippi and in language of such utterly simplistic beauty. What I liked most about "Joe" is the author's construction of the characters. Brown seems to believe that most individuals' personalities consist of shades of grey when it comes to good and bad behavior, especially someone like Ransom. Joe is hardly a paragon of saintly virtue, but he does possess a keen sense of what is abhorrent along with the ability to take action when confronted with evil. Wade, on the other hand, is simply a monster of epic proportions. There's no good in this man, only an endless hunger to satiate personal needs and desires no matter what the cost. Even worse, his malevolence is shockingly mundane; a soul crushing yet understated wickedness that evokes Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" moniker. Wade Jones may well be one of the most repugnant characters to ever grace a novel, and he accomplishes this feat by merely turning his head at inopportune times or by remaining silent when he should speak.

It would be necessary to pen several reviews to cover the various themes running through the novel, but it's sufficient to say that Brown pulls the whole thing off with shining brilliance. "Joe" is must read material for anyone who enjoys magnificent literature. My rather shaky comparison of Brown to Maugham is probably not appropriate, but I can't compare this writer to that other great writer of the South, Faulkner, because I haven't gotten around to perusing any of that author's books. Maugham I know, and Brown reminds me of him in a way. No matter, however, since you don't need to know any of the "big" writers to enjoy this sublime experience. You owe it to yourself to check this one out.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the title is the only forgettable thing about this treasure, March 3, 2000

By 

Johnny Roulette - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joe (Paperback)

If you are not familiar with Brown's novels, then I offer you my condolences. You are deprived. Joe is, in my opinion, the best of Brown's disturbing and wonderful novels. There are no heroes in his books. There is also little in the way of hope and compassion. Brown tells a wicked story, rich with realism and imagery, like no one in the last half of the 20th century. As a writer, after reading Joe, I realized I had finally found a book that I could never realistically hope to rival. Joe, the book not the man, is flawless. I've heard Brown compared to Faulkner, but Brown has a readability that I never found with Faulkner. Do yourself a favor, get this book & get his debut novel, Dirty Work. There is every chance in the world that you will then become a Larry Brown fan for life. This novel is desolate and grim, but something about his writing endears you to it anyway. With most of the great writers long dead, it's refreshing to know that at least one master of the craft is not only still with us, but in the prime of his life. Joe will leave you aching and disillusioned. It will also leave you bleeding for more, more, more. Larry Brown develops his characters and plots better than anyone going.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Give me booze, cigarettes, and an old car to drive around in, June 11, 2004

By 

Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Joe (Paperback)

The wonder of Larry Brown's "Joe" is not so much the story itself, a depressing tale of a depressed era and region, but the astoundingly lush and yet simplified way the tale is told.

Joe starts out by introducing us to a dirt-farm family, homeless and wandering and worn out. Wade is a man who is instantly placed at the bottom of the human existence; a surly, unlikable alcoholic leading his despairing family into ruin. In the rural backwoods of Mississippi, he finds an abandoned shack complete with weeds growing up through the pale floorboards and settles himself in with his wife and three remaining children; Gary, Fay, and Dorothy.

And then we meet Joe Ransom, who scratches out his living by clearing out land tracts by poisoning the trees in order for them to be removed, working a crew of low and shiftless men. Joe has led a hard life, but remains a simple man with simple needs; booze, cigarettes, and women. He stops by the post office to visit his estranged wife at her job, yet continues to exercise his weakness for his young girlfriend Connie, who is the same age as his pregnant daughter.

Joe winds out hiring Gary, who is young and energetic and eager to make enough money to get away from his shiftless father. Joe takes a shine to Gary, and winds out sort of taking him under his wing, not so much as a protégé but rather from a desire to save the boy from the fate that would become his at the hands of his brutal father.

This is not a novel of a thickened plot unraveling at breakneck speeds towards an explosive conclusion; it is a poetically written journey through the intimate details of a life that will make no impact on the world as a whole. It is life lived at its most base of levels, survival on a day-to-day existence of needs versus means.

You will find nothing truly admirable in any character between these pages, but you will find yourself involved in their tough and gritty lives whether you desire to be there or not. Brown's writing is so completely poetic that it flows with a silken shimmer even through the foul waters of Joe's life. The details of Joe and Gary's lives in all of their everyday mundane details are exposed in the rawest form, earthy and folksy, and horrifying in their acceptance of it.

You will be confronted by evil in its purest form; ignorant and uncaring, when you first meet Wade and later meet Willie Russell. Evil has never been more ignorant or ruthlessly sociopathic than this, a terrifying ride on the derailed train of alcoholism and entitlement, that culminates in broken lives and shattered futures.

I found the ending to be incomplete, designed to make you feel like you are guessing what the outcome of the confrontation will be; until you realize in your heart that you already know Joe all too well, and the outcome is less guessable when that very fact is digested.

Brown's writing is so lyrical and flowing that despite the horrifying content and obnoxious, unpleasant characters, you become entranced in the numbing realism of the poverty and desperation that takes place.

In my opinion, Brown is an absolute must-read, and because he can write so well about places and characters that are so hard to like or even relate to, I feel that he should become required reading for students of literature and art. Enjoy!