Arkansas

by John Brandon

“A tale of three young men who’ve taken one look at straight life and drop-kicked it . . . Picaresque, sly, bitterly funny, the novel hooks us at once.” —San Francisco Chronicle   Met with wide acclaim, Arkansas is a darkly comic debut novel written by John Brandon about a pair of drug runners, Kyle and Swin, set in the rural southeast. Drawing comparisons to a striking range of storytellers, from Quentin Tarantino and Mark Twain to Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, John Brandon—an MFA graduate of Washington University who worked an array of odd jobs while writing the novel, including at a rubber factory and a windshield warehouse—delivers a tightly written, bitterly funny story that chronicles the monochromatic landscape of the American southeast and gives a glimpse into the mindset of his wildly troubled yet seemingly real characters.   “Brandon’s premier novel is a must for those who love the criminal and the stern, yet dark optimism of the existential. His vision of Arkansas is unique, his wit is sharp, and the sympathy he has for his characters is genuine. For all the dark alleys Brandon explores, both physically and psychologically, Arkansas’s power rests in its redefining and restructuring of the criminal’s only family.” —PopMatters

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Contemporary, Novels, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Southern

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Although John Brandon is an MFA graduate of the writing program at Washington University in St. Louis, while drafting the novel Arkansas, he "worked at a lumber mill, a windshield warehouse, a Coca-Cola distributor, and several small factories producing goods made of rubber and plastic." In his spare time, he obsesses over Florida Gators football.

Reviews

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, too traditional, out-of-touch, or all three, but I like to have at least one character in a novel that I can pull for -- or at least feel some sympathy for. There were none in this one. I would have liked to have given it two-and-a-half stars.

To me the characters are reminiscent of those in the spaghetti Westerns that I disliked for the same reasons. I remember watching "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," unable to identify "the Good". A more descriptive title for that film would have been "The Bad, the Bad, and the Ugly."

John Brandon is no Daniel Woodrell or Larry Brown, though it is obvious he would like to be. Maybe later, but not yet.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is perfection. If Cormac McCarthy were as funny as Elmore Leonard and they wrote about aimless twentysomethings vaguely attempting to commit a crime but mostly just talking about nothing in particular, it would read something like this. God damn, John Brandon, you are a discovery for the centuries.

[WJEP · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story alternates between a couple of oddball drug mules and their screwy boss. The latter part is written in second person. The headquarters of this crime organization is in an Arkansas State Park. This all might sound asinine, but Brandon makes it click.

This makes my very short list of novels I liked that were written by someone younger than me (the top of the list is still With the Animals).

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

I somewhat preemptively joked that this book spoke in the Universal McSweeney's Voice, as used by a lot of young authors seemingly seeking to avoid overly rich or impassioned style. But Arkansas actually seems like the proper use such for pared-down, precise, affectless prose. The protagonists are smart but dissolute, too directionless to be disillusioned, people with nothing to lose and nothing to lose it on. The crisp prose both seems accurate to their experiences as small-time criminals, and flattens out a few horrifying events into the matter-of-fact simplicity of day to day life. Which also suits the prevailing absence of moral compass throughout. All the major characters have life histories that reveal them to be ordinary people, lead astray only by random chance and poor alternatives, not really lead astray at all but drifting into arbitrary callings like most anyone else. But no one is for ending up where they do, no one is forgiven. The novel neither solicits nor elicits any sympathy, falling away into a sort nihilism that lacks even the force of pessimism.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Count me as a newly minted fan of John Brandon. There are the books you read, and then the books you read, and then the books that take up residence, that shoulder in with their noise and their luggage and eat and breathe and sleep under your roof. I read Arkansas in the grass, in the sand by the water, by the flat, empty hotel pool, all in the glass-eyed heat of the southern summer. It bristles with the same dark energy of boredom, cosmic and comic and criminal. The languid, lazy south; the placid domesticity of a wild life of crime.

Entirely coincidentally, the New York Times Book Review just came out to give Brandon’s newest novel some seriously high praise. Meaning I now get to shamelessly crib Daniel Handler, as he finds in Citrus County what I found in Arkansas:

“John Brandon joins the ranks of [writers] whose wild flights feel more likely than a heap of what we’ve come to expect from literature, by calmly reminding us that the world is far more startling than most fiction is. He subverts the expectations of an adolescent novel by staying true to the wild incongruities of adolescence, and subverts the expectations of a crime novel by giving us people who are more than criminals and victims. The result is a great story in great prose, a story that keeps you turning pages even as you want to slow to savor them, full of characters who are real because they are so unlikely.”

All that’s left is to change my review this much: withhold that last fifth star for John Brandon’s next.

First read July 2010

- - -

June 2011:

At this rate I’m making room for this book every summer. It’s maybe not even summer until Arkansas comes shouldering in. I guess what I’m saying is, this is just my thing and I loved it even more this time than last.

[Bookbeaver · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't get it. A plotless ramble through the Arkansas drug scene. So many things didn't make sense. The timeline didn't add up. The characters were shallow and bland, not very well developed. I finished this only because 1) I'm stubborn, 2) I was hoping for it to get better, 3) It was an interlibrary loan and I didn't want to set myself a poor precedent (see reason 1). I had 'Citrus County' on my TRL, but crossed it out after finishing this disappointing read.

[Paul Crittenden · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Coen Brothers have made a nice career out of crafting stories about guys who are not nearly as smart as they think they are. Folks whose plans are not nearly as airtight as they should be. Folks who don’t have nearly the power they think they do. In his debut novel Arkansas, John Brandon creates some characters who would fit perfectly in a Coen Brothers movie. Brandon’s tight story also reminds me of the whole Southern Gothic thing (Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy) and the fine crime novel style of Elmore Leonard. He also manages to throw in a few experimental flourishes that don’t seem to bog the narrative down but rather elucidate it.

Here we have Swin and Kyle, two men who back into jobs in the drug trade in the rural South. Their improbable rise to the lower echelons of narcotics distribution finds them working for a fake Ranger in an Arkansas State Park. They drive for a man named Bright who in turn gets packages from a mysterious woman who goes by the name of “Her.” The ultimate power in the small backwoods drug ring is held by Frog, yet another foolhardy type. We learn of Frog’s rise to the top of his game (which really isn’t all that far up, to tell the truth) in some interstitial chapters written in second person.

Brandon makes all of these characters seem real and you find yourself rooting for Swin and Kyle even though you get the feeling from pretty early on that their story will not end nicely. Then the bodies start piling up and what little center there is obviously cannot hold. The sympathy is ratcheted up when Swin gets his girlfriend pregnant and the three try to make a semblance of a normal life. Brandon makes Swin an intelligent (if not too clever) wannabe family man who is more than a little self-centered. He fears that the sisters he left in Kentucky will miss him so much that they will become strippers for lack of a decent male role model. The truth is they are doing just fine without Swin. His partner Kyle is the real criminal of the two. Kyle doesn’t pretend to be smart but he thinks he knows how to live outside the law. The two bring out the best and the worst in the each other. Mostly the worst.

Brandon does a fine job detailing the land of Razorback football and shady trailer parks. With a debut as strong as this, I expect great things from John Brandon. I highly recommend Arkansas. Read it now so you can impress your friends when the Coen Brothers version wins Best Picture.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kyle, a young man and a drifter, gets involved in crime early on, stealing, petty crime, and then moves on to become a drug mule for someone called Frog. Swin, another young man aimlessly moving through life, becomes Kyle's partner and the two drive drugs around the state of Arkansas. When a deal goes wrong resulting in the death of their boss, a park ranger called Bright, they hide the body and try not to let Frog know. Swin then gets involved with a young woman called Johnna and people start wondering where Bright is. Kyle and Swin realise their time is coming to an end but can they make it out of Arkansas alive?

I came across Brandon's writing in McSweeney's 26 and was thoroughly impressed. It's an exciting and interesting tale of modern day adventure taking in rural Arkansas, disturbing and fascinating characters, all told with a strong sense of storytelling. The writing is of a very high standard with the dialogue sounding genuine. The story moves along at a cracking pace and is never boring. He even writes action well, while the mysterious Frog character's true identity is a great reveal in the end.

I highly recommend this book to all fiction loving readers out there and only lament how little known such a talented and interesting writer John Brandon is when so many poor writers are so well known (you know the ones). Here's hoping he finishes a second book soon and achieves recognition.

[Kilean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tore through this one smiling the entire time. I love it when things happen in a book. Especially when the sentences make me turn just the slightest bit green with envy (or jealousy). Great voice, great read.

[Michael Whitaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, funny, gripping and grimy.

John Brandon's prose is peppered with details, like shotgun pellets of facts, spread throughout each page. Almost every sentence is a description, it seems like. At first, to be honest, this annoyed me, but it read like a book of cold, hard facts. Facts - depressing, disturbing, disjointed, diminutive - are all there are. And the characters in the book live them out until the very end.

With main characters that I basically despised in the beginning, I truly felt for them by the end.

One of the themes that struck me in this story is our lack of control over our lives. There are too many variables. We can't change it all around, for ourselves or for others. But in no sense is this a nihilistic novel. Things still matter. Things matters deeply. There are still things worth fighting for.

For me, 'Arkansas' and 'Citrus County' by John Brandon are new summer classics.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

gonna give it another go...

With lines as humorous as 'May you dream of offered tits' as playful as 'They'd kiss her like they were in hell and she was iced tea' or as sweet and lyrical as 'Let's stay together till we die. I'll never tire of looking at you when the sun hits you through the window,' John Brandon packs this book with the kind of writing that would seemingly have a pretty wide appeal.

Even though the ending faltered, Arkansas was a thrilling, engaging read. I'm sure Brandon has read his fair share of Elmore Leonard but Arkansas is wholly his own, a great unique debut.

[Trey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up watching the movie first because I didn’t realize it was a book. The book went into more detail than the movie, but overall the cast of the movie was amazing, and the plot of the movie ended up being more concise than the book. Brandon’s writing style is a little weird but it was a good book overall.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could be a Coen Brothers movie. Dark and rich as a cup of French Roast coffee, transported to Little Rock Arkansas. Shifting narrative perspectives keep the reader on his toes. Not a five star, however, because the characters feel either thin or forced.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Legalization of cannabis has become something of a pet issue for me, and not just because I live in Colorado and enjoy the occasional smoke. The reason I get more and more interested in legalization is because its implications are so unexpectedly broad. Pharmaceutical companies, the alcohol and tobacco industries, and the federal government all have something to fear from it, but also something to gain if they play their cards right. It's causing a renewed states'-rights debate. And if you consider the potential revenue that could be gained from a heavy tax on it, it affects other areas, too, like education and public transportation and any number of other perennially underfunded things. That's just from the psychoactive, though; legalization would allow industrial production of hemp, which has all sorts of mostly-good implications. And let's not start on how such a thing would impact traffic stops and DUI (CO/WY and CO/UT border patrols, e.g.).

What stops it from being legalized? Mostly the aforementioned parties who have something to fear from it, plus voter blocs like, uh, probably older Christians, plus the fact that 50% in favor may be a majority but it's not a majority that could induce government higher-ups to stick their necks out. But any discussion of marijuana and the drug war tends to eventually lead one to the conclusion that the main reason it's illegal is for the creation of a permanent underclass of nonviolent criminals who can only get the very worst jobs, and who are thus denied the social mobility that supposedly exists here. And if you're actually smoking while having the discussion, it'll take you further and probably convince you that all of law and law enforcement revolves around creating a few key criminal acts that are extremely appealing and largely harmless and victimless, for which enforcement officers can use their discretion as far as arresting or not arresting. Example: possession of marijuana. Appealing, since many people smoke and can usually do so without getting caught. And since you can't overdose on weed, or even really become a junkie, even if you sell it to tons of people, it's probably not going to harm your community much, so you can have a clean(ish) conscience even if you deal. But let's say you get caught driving with weed in the car. If you're a rich white kid from the suburbs, maybe you go to jail, but it's just as likely that the cop will just take your stash and your piece and let you go with a ticket. And the ounce you have next to the spare tire is probably fine. But if you're a black kid and you're in the ghetto, you're getting searched and most definitely going to jail. It allows police officers to apply a double standard according to whether they like the look of you or not. Speeding is another good example. Since we're conditioned by being able to get away with going five or ten over the limit anywhere, police have carte blanche to pull over any car they want to, for any reason, provided it isn't one of the odd ones that goes at or under the limit. The goal is, it seems, to create a world in which you are either a law-abiding citizen or you are a criminal. And a law-abiding citizen can become a criminal, but not vice versa.

If there's any one major merit that Arkansas has, any one Big Idea that it's trying to get across, it's demonstrating just how false that dichotomy is. All its characters are criminals under the definition laid out above, but they represent a whole spectrum of criminality. You have Swin, a good-natured autodidact whose main attraction to smuggling is its ease and thrill; Kyle, who's similar but more serious and with a cruel streak; Bright,
a kind, innocuous-seeming park ranger who nonetheless keeps bones in his attic; and Frog, the consummate businessman, who's willing to use violence but not without exhausting all other possibilities first. All these guys are, to my mind, in that grey area between criminal and citizen, and in fact the one (not one of the four above) who starts as a criminal but goes furthest towards law-abiding-ness is the one who dies in the most gruesome way. Brandon's characters also live in the world to which criminals are relegated: a world of trailers, pawnshops, beat-up trucks, and general crushing poverty. A world that smells like "tarnished silver and bad fruit." The characters in this book are there to demonstrate what ends up being a simple point: "criminals" are just normal people, trying to work and live normal lives, under a bizarre set of extra constraints: less money, less food, more drugs, more violence, high stakes, inscrutable law enforcement. A representative quote: "You wish you could have [X]'s body cremated and go to the top of the Barnett Building and let his ashes blow all over Little Rock. You wish you didn't have to drag him through your house and down your steps and across your yard and bury him in the woods."

I won't try to sell Arkansas on just that point, because Brandon's actually a pretty good writer, and not really an "ideas" writer like I may have just portrayed him. What the book primarily is is a standard someone-gets-murdered-and-one-thing-leads-to-another thriller, which works to whatever extent you care about the characters. There are a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous. If I'd read more of this type of thing, maybe I wouldn't like it as much, but I haven't.

Luckily, Brandon's a good writer. To those who say his writing has a pervasive "McSweeney's" tone, I respectfully submit that you are reading too much McSweeney's and are hypersensitive to it. He's not florid or overly descriptive, but also not overly hardboiled. Maybe some examples will show it better:

"'I read a book. Did I tell you?
'You might have.'
'It was about farmers. Four hundred thirty-six pages long. You start on page thirteen, though. They count the table of contents and the part where other writers say, "This man, by damn, is a writer. If he was here, I'd give him a nut scrub."'"*

"The seat would not recline at all; it forced Kyle into the posture of a responsible citizen who trimmed his azaleas and bought cleats for needy punks."

"Your neighbor in the next condo is your best customer. His day job is carving cedar elves. A big company bought him out of his copyright, but they still sell a select line of elves hand-carved by the inventor. This man hates sleep. He hates to let time pass while he's not watching, and does not want to say, one day, that his life was short. He measures time in elves."

Sure, it may get a little self-consciously stylish especially in the second-person parts, but it's solid. Certainly nothing to drive anyone away.

Recommended. But here's where the book fails for me, and the spoilers are major so don't read on unless you've already read it or aren't ever going to: The whole plot plays out as it does, with all the casualties, because of the fact that Frog never contacts Swin and Kyle. But once you realize he's been there watching them the whole time, the motivations and rationales fall apart. Frog knew Bright disappeared and knew the boys were involved, and knew that they probably had his money, and yet he never talks to them or sends Tim and Thomas to do so. He just lets the deaths pile up until they ruin his own life. Why would he do such a thing? The book tries to smooth it over: "Whether they are accomplishing these things according to a plan, or whether they're lost in a maze of their own fuckups, you cannot say. And it doesn't matter. What could you think but the worst when they kept trying to contact Colin? They don't contact higher-ups. Everyone knows that." What? Frog is supposed to be a consummate businessman, as I noted above, so why is he unwilling to contact Swin and Kyle to see what's going on? He's not afraid of them, and contacting your boss when a work task goes wrong is a pretty normal thing to want to do. How does Frog not see this? If he were as reasonable as he's portrayed in other parts of the book, we wouldn't have a story because Frog would have just swooped in, grabbed his money back, and promoted the kids to Bright's place. Problem solved.

*This is probably the widest block of quote marks I've had to use since writing my thesis.

[Robert OKeefe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging but uneven read, especially given the short length of the book. It should be a whirlwind, but bogs down while the crime boss figures out how to handle two wayward employees. The boss is Froggy, a sometimes pawnshop owner who runs a regional drug business a bit like an absentee landlord. The employees are Swin and Kyle, both young, petty criminals recently recruited as drug runners for Park Ranger Bright, who in turn is another cog in Froggy's network. Kyle is almost sociopathically detached, while Swin is smart, engaging and eager. They're strangers until put together on the job, but they slowly form a brotherly relationship. Inevitably they make a careless mistake leaving them stranded without guidance and setting off a violent chain of events that makes up the bulk of the plot.

The book is full of nicely drawn characters with interesting back stories, but not much happens outside of paranoia, miscommunication and startling violence. The nonchalant way the tale is told makes one question if all this drug business and body-burying is really going on while most of us go about our "legit" business.

[Katherine Coble · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can’t decide if it wants to be Elmore Leonard or James Ellroy, so it’s too wordy for Elmore Leonard and lacks any of Leonard’s knack for making odd characters sympathetic. But it does have Leonard’s bleak humor and Ellroy’s sharp turns of phrase. Not fantastic. Not terrible.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this first novel by John Brandon through an issue of McSweeney's (the number escapes me at the moment) and was completely taken by the story. Swin and Kyle, two average American kids having been recruited as drivers for a mysterious drug dealer named Frog, go on their first drive together. Neither of them have ever had a partner. Despite a brief run-in with the law, the trip goes off swimmingly and the two become partners, eventually friends. They are assigned, as it were, to work for an odd-ball park ranger named Bright in a national park in Arkansas where they begin to lead a life of seeming normalcy, taking on assumed names as junior park rangers, cleaning the park, manning the ticket booth at the entrance. The story is compelling both for the tone it takes (two American kids grown up in the heartland) and for the sudden and almost inhumane violence. It's a classic crime thriller, as a drug deal goes bad and Swin and Kyle are left alone to figure out how to extricate themselves from a situation horribly out of their control.

For all that, I found the book disappointing. Despite the rather lengthy development of both Kyle and Swin, their characters are so similar that at times I had a hard time telling them apart. Swin is the smart one, Kyle the muscle. That's about all you need to know. Johnna, the nurse Swin falls for, has a dark streak and, like the boys, has a somewhat checkered past. She takes up with them seemingly out of boredom. When Swin proposes marriage, she is non-plussed. "We're still in the infatuation stage," she tells him. "We should wait until we're not attracted to each other to make a decision about marriage." It's a wonderful moment in the novel, when two characters who care deeply for each other, despite all the bad they are involved in, have an honest discussion about their future. Unfortunately, it comes too late in the story to make me care enough about her.

The middle of the book drags. I found myself able to read only a few pages at a time, wanting to skim over the personal stories of the two men who were virtually interchangeable in my mind. They clean the park. They make a home. They take in a stray dog. They clean the park some more. They try to find out what's going on in the rest of the organization. They clean the park again. There's an element of loss mixed in here, three people in the middle of a state none of them want to call home, desperately trying to make one. Trying to salvage the remnants of the lives they have left behind. It's a compelling arc to the characters, but it's not enough.

Mixed with this is the backstory of another character. Here, Brandon switches point-of-view, catching the reader off guard. "After graduation, you, Ken Hovan, stock groceries and build prefabricated sheds in the yards of rich guys out in Germantown." It doesn't take long to figure out who 'you' are in this novel, but I won't give that away here. The use of the second person seems more of a device to keep the reader interested than an organic product of the story itself. As though Brandon were saying, "Aha, I got you. You thought you knew how this story was going to unfold and now I'm going to play tricks with the narrator and you'll never figure it out." Rather than feel more interested in the plot, I felt further distanced from the story by the change in point-of-view. I found myself wanting more of Swin and Kyle. Ken Hovan's tale only serves to make the story feel like thirty kilos of cocaine you cannot drop while you try desperately to run from the police.

Brandon's writing is strong. The action sequences are first rate. My heart raced as I read the fight between Bright and the strange nephew. And the final confrontation left me breathless as I flipped each page to see what would happen next. However, there are too few of these scenes. As Swin and Kyle wait for something to happen, for someone to come for them, I found myself waiting, too, for something to happen, anything to happen. I had to wait too long and that made the book feel slow, like a car sinking into a muddy bog. At first it splashes, then it sits there, doing nothing for a long time, sinking so slowly it looks like it's not doing anything at all. Finally, suddenly, the mud breaks open and belches a last plop of air as the car vanishes beneath the surface.

If you like crime novels (I'm a huge fan of Jim Thompson and Elmore Leonard), this is a good read. Not a great read, but a fine first novel.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unpredictably, what I ultimately liked best about Arkansas was its plotting. Early on I couldn't generate much empathy for protagonists Swin and Kyle, so that they seemed to blur together in their motives even as the author took pains to distinguish them. The introduction of the character addressed as "you, Ken Hovan" only made matters worse. Things improved, on the contrary, with the introduction of Johnna. Soon I was drawn in by the turns the lives of these characters took and found convincing the arbitrariness of the events that put them in a new, worse, situation. As Brandon built up the backstories of those arrayed against them, I looked forward to the inevitable face-off between the parties. That I found the final section of the novel less enjoyable than I had hoped was I think primarily due to the increasing role played by a character whose mode of presentation I found so unsatisfactory: the use of the second-person in these chapters, while modestly motivated by the fact that "your" identity is a secret to the protagonists as well, would seem to be an otherwise pointless distraction from the story. (A concluding switch to the first-person for this character does nothing to salvage the experiment.) Finally, the book's prose--generally clipped short but occasionally sending up breathless periods with multiple subordinate clauses--is adequate but never seems to find quite the right register. Swin's bookworm-redneck conflicts color the entire book, and so at times dark humor shades into cynical callousness, or tenderness into sentimentality. I came to care about these characters--every one of them but, significantly, "you"--and occasionally wanted to get them out of this novel into the hands of a narrator with more control over his prose, or perhaps into those of a director, because Arkansas would make a great film.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Finished with a tight flourish, yet meandered throughout. Some comical and memorable scenes but lacks the clean focus of his newer releases. Think, "Charles Portis meets Coen Brothers."

Notable quotes:

"Kyle smelled the grease and the dust. A clock ticked behind him. He had attempted working in the straight world and doubted he'd ever attempt it again. He couldn't believe people crammed their lives into belittling routines just for steady money. What was the big deal about getting money steadily? Was that so enticing, getting a tiny check made tinier by taxes every two weeks for the rest of your life, continually voicing the same stale complaints that working stiffs have been voicing for centuries, that the people in Kyle's apartment complex voiced each evening? Alarm clocks, layoffs, cigarette breaks, backaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, company parties, and always the steady little checks."

"She was a great lady," said Kyle. "Great lady." He ate a chip.
"When people act sappy after someone's dead, that means they feel guility."
"What do I feel guilty about?"
"How would I know?"
"I was always good to her."
"Not guilty about how they treated the person; guilty to have life and not know what to do with it."


"Your neighbor in the next condo is your best customer. His day job is carving cedar elves. A big company bought him out of his copyright, but they still sell a select line of elves hand-carved by the inventor. This man hates sleep. He hates to let time pass while he's not watching, and does not want to say, one day, that his life was short. He measures time in elves."”

[Patrick Faller · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his first novel, John Brandon mashes up elements of drug-crime fiction and the Gen-Y slacker novel in this sharply written book about two drifters named Kyle and Swin, a troubled young woman named Johnna, and a hapless, ruthless drug dealer who goes by the monicker Frog. Set in an Arkansas nailed to the page in terse, polished sentences, Brandon describes the arc of non-events that bring Kyle and Swin together as bored drug runners and the double murder that forces them into a bizarre, poignant domestic routine, struggling to keep up a good act in the hopes that the higher-ups won't kill them. The result is a pitch perfect drama that makes a few bold statements about the nature of work and the place of family in today's hyperreal commercial world. I haven't ever returned to a novel so quickly as I returned to this: for the strength of the language and the control Brandon exerts on a narrative unfolded through frequent point-of-view shifts and wound around a number of seemingly disparate thematic elements. Some of the inventiveness comes off as gimmickry (since this is a McSweeney's Rectangular, such tricks should come as no suprise to those familiar with the press's reputation for quirk), but Brandon avoids the pitfalls one risks when mish-mashing genres by never swerving from the characters.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of 3 aimless young men and the bizarre, darkly-comic paths each takes to becoming a career criminal, Arkansas will satisfy that craving you didn't even know you had for a book that reads like a Tarantino/Elmore Leonard/Samuel Beckett joint production. John Brandon serves up a masterly blend of intersecting stories, sparkling dialogue and--maybe best of all--his detailed and constantly-expanding character histories which lull us into a false sense of security even while we know that inevitable explosions of violence loom close at hand.

Bonus feature to this review: This conversation between 2 of the main characters--Swin and Kyle--is just a brief example of Brandon's excellent dialogue:

“I’ve never wanted a tattoo,” [Kyle:] said. “I’ve never seen one that didn’t look stupid.”
“You’re not a sexy dude. If you’re already sexy, a tattoo can enhance it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those witty people.”
“I’ve been told that I am.”
“You remind me of a game-show host.”
“That’s another way to say I’m brimming with charisma.”
“No,” Kyle said. “It’s not.”

[Tahazen · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like a 2.5 stars

I wanted to like this book more than I did but unfortunately that wasn't the case.

The main problem is I didn't like the characters. And it's difficult to flip through the pages of a book when you aren't interested in the characters. The protagonists are amoral and misogynistic criminals and even though there is an attempt to humanize them (past familial issues dictate their current criminal status) it's ultimately unconvincing. Overall these characters don't deserve the reader's interest or empathy.

As for the plot -- it's dull. Only the final pages garner any page-turning interest, but that was less out of actually interest and more so out of wanting the book to be over.

Lastly, the author employed a writing style I must be unfamiliar with, but I did not enjoy it. It seemed like every sentence was a simple sentence -- and it came across as choppy and unsophisticated. This is coupled with the fact that the descriptive details of the narrative were underdeveloped. I never truly visualized the world of this novel.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this book.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a wonderful kind of irony in reading about characters that believe they are far more clever than they are, and feeling clever for having taken note of it. All through Arkansas, I would catch myself doing this, and it would make me feel ridiculous.

That said, I thought Arkansas was an outstanding book. It manages to strike the perfect balance of intellectual writing and readability. Everything seemed pared down to the exact point where all superfluous words were shed, leaving only the exact amount of description necessary to paint a picture of exactly what the author wanted you to see.

If I haven't made it clear, I loved Arkansas. It might even be my favorite book so far this year. And taking into account how much I liked Citrus County, I may have actually found a new favorite author. I hope John Brandon writes fast, because I am really looking forward to whatever he writes next.

[Downward · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book so tightly structured that it appears to be loosely structured, Arkansas is a crime story where the crime is secondary to the empty spaces around the crime. long stretches of stasis and the growth of family and character fill every corner of this book until they're punched through with crazy pieces of violence, a reminder of cause and effect that our drifting characters (along with us) seem to forget. John Brandon has perspective and voice that rises up in dialogue, where it gives idiosyncrasies to each thought and shades the world with characters who strive to be more interesting than their surroundings. plot-wise, we've got two guys getting involved in the drug trade before things go wrong and a parallel narrative of the guy running that drug trade and how he came to be: the past and future are littered with collateral damage and broken lives, but nobody sees it because they're outside their own perspective.

[Jaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely 3 stars. The writing was good, and there was enough action to keep my interest, the problem was an almost total lack of likeable -- or even just sympathetic -- characters. They were quirky, with strange hobbies and personal histories, but in the end I only really liked one character. It was an interesting concept to use second-person perspective, with who "you" were being a mystery for a good portion of the novel. The late-breaking change of that storyline from "you" to "I" was jarring though. I felt like the author was trying to win a bet -- like someone dared him to use first, second and third person narrative styles all in the same book. I would only recommend this to people who like both Coen brothers films and Bret Easton Ellis novels.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irreverent criminals wandering around the mid-South about sums this story up. The criminals are more happenstance than ambitious about their line of work. Like Brandon's other book, Citrus County, the characters tend to be attractive in their awkward weirdness. That weirdness sometimes gets dangerous and a whole of uncomfortable but that gives you something to sink your teeth into. This book wanders some and if a solid plot is something you find necessary this book may not be the one for you. I enjoyed basking in the background stories of the criminals and the hilarious incidents that seem never to quit.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess this is crime fiction, but crime fiction just exploded into something else. This story of young partners in crime (drug mule-ing) and their girl sidekick reminds me of Don Winslow's Savages, but better. I found the plotting lacking a bit, which is why 4 stars instead of 5, but I loved it. Reviewers compare Brandon to Elmore Leonard, who I have to read, and Cormac McCarthy, who I hate, but the most interesting and perhaps apt comparison is to the Coen brothers. Their movies are about people who inadvertently cause a world of trouble by being stupid about their own business. That doesn't exactly describe this story, but it has the same feeling. The characters are unforgettable.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arkansas tells the story of a passel of small-time drug dealers, runners and hangers-on each with their own unique personality having fallen rather passively into the life through a series of character quirks and events. Each of them tells themselves their own story to justify their direction in life. Of course, as in any criminal enterprise, at some point things turn dark and dangerous again almost by accident. The tone is lightly philosophical, witty and matter-of-fact that can drag in some places but in others offers enough excitement to keep you interested in how it will all turn out for these folks.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a little confusing at first - characters just start talking with no introduction.

But this was a great book about southern drug dealers. Not that you will learn anything about dealing drugs in the south. If that is what you are looking for try "Southern Drug Dealing for Dummies." I hear it is really good.

Never knew what was coming next, but when something happened it made perfect sense. I feel like I got to know these people.

I got this from the McSweeney's book of the month club - highly recommended.

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a strange trip careening through the lives of cornpone country drug kingpins and their affected underlings. What made this strange is the use of the kinds of characters you see in small towns, the go-getter, the guy with the odd hobby, the quiet tough, the guy who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else and who must listen to opera/NPR. Lots of trailer parks and thrift stores, gas stations and old cars. There’s action, and plot, but it hangs very loosely together. Entertaining, but not entirely enjoyable.