Rating: 
Summary: Dark Places
Review: This is one of those books that I have to re-read every couple of years or so. And every time, I am pleased to find that it's as good as I remember. The first time I read "Joe," I had just discovered "Big Bad Love" and I could not wait to read more Larry Brown. But whereas the previous collection of stories had humor and pathos and sad comedy in heaping portions, this is a book about dark places. The first book written after Brown had achieved his much-sought-after degree of success did not seem to find him in a pleasant mood. Relocate James Ellroy in the South and lengthen his machinegun sentences into paragraphs. Contemporize Cormac McCarthy. That's kind of what this book is like. The Joe of the title is a man of questionable morals and steeped in prejudices that seem like self-fulfilling prophecies. He posions trees for a lumber company for a living, and then when the seasons change he plants new ones. He has more money and can kick more (...) than anybody around him and those factors make him despise almost everyone, including himself. Following him as he tries to create some good in the world is heart-wrenching and by no means sentimental. I hope they never adapt this novel into a film. The prose and characterizations are so rich that they produce a movie in your head that is crystal clear and downright flawless.
Rating:
Summary: Dark Places
Review: This is one of those books that I have to re-read every couple of years or so. And every time, I am pleased to find that it's as good as I remember. The first time I read "Joe," I had just discovered "Big Bad Love" and I could not wait to read more Larry Brown. But whereas the previous collection of stories had humor and pathos and sad comedy in heaping portions, this is a book about dark places. The first book written after Brown had achieved his much-sought-after degree of success did not seem to find him in a pleasant mood. Relocate James Ellroy in the South and lengthen his machinegun sentences into paragraphs. Contemporize Cormac McCarthy. That's kind of what this book is like. The Joe of the title is a man of questionable morals and steeped in prejudices that seem like self-fulfilling prophecies. He posions trees for a lumber company for a living, and then when the seasons change he plants new ones. He has more money and can kick more (...) than anybody around him and those factors make him despise almost everyone, including himself. Following him as he tries to create some good in the world is heart-wrenching and by no means sentimental. I hope they never adapt this novel into a film. The prose and characterizations are so rich that they produce a movie in your head that is crystal clear and downright flawless.
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