What do you think?
Rate this book
The Cooter Farm
" The Cooter Farm will remind readers of John Irving one minute, Joyce Carol Oates the next. An altogether remarkable debut." - Gene Lyons, Entertainment Weekly
"Dickens and Irving are high standards against which to measure any novel, let alone a debut. It's a tribute to The Cooter Farm that those are exactly the comparisons invokes." - Steven Kane, Los Angeles Daily News
"' The Cooter Farm ' is a novel that defies categorization. It brings together elements as diverse as the black humor of Flannery O'Connor, the rude hilarity of Kurt Vonnegut, and the nostalgia for childhood of Harper Lee. A truly amazing first novel." - Sharon Lloyd Stratton, Richmond Times Dispatch
When young Ollie Cooter tries to come to grips with the often crazy, sometimes sinister, world of his family's dairy farm in upstate New York, he gradually learns the complexities of human nature. Bewildered by his mother's flight from the confines of the farm and the exaggerated hypochondria of her bull-semen-selling husband, Ollie seeks respite and comfort from the only member of the Cooter clan he trusts, his aunt, Mary Jean, three years his senior.
Bound to her by blood, admiration, and love, Ollie joins in her determined attempts to exorcise the evil she believes controls the Cooter world. As the two explore and expand their knowledge of each other - and of the lives of other members of this rural community - Ollie leaves childhood behind. The terrifying chain of events he witnesses during his eleventh year irrevocably alter him and his family forever.
"Dickens and Irving are high standards against which to measure any novel, let alone a debut. It's a tribute to The Cooter Farm that those are exactly the comparisons invokes." - Steven Kane, Los Angeles Daily News
"' The Cooter Farm ' is a novel that defies categorization. It brings together elements as diverse as the black humor of Flannery O'Connor, the rude hilarity of Kurt Vonnegut, and the nostalgia for childhood of Harper Lee. A truly amazing first novel." - Sharon Lloyd Stratton, Richmond Times Dispatch
When young Ollie Cooter tries to come to grips with the often crazy, sometimes sinister, world of his family's dairy farm in upstate New York, he gradually learns the complexities of human nature. Bewildered by his mother's flight from the confines of the farm and the exaggerated hypochondria of her bull-semen-selling husband, Ollie seeks respite and comfort from the only member of the Cooter clan he trusts, his aunt, Mary Jean, three years his senior.
Bound to her by blood, admiration, and love, Ollie joins in her determined attempts to exorcise the evil she believes controls the Cooter world. As the two explore and expand their knowledge of each other - and of the lives of other members of this rural community - Ollie leaves childhood behind. The terrifying chain of events he witnesses during his eleventh year irrevocably alter him and his family forever.
- GenresFiction
305 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
65 people want to read
About the author
Matthew F. Jones
7 books23 followersMatthew F. Jones, is an American novelist and screenwriter who grew up in rural upstate New York and currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 31, 2011
I giggle inside every time I think of the book's title. It could be a book of an entirely different type with that sort of title. Technically, though it is a book about a farm full of Cooters, the Cooters in question happen to be the last name of a white trash family living on a dairy farm better equipped to farm rocks than anything else.
What is it about deranged white trash / Appalachia types that make for great reading? It's almost like a guarantee for a good read if you populate a book with these types. Is it because whatever deranged things they do us more civilized folks just accept it? Incest, rape, murder, creepy family secrets, ghosts and drunkenness: yup that's what those crazy white trash types get up to when they aren't making some lily white weekend warrior squeal like a pig to the sounds of dueling banjos.
The book is told from the point of view of young boy, and it excellently mixes a certain weird innocence with the brutal goings ons within the Cooter family and the surrounding town. I've never read To Kill a Mockingbird, so I don't know if this is really comparable to it, but someone who wrote the book's dust jacket copy, so maybe it is. I imagine this is less genteel and more straight up fucked up than the Harper Lee classic though. Speaking of the dust jacket, one reviewer a Theodore Weesner, author of The Car Thief seemed to love the amount of sex in the book, so if you are looking for a book with quite a few inappropriate couplings then this might be a book to pique your interest also. Oh, or if you just like a good well-written novel with some fucked up-ness to it, it will be a good book to read for that, too.
What is it about deranged white trash / Appalachia types that make for great reading? It's almost like a guarantee for a good read if you populate a book with these types. Is it because whatever deranged things they do us more civilized folks just accept it? Incest, rape, murder, creepy family secrets, ghosts and drunkenness: yup that's what those crazy white trash types get up to when they aren't making some lily white weekend warrior squeal like a pig to the sounds of dueling banjos.
The book is told from the point of view of young boy, and it excellently mixes a certain weird innocence with the brutal goings ons within the Cooter family and the surrounding town. I've never read To Kill a Mockingbird, so I don't know if this is really comparable to it, but someone who wrote the book's dust jacket copy, so maybe it is. I imagine this is less genteel and more straight up fucked up than the Harper Lee classic though. Speaking of the dust jacket, one reviewer a Theodore Weesner, author of The Car Thief seemed to love the amount of sex in the book, so if you are looking for a book with quite a few inappropriate couplings then this might be a book to pique your interest also. Oh, or if you just like a good well-written novel with some fucked up-ness to it, it will be a good book to read for that, too.
December 5, 2011
A bit of Southern gothic smeared onto the periphery of New York state: how can it possibly work? Only as a bit of respite reading in the in between.
One of my sparring partners says you don’t need to go the North Pole to know its darn cold up there. True, but if you’ve never been outside the Sahara, try describing cold! Same principle applies here: an apple pie and white picket fence man trying to imagine what trailer trash might look like.
Hopeless. You either GET visceral, downtrodden, gutter snipe, backwater Hicksville, or you don’t. Harry Crews does. Jones does not.
Still.
We all need an amuse bouche in between.
One of my sparring partners says you don’t need to go the North Pole to know its darn cold up there. True, but if you’ve never been outside the Sahara, try describing cold! Same principle applies here: an apple pie and white picket fence man trying to imagine what trailer trash might look like.
Hopeless. You either GET visceral, downtrodden, gutter snipe, backwater Hicksville, or you don’t. Harry Crews does. Jones does not.
Still.
We all need an amuse bouche in between.
June 28, 2022
If you think I only picked up this book because the title makes me chortle you would be absolutely correct. Imagine my surprise when The Cooter Farm turned out to be one of the best country noirs I have ever read.
Excellent pacing, intriguing plot, and believable and realistic characters aside, what sticks with me most about this novel is the haunting past-tense narration resembling a coming-of-age memoir. I simply did not want to put this book down until I reached the conclusion.
This book deserves a standing ovation. Less than 50 ratings? Five reviews to date? The Cooter Farm needs a second wind. This book is worth knowing.
POPSUGAR 2015 Reading Challenge: A book by an author you've never read before
Excellent pacing, intriguing plot, and believable and realistic characters aside, what sticks with me most about this novel is the haunting past-tense narration resembling a coming-of-age memoir. I simply did not want to put this book down until I reached the conclusion.
This book deserves a standing ovation. Less than 50 ratings? Five reviews to date? The Cooter Farm needs a second wind. This book is worth knowing.
POPSUGAR 2015 Reading Challenge: A book by an author you've never read before
September 25, 2018
Like a poor man's Tobacco Road, it has humor and dark spots.
October 12, 2018
I don't know what it is about these odd type of stories that I like to read this time of year. The Cooter family runs a dairy farm. Hooter, Looted and Scooter Hooter... No seriously, but I dubbed Hooter the Crazy Cooter.
The family dynamic is dysfunctional in every way possible.. but a fun read just to make you feel normal.
The family dynamic is dysfunctional in every way possible.. but a fun read just to make you feel normal.
March 11, 2025
excellent read
Thoroughly enjoyed The Cooter Farm. What great characters that you grow to love and hate. I read the whole book in one sitting
Thoroughly enjoyed The Cooter Farm. What great characters that you grow to love and hate. I read the whole book in one sitting
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews