Tom Franklin
Hardcover | Pages: 274 pages Rating: 3.83 | 37735 Users | 4753 Reviews
Itemize Out Of Books Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
| Title | : | Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter |
| Author | : | Tom Franklin |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 274 pages |
| Published | : | October 5th 2010 by William Morrow (first published October 5th 2009) |
| Categories | : | Mystery. Fiction. Crime. American. Southern. Thriller. Mystery Thriller |
Ilustration Toward Books Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Tom Franklin's extraordinary talent has been hailed by the leading lights of contemporary literature—Philip Roth, Richard Ford, Lee Smith, and Dennis Lebanese. Reviewers have called his fiction “ingenious” (USA Today) and “compulsively readable” (Memphis Commercial Appeal). His narrative power and flair for characterization have been compared to the likes of Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy.Now the Edgar Award-winning author returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town.
More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.
Present Books As Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
| Original Title: | Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter |
| ISBN: | 0060594667 (ISBN13: 9780060594664) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Mississippi(United States) |
| Literary Awards: | Barry Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011), Anthony Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011), Hammett Prize Nominee (2010), Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award (RT Award) for Best Contemporary Mystery (2010), Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller (2010) Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011), Willie Morris Award (2010), CWA Gold Dagger Award (2011), Alabama Author Award for Fiction (2011) |
Rating Out Of Books Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Ratings: 3.83 From 37735 Users | 4753 ReviewsComment On Out Of Books Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
This was an interesting read, more for its social commentary than its mystery which was actually only there because it explained what had happened to poor Larry Ott. I spent a lot of time at the beginning mentally adjusting to the fact that Larry was white and Silas black. All my instincts from reading books about the deep south wanted them to be the other way round.There are a lot of very unpleasant people in this book and I was never quite sure whether I actually liked Silas at all. All ofCrooked Letter, Crooked Letter is the first Tom Franklin book I have read and he is certainly a fine writer. Set in rural Mississippi in the late 1970's, this is a story of a friendship between loner, Larry Ott, and former high school sports star and local constable, Silas Jones or "32". Back in high school, Larry, on his first date, takes a hot local girl to the drive-in and she never returns home. Although not charged with murder, Larry is ostracized by his community for the rest of his life.
This is a very well done atmospheric novel set in rural Mississippi. The story is told in scenes that alternate between the 1970s and the present day. At the heart of the story are two men, one white, the other black, who for a brief period of time as boys were secretly close friends in a time and place where their friendship, if public, would have only brought them trouble.The white man is Larry Ott, the only child of a lower class family. His father was a mechanic who seemed to have little
Guh! This book ... (flails helplessly) ... it is a gut puncher, heart-wrencher. Franklin is a poet, his prose sings, his characters walk off the page, and he puts the reader into a time and place that absolutely resonates with a vibrancy and brutal honesty all its own. I was so sad -- so emotionally invested -- that I found the reading painful to bear at times. Franklin's descriptions of human isolation and loneliness are so raw and uncompromising I forced myself to take breathers between
Crooked Letter, the crooked lives we live. Those crooked thoughts that alter trajectories, oh if only someonea friend, a parent, a community, a towncould reach out and position a person's marred ways of thinking. Oftentimes, it doesn't happen this way, not if one lives in a crooked town. Imagine a life in ruins, simply because a person has been misunderstood. Imagine having a friend you could never publicly claim, a girlfriend you would always keep hidden, because of a small town's
Worst first date ever. Poor Larry Ott, the bookish kid, the weak one, a smallish white boy, the bully-target at school, takes out the girl of his dreams, returns home alone, and gets blamed for her presumed rape and murder. Decades later, ostracized by the town, living alone in the same house he grew up in, tending his late, abusive fathers garage, another girl goes missing and all fingers point his way. Did he or didnt he? Tom Franklin - image from The American Academy in BerlinBut Crooked
Oh, small-town, rural America, why must you scare me so? Why must this book, written about you, kill something inside me with every page? Why does it, and you by proxy, need to crush me with loneliness and sadness and desperation? This is a profoundly sad book about sadness in life, which is sad. And I'm not even being a brat here when I say that. There's nothing about this story that's even remotely optimistic, even the quasi-hopeful ending is very sad, if you think about it.And why wouldn't
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