Roots Down to Hell

by Matthew Louis

When a rural misfit from a harsh, blue-collar world marries an idealistic college girl, the chances for domestic bliss are close to nil. Because marriage isn’t what it used to be, and neither is higher education. But nobody explained any of this to Kevin Chapman, and now it’s too late. His reality just crashed down around him, and when the dust settles, he’s in the aftermath of the unthinkable. Kevin’s life is now a nightmare that he can’t wake up from. As his bleak past weighs on him, and his unthinkable acts multiply, his only hope is to embrace the darkness—and risk being lost in it forever.

206 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2023

About the author

Author of The Wrong Man and Roots Down to Hell (2023).

Reviews

[Melisende · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this under the title of "Noir Bastard" - my review can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Enjoy!

[Patrick Atwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dull moments are completely absent from Roots Down to Hell, a gut-punching pulp drama that knows what it wants to say, and who it's talking to. An obvious aficionado of noir, Matt Louis oozes his love of the genre onto every page. The first thing pulp needs is pacing, and Louis makes his control over the momentum of the story appear effortless. He knows precisely where he wants to go, and how much force or finesse he needs to get there. Nor is he sheepish about wielding the double-edged sword of cultural critique -- this novel's scathing caricaturization of Woke America might scald readers who are less aware of how apt and called for it is in the current moment; but to me, it is as refreshing as a bracing dip in an icy pool.

The crime and cover-up drama that unfolds in the first act is clever and interesting, although the protagonist Kevin, aside from the virtue of being a down-trodden victim of degenerate twenty-first century culture, and the utter unvirtuousness of his victim, struggles to find my sympathy early on. The action fully captured me by the second act with a well-crafted love interest. Where the first act roars with grit and cynicism, Louis shows he is equally capable of speaking softly in a surprising and delightful tale of star-crossed lovers. This second plot provided the stakes I needed to root for Kevin, and it lends serious profundity to the main conflict. In the soft light of an understated romance, the dark underbelly of violence and deceit becomes imminently consequential. I found myself rooting for Kevin, not merely on my behalf, but on behalf of all America and Christendom. Whether one has been pulled into a black comedy or a Greek tragedy, only the end will tell.

The romance plot is Roots Down to Hell's crown jewel -- or ought to be. By the end, I couldn't help feeling Louis had missed an opportunity to really wrench my heart and hold me in suspense. The resolutions to Kevin's tangled conflicts come so suddenly, you might think you missed them. I left unable to say for sure that Kevin had earned any of the outcomes he received -- particularly that love plot which seemed to arc methodically toward a crisis of morals. While it seems clear that Kevin's trail of victims deserved no better than they got, he is never forced into confronting the question of whether he himself had any right to do as he did, or if he can fully escape the multiple ramifications of his own sin. Such questions arise from time to time during the action, but are largely brushed aside for an abrupt conclusion. From a story promising a theme of Christian redemption, this is less than fully satisfying. Perhaps it is in keeping with the noir ethos, but one might be forgiven for the expectation that this particular yarn was headed toward a more profound internal reckoning for the main characters.

Roots Down to Hell is expertly paced, an original and witty tale that kept me in suspense for the large part. There are few contemporary novels I would consider rereading, and this is one of them. At its best, it provides super-pulpy pulp with extra pulp, delivered with healthy doses of deliciously crunchy violence -- also at its best, it alternates between this and a love story I found myself yearning to live in. It seems to aspire to a higher, transcendent message concerning love, faith and redemption, and on that account it almost reaches the lofty mark it sets for itself. Ironically, without the love interest, I would have found the ending less disappointing… but nor would the novel approach the realm of fine art, which I do believe it does.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Savannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kevin is a simple man with simple tastes until he quickly spirals into darkness. At first, Kevin is extremely unlikeable. However, by the end of the novel, Matthew Louis has somehow twisted things around so that you are actually rooting for our anti-hero.

I enjoyed the tale being told from Kevin's point of view. The tale really wouldn't have worked any other way. Kevin's inner-monologues truly added layers to a man that otherwise would have simply been a character for a stereotypical redneck. Instead, we get glimpses into Kevin's relationships, his wants and desires, his fears, and his plans. Sometimes it was hard being in his head because he could be very...caricature-esque. I also enjoyed the characters of Cliff and Kastrel.

I didn't care at all for the character of Kevin's mother. She was very flat and added almost nothing to the plot other than being a self-absorbed busybody. Also the plot was a little thin in plots. I don't find the ending entirely plausible, but it was satisfying none the less.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[VT Dorchester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once you get past the first couple of pages - designed, I feel, with the purpose of chasing off a good number of readers, warning that if you're inclined to be offended you're going to be and this is not a book for you - there's a fun, darkly humorous, criminal adventure here - with our murderous anti-hero getting into more and more trouble, which he might just deserve. A fat private detective, a Christian girlfriend, a cat, and some people who might be in the drug trade, a trailer-dwelling single mom, they all have questions. Quick, pretty well paced, it's sneaky as it develops sympathy for our "hero." It goes in directions I did not expect, and it might just be poking fun at everyone, including me.

The downsides - it is a bit annoying, and frankly unbelievable, when the main character/author starts directly referencing noirs that have come before. To me this always seems amateurish. There is a lot of swearing, although that does seem consistent with the characterizations.

This is, I feel, unlikely to become a classic, but it's a fairly entertaining, politically dirty little read you can blast through in a couple of hours in a day.

I received a review copy for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.

I am tempted to give this 3.5 stars out of 5

I have reposted this review as the title of the book has changed.

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

My full review can be found here: https://thereadingwife.com/roots-down...

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kevin, the MC, tells us that ‘noir holds the bad guy sympathetic, and hard-boiled features bad guys who are really good guys’. I’m not quite sure if I was ever wholly sympathetic to the bad guy but I could certainly see how it happened and once he was in a path it was difficult to get off.

The tale was told well and in a writing style you’d expect from the Noir genre. Everything that happens to Kevin before and after the event is pretty much pre-defined for him. It’s a series of linear events that keep pushing him in only one direction.

I honestly wasn’t sure how it was going to end and many scenarios were likely. The ending was slightly disturbing, if only that it seemed to me a threat of more danger to come (two can get up to more mischief than one).

If there is a morale to the story it’s probably - when wanting to get away with murder, be as cool as a cucumber and as cunning as a fox.

I liked it - it was quirky and intriguing. It had a good pace that kept me reading to find out what would happen next.

[David Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book, yet I cannot well state why. The bad guy was not punished for his crimes, and I want him to, yet I also want him to get away with it.

The writing of this novel is excellent from a writer's point of view as well as a reader's, and this is a joy to experience. Reading this novel is easy, as it "flows" from one scene to the next; it has no superfluous content; one may pick up this book and place oneself back into the story easily after being interrupted by real life: all are signs of professional writing.

The end of the novel sucks limes, however.

In real life the author appears to be a misogynistic bastard, so perhaps the main character's behavior is Matthew Louis' fantasy here in real life (see, for example, the article he wrote titled "The Castration of Men’s Fiction," which is creepy and disturbing AF).

[Katya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The plot: Kevin here has committed a crime, that he tried to cover up as best he could. But some people were still on to him. So, the question is - will he get caught?

What I liked:

1. the story. A great plot kind of reminded me of "American tragedy" or "Crime and punishment". We learn what has happened in the first chapters, and then throughout the book, the tension is rising, and Kevin gets more and more tangled in the web of his own lies. More people are involved in his story, and he really needs the investigators to believe him, but something happens all the time and he just can't find the way out. The story is realistic, gripping, and unputdownable.

2. the characters. The main character - Kevin is described really well. Although we know what he has done, I still felt sorry for him sometimes, because he did not have an easy life. He thought that marriage would fix that, but it got even worse for him. He is a controversial character here, but still likable. I respected uncle Cliff for what he has done for Kevin and what role he played in his life. September - unusual name and as it turned out - an unusual person too. I admired her for her strength and ability to turn her life around and live it the right way she saw it. Although other characters are not described extensively, they still play an important role in the story and bring something to it. Especially, Michelle and Sabrina, we only see them in the beginning and I was still able to form an opinion about them.

3. the ending. It just blew my mind! I did not expect that at all. Despite everything bad happening in their lives Kevin and September ended up in really startling and unpredictable circumstances in the end.

Content warnings: Profanity, abuse, violence, death.

Overall opinion: It is an intriguing and suspenseful book. I really enjoyed reading it. It starts with an unexpected event and ends the same way. The writing style was a bit hard to get used to for me in the beginning, but the more I read the more captivating and action-packed it became. I also learned a lot of new words while reading it - and it is always a good thing. So, if you like noir and realistic stories, you should definitely give this book a chance.

[Sandy Lender · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book's genre is noir...there's strong language sprinkled throughout it.

When the character Kevin Chapman says, "pushing the life-fluid steadily out of the hole Michelle had made in me," he's talking about more than the knife wound in his shoulder.

And that's the excellent writing you can expect from Matthew Louis throughout "Roots Down to Hell." He has written the predatory narcissist so well that you instantly revile him, yet you instantly revile the wife who taunts the guy with killing his child and screwing a woman on the side. I found myself worried that Kevin--trying to cover up murder(s)--was about to get caught multiple times. Kudos to Louis for this conflicting trauma! Ha!

As others have mentioned, this novel has themes and words that will challenge some folks. Like gritty novels do.

One of the themes of the novel was that of redemption/forgiveness. About halfway into the story, a love interest is introduced and this gritty, dark, noir-thriller gets a clean romance subplot that I found intriguing--and I saw the parallel between the relationship being forced by the well-meaning Uncle Cliff and by the author convincing us Kevin was worthy of a woman who wasn't a selfish pig. We learn that the love interest (her name is September) has a muddy past, too, but can be forgiven. (We humans can reform.) There's even a scene in which she confesses and Kevin, almost thankful that she's not perfect, lets her know that her sketchy past is totally cool with him. She's forgiven and her arc is complete. I wish we could've seen Kevin's confession, whether it included repentance, how September reacted, and so on. I won't give away the ending, but the wrap-up wrapped up the crimes and coverups cleanly for the reader...but I think could have given more for the wrap-up of the secondary plot...that of forgiveness.

Overall, great writing made me root for someone I didn't like. I could see, hear, and smell characters I didn't necessarily want to see, hear, or smell. I read this in one sitting--about three or four hours--because the pacing was perfect. And that's all coming from someone who reads about other worlds to avoid this one. Nicely done.

[G.D. Bowlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is pitch black noir. It is not for everyone. Maybe it's not for anyone.

The main character is, by all accounts, despicable. He's arrogant, bitter, and self-pitying. He's a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe. He's out of touch with the modern world and reality in general. In short, he's the kind of main character one might find in some of Jim Thompson's or Harry Crews' work. He's loathsome but, in some small ways, relatable enough to make you look at the parts of yourself that you desperately want to avoid.

That's what noir is all about.

Louis' plotting shines brightly through the darkness. The pace is breakneck, the chapters tend to end in cliffhangers, and the noose just keeps tightening. If you can make it through the first couple chapters of venom, you'll finish this book quickly.

One thing I found curious about some quotes and reviews for this book is that it is "anti-woke." Perhaps this is an effective marketing tool for some, but to me it suggests that the book exists as some sort of political statement or cultural treatise. As if the main character is meant to be anything other than a clearly broken, disturbed individual. Louis doesn't come out and say that because the character/narrator wouldn't. Rather, the character caustically minimizes and justifies the horrible things he does. In this way, Louis challenges us to look in the mirror and reflect upon the poison pill that is our narrator. How does he reflect our culture? Our relatives and friends? Ourselves?

There's no big, didactic moment that teaches us that he's wrong, because that should be obvious. If you can't see that then you're the one with the problem. That doesn't mean it's anti-woke, it's just challenging and confrontational and current in a way that is designed to make us uncomfortable.

[Andrew Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The copy of this book I read was titled ‘Noir Bastard’, which gives a distinct clue to the genre classification. So, there’s plenty of blood and violence and if you are woke-sensitive you may find some references to race and the female sex uneasy or even moderately offensive. To be fair, such references are included in the speech of down-to-earth characters and seem quite realistic. There is also a religious element in the story but it is not over-bearing and does not impinge on the story unduly.

The ‘hero’ - better label him as the lead character, given some of his actions - is an interesting construct, with a propensity to dig himself (sometimes literally - you’ll see when you read it) into more and more trouble. The author paints a believable character, a construction worker in rural U.S.A., who is both unlucky and potentially dangerous. The reader will not condone some of his actions but, at the same time, will be rooting for him. If you are a noir/hard-boiled fan - as I am - you warm to him early on when he reveals his love of literature by Chandler, Cain, Thompson, Ed McBain and both the Macdonalds. Additionally, a chat up line he uses with a potential girlfriend is to explain the difference between noir and hard-boiled. What’s not to like about such a character?

This is a good page-turner and an enjoyable read. I will be seeking more from this author.