Customer Reviews

Poachers: Stories

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A collection of stories, all of which have a heart of darkness. We're talking plot, suspense, character - and alligators. Not for the faint of heart. Nothing charming or frothy here; just riveting tales of violence, drunkenness, death, craziness, and obsession. Superb - only don't read it right before falling asleep.

Poachers is like an exotic nine-course meal. At first you're a little apprehensive and you're not sure you're going to like it. But with each new, unidentifiable dish you become more and more satiated and finally gorge yourself in delight. The final title story is definitely the dessert. Delicious, it hits you right in the gut. This book explores a world I'll never know first-hand, and I'm glad Tom Franklin explored it in my stead. I'm smacking my lips in anticipation of his next book, which apparently will be a novel set in the 1890s.

Like O'Connor, Franklin has a perfect ear for Southern speech and uses it to hilarious and incisive results. Unlike O'Connor, his characters are doomed with nary a chance for redemption. Here he resembles Crews more, with characters at the end of their tethers, drowning their nihilism in sex, materialism, and booze, lots and lots of booze. In some cases they crave escape to somewhere better or different (like Alaska); in most cases they just don't give a damn. "The Ballad of Duane Juarez" seems most illustrative of this tendency; it is a terrifying tale in which the narrator gives in to the most primitive, scrounging impulses.

Other influences are apparent here, some non-Southern. One can see the presence of Cormac McCarthy, for instance, and his deliberate, blunt, unsentimental prose, or, inevitably, Hemingway's unmistakable minimalism. There is no magnolia-scented prose here; that would imply nobility and hope. Other reviewers have criticized Franklin because his stories often seem lopped off with their abrupt endings. I must admit that bothered me some too, until I realized that a nice, tidy, satisfying ending would be completely out of character with these Franklin's folk. Their restlessness and hopelessness end only when they die.

The celebrated title story impresses most, with its classic theme of survival and its combination of terror and pity. "Grit" comes in second, with its protagonist sucked into a scam and the charms of an exotic woman.

If you're looking for a happy ending, stay far, far away from this collection. If you want a glimpse into the desperate, funny, pathetic, hopeful, hopeless lives SOME white Southerners lead, proceed with caution.

This is an excellent collection of short stories, along with the novella that gives the book its title. Franklin's stories are set in Alabama and share some traits with other stories set in the south. There is a directness to Franklin's writing that stems all the way back to Faulkner. The writing has traces of Breece D'J Pancake, but with more energy. There are reminders of the stories of Pinckney Benedict as well. There are some common symbols amongst their writings as well as the general tones.

The characters in Franklin's stories have hard lives that they live hard. There is seemingly no redemptive quality to their lives and the characters realize it. They don't try to set up their afterlife; as a sign in the title story says "Jesus is not coming." They drink non-stop; they contemplate and often have sex in adulterous relationships; they steal, and they don't think twice about any of it.

The stories do have a slightly uneven quality to them. Some are Year End Best of quality while others seem like second or third drafts, not completed versions. Standouts include "Grit," where a foreman at a grit manufacturer gets himself in deep to a loan shark and has to run an unethical business to keep his body whole, and "Dinosaur," a story that includes a rhinoceros, an old folks home and a rural gas station nearly ready to go out of business.

The book ends with the title spawning novella that was a multi-award winning story. It won an Edgar award for best mystery short story but it is more of a moody, Hitchcockian tale. The drama and suspense build through the story as three amoral young brothers are slowly stalked and picked off, one by one, by an ex-poaching game warden.

As a whole the collection has enough standout material, especially the longer efforts to make you long for Franklin to move on to the novel format. The only way I'd ever want to visit this Alabama is in the future writings of Tom Franklin.

3.5 stars.

Franklin has written a very impressive collection of short stories here, which I thought culminated in the excellent novella Poachers that gives the volume its name. He explores the backwoods of Alabama with a native's knowledge of the hunters and fishermen who live in the state's rural areas, and at the same time he possesses considerable skill in storytelling. I've never visited the area he writes so convincingly about, but those who live there seem to indicate he nailed the characters dead on.

The story "Poachers" involves a group of three amoral and uncontrollable brothers who wreak havoc in Alabama until a mysterious, legendary and mostly unseen game warden is dispatched to start picking them off. The suspense is tremendous as the hunters become the hunted in a cool, calculated, unhurried style. The story reminded me a little of the eerie movie Southern Comfort, where a bunch of National Guardsmen where systematically hunted down and killed in a rural Louisiana swamp by unseen Cajuns.

Other stories in this volume, while not as powerful as the title piece, were uniformly above average and sometimes very good. Frankin is always entertaining, and seems always to know what he is writing about. The author has been critized here at Amazon by one or two reviewers for inconsistent plot development, but I thought the plot of "Poachers" was as fully developed as that of most full length novels, and some of the shorter stories were meant to be experimental and a little abrupt. Short stories are seldom wrapped in conventional packages. Overall, I give the volume 4 stars, maybe 4 1/2 if you concentrate mostly on the title novella, and I enthusiastically look forward to reading Franklin's debut novel.

A magnificent achievement and one of the best books of the year, if not decade. This is how to write a short story collection. The stories are big enough to be considered epic. The narratives are generous and full of heart and reward with something new on reach read. The title story has been decorated in practically every way possible and it is a bonafide classic. "Blue Horses" is not to be missed either, a gem that is achingly beautiful. "Alaska" practically sings with wisdom and hope. "Shubuta" reminds of Barry Hannah and Rick Bass at their finest. Hell, all the stories deserve unstinting praise and admiration. This collection is the best possible news for anybody who loves graceful, elegant writing and dialogue that echoes like a gunshot in a barrel. Among all the five-star books out there, this one deserves ten stars. Unforgettable.

Emotional stories that grasp the reader's attention. It only took me a single sitting to finish this collection and for what its worth, I thoroughly enjoyed each story.

First I'd like to comment on the inane Kirkus review, especially the comment that calls the author "the kind of Southerner who would consider Montgomery the Big City." (I'm probably paraphrasing; I don't have the review in front of me.) Anyway, it's a typical comment from an ignoramous who can't separate the author from his fictional creations. I think that Kirkus assumes that Franklin is backwards because he doesn't condescend to his characters. A lesser writer might, because there are some unattractive people here, but Franklin is much smarter than that. Although the Kirkus review is favorable, it does a disservice to his vivid and beautiful, if dark, book. And the stupid comment at the end (of the Kirkus review) really steams me! Franklin's Alabama is a work of the imagination, not a documentary... Poachers opens a door, all right, but onto Franklin's brilliant imagination, not onto the actual South.

Tom Franklin is a terrific writer. His prose is sparse yet descriptive. Some might believe he's a slooshee made out of Ernest Hemingway, Larry Brown, and Raymond Carver. These stories will please fans of what the scowling (and snooty) independent bookseller with the "Give Peace a Chance" t-shirt called 'Oh, Southern GritLit fan are ya' when I dropped it at the cash register. These are stories about losers, dreamers, boozers, troublemakers, who carry on in the midst of self-imposed turmoil. I should warn the catlovers of the world (note: I gave a lovingly inscribed copy to Bessie for her birthday and bookmarked the Duane Juarez chapter) that there's a story in which cats (and kittens) get treated in an unkind manner. Of course, a lot of humans get treated poorly as well.

In any case, the writing is fabulous and the title novella is a bit of a chiller. Great beer-drinking reading and some of the finest writing I've seen in contemporary fiction. Oh, and a lot of these stories have a hint of humor to them, even in the midst of disaster. Good stuff and Heavy Hop Dop approves mightily.

...you won't be finding THAT here - what you WILL find, however, are some incredibly well-written short stories that are filled with characters that make the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up and say `howdy'. I was directed to this author after writing a review for Marlin Barton's (even better) collection THE DRY WELL - I like Barton's style better, but Franklin is a craftsman as well.

The notes on the dust cover state that `The world of POACHERS is dark, brutal, without redemption, a place most of us have never seen.' Thank God for that - and what a blessing it is to be able to experience that world in such living, breathing detail. Tom Franklin grew up in south Alabama - he knows his subjects well. His introduction to this volume, entitled `hunting years', is a moving and revealing as any of the stories collected here. In it, he speaks of the rites of passage through which he traveled, of his deep desire to please his father, to be viewed favorably `as a man' in his eyes - he writes the intro from the perspective of a trip back to his old stomping grounds, with a nostalgia that is poignant and heartfelt, without stepping off the shelf into the maudlin. It's a thoughtfully written and valuable beginning for the reader about to take the journey through the book.

There are mean people here. The lead-off story, `Grit', presents a `collection man' for a loanshark/bookie, a fellow aptly named Snakebite who, it is rumored, once cut off a debtor's toes with a pair of wirecutters. I think you can get the picture - these are not the type of people that most of us hang out with, but they're out there in the world and they're real. Franklin's prose - and his ability to create such a palpable sense of time and place and mood - bring them vividly to life. It says a lot for his writing talents that I can't remember reading a novel or a group of stories populated by such despicable personages and enjoying it as much as I did this one.

The title novella, the last piece in the collection, is one of the most singularly frightening pieces of writing I've come across in some time. Three brothers - lifelong poachers who keep to themselves, nervously tolerated by those who live around them - are pursued by a rabid veteran game warden, a man about whom many stories have been told over the years. It's said that he was a poacher himself when he was a young man, and that he turned to law enforcement, from breaking the law, because he found it to be a greater challenge. The damp, dark, kudzu-encased woodland in which this novella takes place is something I've never experienced - but it was right there around me as I read this chilling tale.

This is not a collection for the squeamish - but, contrary to another reviewer's opinion, I think it's too easy to write it off as a book of stories `about stupid people'. There's a lot more going on here than that statement would indicate - and I'm glad it was recommended to me.