Smonk: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: tom franklin, ray bees, speckled man, Old Texas, Red Man, Deputy Ambrose (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

E.O. Smonk is an ugly, unwashed, murdering rapist who has terrorized the small town of Old Texas, Ala., for years. In 1911, the town summons Smonk to stand trial, and a nonstop blood-orgy of brutality and destruction is the result in Franklin's gloriously debauched second novel (following Hell at the Breech). After Smonk's goons assault the Old Texas courthouse and kill the town's menfolk, reformed former Smonk associate turned lawman Will McKissick pursues Smonk. Meanwhile, a posse of Christian deputies chase teenage whore Evavangeline through the Gulf Coast, but the girl is a skilled killer, too, and the trail of her victims spans the region. McKissick follows Smonk's trail out of and back into Old Texas, while Evavangeline drifts into the town, where all the children are dead except McKissick's 12-year-old son and the widows lay out their dead husbands on their dining tables. The town's sordid past, about to be exposed, involves a rabies-ravaged one-armed preacher, a rabid dog named Lazarus the Redeemer, incest and a church full of dead boys dressed in Sunday best. Fast-paced and unrelentingly violent, Franklin's western isn't for everyone, but readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong. (On sale Aug. 22)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"[Smonk] mixes William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, and Deadwood's David Milch, Franklin pulls off a unique Western saga." (Entertainment Weekly )

"A David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino codirection of Deadwood . . . a world where not one person knows an iota of goodness." (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review )

"fast-paced and unrelentingly violent...readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong." (Publishers Weekly )

"Franklin's talent for the completely offbeat and outrageous illuminates a world that is at once vibrantly alive and completely human." (Times-Picayune (New Orleans) )

"I am amazed at Tom Franklin's power" (Philip Roth )

"Part western, part Southern gothic, yet wholly original, this is a beef jerky of a story [.] full of flavor" (Tampa Tribune )

"Maintaining the dark tone of his excellent first novel, Franklin goes for the gothic in [this] weirdly fascinating tale" (Kirkus Reviews )

"An edgy, quirky, bawdy look at the days of cowboys and shootouts, Smonk is the real deal." (David Milch, Creator of Deadwood )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061142778
• ISBN-13: 978-0061142772
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #825,173 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Distinctive and Dark, December 17, 2006

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Smonk: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'd never come across Franklin before, but this Southern Gothic retelling of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is so distinctive that I'm curious to see what the rest of his writing is like. Although ostensibly set in 1911 somewhere in southern Alabama, it has a very hazy quality to it that suggests it could be anywhere in the deep south or southwest, any time between 1870-1900. The story proceeds along two tracks: one follows a terrifying man called Smonk, and the other follows a 15 year old prostitute named Evavangeline.

We meet Smonk at a trial convened by the men of Old Texas, where he is accused of murder after his yearlong terrorizing of their town. Unfortunately for them, the dirty, limping, deformed, consumptive, syphilitic, hellraiser smells a setup, and the scene quite literally explodes in an orgy of bloodletting which manage to evoke both the brutality and realism of Peckinpah and the bizarre cartoonishness of Tarantino all at the same time. Smonk makes his escape and begins a long game of cat-and-mouse with the town's only two male survivors. Meanwhile, we meet Evavangeline as she flees in flagrante from a strange roving vigilante group who is chasing her for being a sodomite (her young form was apparently mistaken for that of a boy's). Her journey takes her through the drought-ridden Gulf Coast and toward Old Texas. Along the way, she proves just as deadly as Smonk, leaving a trail of gruesomely dispatched corpses behind her.

As we learn about both characters' pasts, we also learn about their pursuers. William McKissick is Smonk's former partner, now turned semi-honest lawman. Under the belief Smonk killed his boy, McKissick conducts his hunt with blood oozing out of an untended belly wound and Smonk's glass eye between his cheek and gum. Evavangeline is chased by a posse of "Christian Deputies" led by a northern fop with no control whatsoever over his band of rascals. The action takes place across a surreal barren landscape of dead sugarcane and rabies-infected dogs and rats. Ultimately, everything leads back to Old Texas, a town which mysteriously has no children. As with many a horror movie, the town's long-held horrifying secret is finally revealed as the karmic justification for all the killings, eviscerations, rapes, and ultraviolence over the preceding pages.

This is an impossible book to pigeonhole. Franklin's Old Testament update is incredibly dark, gruesome, and violent (a note of warning, incest crops up more than once). And at the same time, it's so over-the-top that it can be awfully funny at times. Franklin's crafted a richly distinctive dialect and cadence for his characters' dialogue that helps in creating a unique sense of place. The one downside is that it's not set off like normal dialogue, which can make it a little hard to follow at times. I've definitely not read another book like this all year, but one like this is probably all I can handle. Highly recommended, but only for those with strong stomachs.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Over The Top, October 31, 2006

By	J. Robinson "aficionado of well-turned phrase... (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Smonk: A Novel (Hardcover)

A quick and enjoyable read, "Smonk" is vintage Tom Franklin -- unsavory characters, hilarious dialogue, sudden violence, & moral ambiguity. This is his homage to Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," complete with adolescent protagonist, gory & senseless slaughter, descriptive chapter subheadings, and even the use of McCarthy's made-up word 'swapt' (as in "the knife swapt off his head..."). I had a grand ol' time reading this and I suspect others will, too; it will provide you a rollicking good time if you can stomach the violent imagery and lack of any redeeming character (I suppose Smonk's elderly sidekick/father figure Ike comes closest to being "good," and he ain't even that close!). Though it intends to find a niche as a 'southern,' Franklin's novel, for all intents and purposes, is a 'western.' It has definite connections with Grand Guignol and Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch," but I think the term "over the top" is the best description I can give this book. Everything is exagerrated: the bloodshed, the physical deformities & diseases of various characters, their secrets, the extreme settings replete with epidemics of drought, rabies, etc. For me personally, I still think Franklin's book of short stories, "Poachers," is his greatest achievement to date, but "Smonk" gave me a couple of solid gut-laughs, lots of head-shaking at the absurd situations he imagines, several breath-taking instances of incredible dialogue and characterization, and moments of genuine awe at some of his dead-on descriptive details. A very gifted writer spinning an enthralling & entertaining yarn. Thanks, Tom!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something about this book...., June 15, 2007

By	Jason Frost "RubiconReader" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Smonk: A Novel (Hardcover)

grabbed me when I was shelving in the fiction section of the bookstore where I work. Read the jacket and just knew I had to have it. This was a VERY violent, gritty, and deviant book!! It was a little hard to read because it's pretty much all prose with no quotations at all and that made it a little tough to follow.

I kept reading it because it's such a good book and that is my only "fault". E.O. Smonk was just... well... wrong!!! Everything about him said devil's child and his story will send chills up and down your spine. The violence is over the top, the sex is illegal and rough, and the lives of these characters are... insane!