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Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories
Crimes in Southern Indiana is the most blistering, vivid, flat-out fearless debut to plow into American literature in recent years. Frank Bill delivers what is both a wake-up call and a gut punch. Welcome to heartland America circa right about now, when the union jobs and family farms that kept the white on the picket fences have given way to meth labs, backwoods gunrunners, and bare-knuckle brawling.
Bill’s people are pressed to the brink—and beyond. There is Scoot McCutchen, whose beloved wife falls terminally ill, leaving him with nothing to live for—which doesn’t quite explain why he brutally murders her and her doctor and flees, or why, after years of running, he decides to turn himself in. In the title story, a man who has devolved from breeding hounds for hunting to training them for dog-fighting crosses paths with a Salvadoran gangbanger tasked with taking over the rural drug trade, but who mostly wants to grow old in peace. As Crimes in Sourthern Indiana unfolds, we witness the unspeakable, yet are compelled to find sympathy for the depraved.
Bill’s southern Indiana is haunted with the deep, authentic sense of place that recalls the best of Southern fiction, but the interconnected stories bristle with the urban energy of a Chuck Palahniuk or a latter-day Nelson Algren and rush with the slam-bang plotting of pulp-noir crime writing à la Jim Thompson. Bill’s prose is gritty yet literary, shocking, and impossible to put down. A dark evocation of the survivalist spirit of the working class, this is a brilliant debut by an important new voice.
Bill’s people are pressed to the brink—and beyond. There is Scoot McCutchen, whose beloved wife falls terminally ill, leaving him with nothing to live for—which doesn’t quite explain why he brutally murders her and her doctor and flees, or why, after years of running, he decides to turn himself in. In the title story, a man who has devolved from breeding hounds for hunting to training them for dog-fighting crosses paths with a Salvadoran gangbanger tasked with taking over the rural drug trade, but who mostly wants to grow old in peace. As Crimes in Sourthern Indiana unfolds, we witness the unspeakable, yet are compelled to find sympathy for the depraved.
Bill’s southern Indiana is haunted with the deep, authentic sense of place that recalls the best of Southern fiction, but the interconnected stories bristle with the urban energy of a Chuck Palahniuk or a latter-day Nelson Algren and rush with the slam-bang plotting of pulp-noir crime writing à la Jim Thompson. Bill’s prose is gritty yet literary, shocking, and impossible to put down. A dark evocation of the survivalist spirit of the working class, this is a brilliant debut by an important new voice.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 30, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 314 reviews
July 9, 2018
sorry, canada. i know i just gave tony burgess the title of "sick fuck," * but i am going to be taking that crown back now, and giving it to frank bill. oh, god - what is that shit clotted all over it?? tony burgess, you sick sick fuck. well done.
this book is...descriptive.
this is another one of those short story collections that is more or less a deconstructed novel. the title of this novel could easily be here is a list of people who died horrible deaths in one place over a number of years subtitled seriously, i hope you aren't one of those people who becomes attached to characters. because you will be horrified.
it is rough. and bleak.
and the author looks like "mean zach galifianakis"
as opposed to "placid zach galifianakis"
the blurbs on the back of this are all from people i have either read and loved, or mean to read and love: tom franklin, donald ray pollock, benjamin percy, pinckney benedict, william gay...all of those authors that do the appalachia-and-its-borders thing i love, with its isolated poor and its inherited revenge tragedies and the resourcefulness of its populace steamrolled by lack of opportunity and ...resources. lazy repetition or clever wordplay? you decide - i am half in a food coma.
this book is best read in three-story chunks, with the interval used to wipe the blood spatter from your glasses. and those of you who don't wear glasses, after you read one of the scenes in here, you are going to wish you did because oh my god, i have to share it, and it probably isn't even a spoiler, but it is so gross i should spare elizabeth:
love it. so gross, man. i squawked when i read that part.
but yeah - when you are reading this, just know that every character is going to experience that age-old evolutionary decision: kill or be killed.
whether it be a woman scorned, or meth-related, or to protect family, or because of honor, or befuddlement, or fear, or all in a day's work, there will be blood.
and probably other fluids as well, it gets a little messy.
also, dogfighting, which was interesting because that story made me feel awful, while the multitudes of human carnage that came before it had no effect on my sympathy-parts. interesting or pathological? you decide.
but only after you read this book.
not you, obviously, elizabeth.
* oh my god, how awesome is it when i link to another one of my reviews within a review!? get thee behind me, shame! i do not recognize ye!
come to my blog!
this book is...descriptive.
this is another one of those short story collections that is more or less a deconstructed novel. the title of this novel could easily be here is a list of people who died horrible deaths in one place over a number of years subtitled seriously, i hope you aren't one of those people who becomes attached to characters. because you will be horrified.
it is rough. and bleak.
and the author looks like "mean zach galifianakis"
as opposed to "placid zach galifianakis"
the blurbs on the back of this are all from people i have either read and loved, or mean to read and love: tom franklin, donald ray pollock, benjamin percy, pinckney benedict, william gay...all of those authors that do the appalachia-and-its-borders thing i love, with its isolated poor and its inherited revenge tragedies and the resourcefulness of its populace steamrolled by lack of opportunity and ...resources. lazy repetition or clever wordplay? you decide - i am half in a food coma.
this book is best read in three-story chunks, with the interval used to wipe the blood spatter from your glasses. and those of you who don't wear glasses, after you read one of the scenes in here, you are going to wish you did because oh my god, i have to share it, and it probably isn't even a spoiler, but it is so gross i should spare elizabeth:
love it. so gross, man. i squawked when i read that part.
but yeah - when you are reading this, just know that every character is going to experience that age-old evolutionary decision: kill or be killed.
whether it be a woman scorned, or meth-related, or to protect family, or because of honor, or befuddlement, or fear, or all in a day's work, there will be blood.
and probably other fluids as well, it gets a little messy.
also, dogfighting, which was interesting because that story made me feel awful, while the multitudes of human carnage that came before it had no effect on my sympathy-parts. interesting or pathological? you decide.
but only after you read this book.
not you, obviously, elizabeth.
* oh my god, how awesome is it when i link to another one of my reviews within a review!? get thee behind me, shame! i do not recognize ye!
come to my blog!
May 20, 2013
If you ever wake up and find yourself in one of Frank Bill's stories, you better start praying. You got about five minutes left before something bad happens to you. There will be bone fragments. There will be catherine wheels of pain. Howling. Retching. One thing there won't be is mercy. This is not life as it is lived, this is death as it is died. In Indiana. There's enough stuff for 15 novels crammed into this handful of stories and when you read one you feel like you pulled your foot out of a mantrap just in time.
*****
The Indiana Tourist Board welcomes you to a unique experience
Southern Indiana!
In Southern Indiana, horrendous murder is enjoyed by one and all, armaments of all types are celebrated and death is at hand. On day one we suggest you take the Hoosier Hands artisan trail which winds through a part of Indiana that will let you sip wine, taste good treats and visit many interesting crime sites as you travel with that special someone.
Cringe and reminisce in Harrison County
Start your trip at Simply Divine Bakery in Ferdinand where Harold Flisport was gunned down just round the corner. But don't let that spoil your appetite for the Sisters of Saint Benedict's authentic German confectionery. Hardly anyone has been horribly maimed during the baking of these confections, which are all from ancient recipes over which people have fought and bled. Their Buttermint, Almerle, Springerle and Hildegard cookies are to die for.
Grab your significant other’s uninjured hand and start on the Ferdinand Historical Walking Tour on a sunny afternoon or cool evening. The trail begins at New Spring Road, New Amsterdam, where a plaque now commemorates the untimely end of Connie, Lazarus and Pine Box Dodson at the hands of Bonfire Kurt. The trail then winds along a ridge and ends at the Church of Immediate Dislocation. You'll need to walk a little faster through the meth cooking area, you really don't want those boys to think you might be the Feds!
Relax and throw up in Perry County
Drive down to Bleeding Rose Herb Farm and Retreat in Bristow for an overnight stay that is part camping, part bed and breakfast and extremely dangerous. Wake up to the sound of vicious dogs, probably Schnauzers, and gunfire every morning – you'll wonder why you'd ever want to go back home! And some careless tourists never do! Here you can watch birds, fish, hike or star gaze or get to know the locals on a more personal level in one of their isolated rural retreats where pretty much anything goes. We advise as a wise precaution, you may wish to arm yourself with a Uzi semi before starting your day's hiking in this area. Relax with crystal meth and sex with animals at the end of the day. If you enjoy the natural setting of a marijuana farm, make the short drive to the Southern Indiana National Forest where you can experience the Indiana drive-by high before visiting Hill Clan Cross where the notorious Hill Clan used to keep their victims before torturing them to death and worse.
***
This just in.
Jasper City Advertiser, 4th March 2012
TOURIST BOARD OFFICIAL HELD IN ASSAULT PROBE
A 48 year old man believed to be the current director of the Indiana Tourist Board is being held by Jasper City police this evening on suspicion of serious assault. The victim is understood to have been identified as Frank Bill, 38 year old author of a recent collection of stories set in Southern Indiana. Motive has as yet not been established.
***
And finally.
Frank Bill. Holy shit! Five stars.
*****
The Indiana Tourist Board welcomes you to a unique experience
Southern Indiana!
In Southern Indiana, horrendous murder is enjoyed by one and all, armaments of all types are celebrated and death is at hand. On day one we suggest you take the Hoosier Hands artisan trail which winds through a part of Indiana that will let you sip wine, taste good treats and visit many interesting crime sites as you travel with that special someone.
Cringe and reminisce in Harrison County
Start your trip at Simply Divine Bakery in Ferdinand where Harold Flisport was gunned down just round the corner. But don't let that spoil your appetite for the Sisters of Saint Benedict's authentic German confectionery. Hardly anyone has been horribly maimed during the baking of these confections, which are all from ancient recipes over which people have fought and bled. Their Buttermint, Almerle, Springerle and Hildegard cookies are to die for.
Grab your significant other’s uninjured hand and start on the Ferdinand Historical Walking Tour on a sunny afternoon or cool evening. The trail begins at New Spring Road, New Amsterdam, where a plaque now commemorates the untimely end of Connie, Lazarus and Pine Box Dodson at the hands of Bonfire Kurt. The trail then winds along a ridge and ends at the Church of Immediate Dislocation. You'll need to walk a little faster through the meth cooking area, you really don't want those boys to think you might be the Feds!
Relax and throw up in Perry County
Drive down to Bleeding Rose Herb Farm and Retreat in Bristow for an overnight stay that is part camping, part bed and breakfast and extremely dangerous. Wake up to the sound of vicious dogs, probably Schnauzers, and gunfire every morning – you'll wonder why you'd ever want to go back home! And some careless tourists never do! Here you can watch birds, fish, hike or star gaze or get to know the locals on a more personal level in one of their isolated rural retreats where pretty much anything goes. We advise as a wise precaution, you may wish to arm yourself with a Uzi semi before starting your day's hiking in this area. Relax with crystal meth and sex with animals at the end of the day. If you enjoy the natural setting of a marijuana farm, make the short drive to the Southern Indiana National Forest where you can experience the Indiana drive-by high before visiting Hill Clan Cross where the notorious Hill Clan used to keep their victims before torturing them to death and worse.
***
This just in.
Jasper City Advertiser, 4th March 2012
TOURIST BOARD OFFICIAL HELD IN ASSAULT PROBE
A 48 year old man believed to be the current director of the Indiana Tourist Board is being held by Jasper City police this evening on suspicion of serious assault. The victim is understood to have been identified as Frank Bill, 38 year old author of a recent collection of stories set in Southern Indiana. Motive has as yet not been established.
***
And finally.
Frank Bill. Holy shit! Five stars.
February 23, 2012
Is there anybody left alive in Indiana by the end of this book?
Frank Bill delivers a brutal series of short stories about murder, rape, blood feuds, pot dealing, meth dealing, dog fighting, revenge, incest and the occasional shell shocked veteran cutting off a couple of ears. You know, just another Tuesday in the American heartland.
What I particularly liked about this is that Bill uses the stories about various people over a couple of generations to give you a complete picture of an area. By the time you get to the end, you feel like you’re one of the locals tapped into the gossip network so that you know the dirty laundry of everyone around you. Probably best to keep your mouth shut though unless you want to wind up minus your head thanks to a twelve gauge blast. These people ain’t playing around.
This is hard boiled redneck noir with crimes that would send those sissy gangsters in New York running home to their mothers. Bill has the ruthless and brutal efficiency of a poacher gutting a deer.
My only complaint is that almost every story featured scenes of extremely graphic violence. Bill does this stuff well and puts it to good use, but after a while it started to feel like Frank Miller had moved Sin City to a farm setting. It probably wouldn’t have seemed so repetitive if I would have taken some breaks between stories, but I would have liked a couple of quieter ones that didn’t involve blood splatter or shattered bones.
Frank Bill delivers a brutal series of short stories about murder, rape, blood feuds, pot dealing, meth dealing, dog fighting, revenge, incest and the occasional shell shocked veteran cutting off a couple of ears. You know, just another Tuesday in the American heartland.
What I particularly liked about this is that Bill uses the stories about various people over a couple of generations to give you a complete picture of an area. By the time you get to the end, you feel like you’re one of the locals tapped into the gossip network so that you know the dirty laundry of everyone around you. Probably best to keep your mouth shut though unless you want to wind up minus your head thanks to a twelve gauge blast. These people ain’t playing around.
This is hard boiled redneck noir with crimes that would send those sissy gangsters in New York running home to their mothers. Bill has the ruthless and brutal efficiency of a poacher gutting a deer.
My only complaint is that almost every story featured scenes of extremely graphic violence. Bill does this stuff well and puts it to good use, but after a while it started to feel like Frank Miller had moved Sin City to a farm setting. It probably wouldn’t have seemed so repetitive if I would have taken some breaks between stories, but I would have liked a couple of quieter ones that didn’t involve blood splatter or shattered bones.
December 28, 2021
"... more savage than human."
October 1, 2014
This book ::flails helplessly:: How do I begin to review these raw and ruthless stories and do them justice? I probably can't ladies and gents, but I want to try goddammit. Frank Bill's collection of crazies and crimes in southern Indiana deserves that much at least.
This is prose that sings -- not with the sweetness and harmony of a Mama Cass, but rather a whiskey-soaked growl and feverish screech of a Janis Joplin. It's jagged, fragmented, and toothsome; at any point ready and able to tear a chunk out of the reader and leave him or her panting and bleeding like the sordid cast of cutthroat characters that populate the pages of these 17 inter-connected stories.
The stories piece together a harsh portrait of poor, scrabbling, backwoods people -- where victims become victimizers, and the brutalized do their fair share of brutalizing in return. As Frank Bill weaves together his tales of madness and mayhem, he is not interested in telling mere exploitative snapshots of gratuitous violence; his carefully crafted stories resonate with gritty themes of PTSD, poverty, domestic violence, addiction, greed and corruption. Each story flashes bright and fierce, a powerhouse on its own, but when melded with its brethren, the sum definitely becomes more awesome than the parts.
Frank Bill is writing Southern Noir and making it his bitch. This is Quentin Tarantino meets Cormac McCarthy. For certain Frank Bill convinces his readers that his Indiana landscape is also no country for old men. How is this for a descriptive simile: Jagged marrow lined his gums like he'd tried to huff a stick of dynamite. But when he stuttered into Medford's ear he sounded like a drunk who had Frenched a running chainsaw.
This isn't a collection to love per se; it certainly won't leave you with the warm and fuzzies. It will shake you up and smack you around a bit though, and you definitely won't forget it easily. It also made me green with envy over how easy Frank Bill makes it all seem. What he accomplishes isn't easy; if it were we'd see the likes of this kind of writing more often.
This is prose that sings -- not with the sweetness and harmony of a Mama Cass, but rather a whiskey-soaked growl and feverish screech of a Janis Joplin. It's jagged, fragmented, and toothsome; at any point ready and able to tear a chunk out of the reader and leave him or her panting and bleeding like the sordid cast of cutthroat characters that populate the pages of these 17 inter-connected stories.
The stories piece together a harsh portrait of poor, scrabbling, backwoods people -- where victims become victimizers, and the brutalized do their fair share of brutalizing in return. As Frank Bill weaves together his tales of madness and mayhem, he is not interested in telling mere exploitative snapshots of gratuitous violence; his carefully crafted stories resonate with gritty themes of PTSD, poverty, domestic violence, addiction, greed and corruption. Each story flashes bright and fierce, a powerhouse on its own, but when melded with its brethren, the sum definitely becomes more awesome than the parts.
Frank Bill is writing Southern Noir and making it his bitch. This is Quentin Tarantino meets Cormac McCarthy. For certain Frank Bill convinces his readers that his Indiana landscape is also no country for old men. How is this for a descriptive simile: Jagged marrow lined his gums like he'd tried to huff a stick of dynamite. But when he stuttered into Medford's ear he sounded like a drunk who had Frenched a running chainsaw.
This isn't a collection to love per se; it certainly won't leave you with the warm and fuzzies. It will shake you up and smack you around a bit though, and you definitely won't forget it easily. It also made me green with envy over how easy Frank Bill makes it all seem. What he accomplishes isn't easy; if it were we'd see the likes of this kind of writing more often.
Iris kept driving. Turned onto the county road, glanced over the field and acres of cedar, saw the smoke rising above the land. He reached over and rubbed Spade between his black ears, not knowing where he was headed, but knowing he wouldn't stop until he was several states shy of the crimes in southern Indiana.
December 19, 2021
Great stories of tweekers, wife beaters, perverts, and those tasked with bringing justice to the lot of them.
May 16, 2014
The last time I read a book set in Indiana it was about The Greatest Town in America (First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity). Throw in Hoosiers, the occasional Pacers game, and a high-school production of The Music Man I saw when I was, at most, ten, and you've pretty much covered the extent of my exposure to the state. So, to say that Frank Bill's
Crimes in Southern Indiana
was a change of pace would be, at the very least, putting it mildly.
Looking at the picture of a young Frank Bill proudly checking out his new rifle in the first pages of the book, I found myself imagining a compassionate English teacher reading one of his stories and, grasping his shoulder, telling him what a talented young writer he is...right before calling Social Services. But, after reading this book, I'm not even sure they have DSS workers waiting by the phone in southern Indiana, so, scratch that idea.
The pages are a buckshot-filled explosion of the darkest corners of small town America. A list of the topics covered (incest, patricide/matricide/fratricide, meth-fueled murder) doesn't begin to hint at the gut-punching level of, not depravity, but something made more sinister by how quotidian these taboos can seem in context.
I'm not usually one for short stories, but Bill does an incredible job of creating characters whose inner lives and histories are conveyed in so few words. My only hesitation to reach for Donnybrook is that I just have no stomach for any violence involving animals (so, someone else will have to tell me if that one is NSFM).
Looking at the picture of a young Frank Bill proudly checking out his new rifle in the first pages of the book, I found myself imagining a compassionate English teacher reading one of his stories and, grasping his shoulder, telling him what a talented young writer he is...right before calling Social Services. But, after reading this book, I'm not even sure they have DSS workers waiting by the phone in southern Indiana, so, scratch that idea.
The pages are a buckshot-filled explosion of the darkest corners of small town America. A list of the topics covered (incest, patricide/matricide/fratricide, meth-fueled murder) doesn't begin to hint at the gut-punching level of, not depravity, but something made more sinister by how quotidian these taboos can seem in context.
I'm not usually one for short stories, but Bill does an incredible job of creating characters whose inner lives and histories are conveyed in so few words. My only hesitation to reach for Donnybrook is that I just have no stomach for any violence involving animals (so, someone else will have to tell me if that one is NSFM).
February 17, 2013
The author Frank Bill delivers a lethal injection of literal pulp visceral darkness into your bloodstream.
He takes you to hell and back with these characters and stories.
Written in the same vein as Daniel Woodrell and Donald Ray Pollock. The stories are gritty, at times shocking and brutal, vignettes of things that should remain as fiction. Written with short sharp no words wasted, visceral lines of prose. The stories are at times connected with each other as some characters are featured in other stories in different circumstances and other stories are just a fresh stab in the dark.
The praise on the cover is right in stating it as....
Vivid and unforgettable.
Ideal nexus between literary art and pulp fiction: beautifully crafted and compulsively readable.
One of the wildest damn rides you're ever going to take inside a book.
My breakdown of a few stories follow below...
Hill Clan Cross
A lesson on stealing from kin. Never steal from you father and uncles harvest to sell on the side.
These Old Bones
A good for nothing inhuman lump of flesh pimped out his own granddaughter after helping himself to her. She was in their care for looking after and he decide to sell her off for a while for money. The will be blood and justice on the guilty.
The Need
A tale of the gruesome kind a man served for uncle Sam in Afghanistan and turned rouge. He has a passion for the ears of the dead. He literally cuts out the ears of those that he now kills for himself not uncle Sam. In the mountains of Afghan, what he seen done to the farmers and women turned him rogue and killed his own and ever since he's been killing.
Beautiful Even In Death
A married man in his 40's been meddling with a cousin on the side and realises he can't have her to himself any more so he kills her. His son tries to tell his mom that he dad is a murderer and all hell breaks loose, father and son beat each other to a pulp. One comes out alive who is going to be believed?
The Old Mechanic
A veteran of World War Two a wife beater and a bad grandfather. A grandson is forced to be in his company on one occasion. His ma has been telling stories of his evils and badness since stories were told to him. This time though he the Old Mechanic wants to set things straight and do good for his grandson.
"I unable to adjust from what I'd seen and done. Cause once a man takes another mans life it's the guilt of memory that haunts him and he will forever live in the shadow of the dead."
Rough Company
All about bad Kin and company. A mother gives birth to a son the father is her step-father. He's no good and she's on the run from him and out to make some quick bucks. A insurance scam is the money idea for her, the scam turns out to occurred in the wrong place and injured the wrong kind of man. Death is wanted on those involved from the bedside of the injured man and he hires a a hit man to take them out. In the end when blood is spilled and the deed is done the mothers son is left alive. The boy has a dark past right from conception but now he will have a chance at life at least without bad company.
Crimes In Southern Indiana
You are put amongst nasty characters that deal in Crystal meth, illegals, smuggling, dogfights and you witness dogs die unjustly. There will be some light at the end of the tunnel.
Author videos including readings and video interview by others at my webpage http://more2read.com/review/crimes-in-southern-indiana-stories-by-frank-bill/
Read: Frank Bill's 'Crimes in Southern Indiana' interview by Scott Shoger @nuvo.net
Read: The first three stories - "Hill Clan Cross," "These Awful Bones" and "All the Awful" (collectively, the Hill Clan Trilogy) - from Crimes in Southern Indiana (via Macmillan)
Read: "The Heartland: Ten Years after 9/11," a short story published in the online edition of Granta on Sept. 27
Read: "We Brought Tomorrow Until Today Was Gone," a "work in progress" published on Farrar, Straus and Giroux's website
He takes you to hell and back with these characters and stories.
Written in the same vein as Daniel Woodrell and Donald Ray Pollock. The stories are gritty, at times shocking and brutal, vignettes of things that should remain as fiction. Written with short sharp no words wasted, visceral lines of prose. The stories are at times connected with each other as some characters are featured in other stories in different circumstances and other stories are just a fresh stab in the dark.
The praise on the cover is right in stating it as....
Vivid and unforgettable.
Ideal nexus between literary art and pulp fiction: beautifully crafted and compulsively readable.
One of the wildest damn rides you're ever going to take inside a book.
My breakdown of a few stories follow below...
Hill Clan Cross
A lesson on stealing from kin. Never steal from you father and uncles harvest to sell on the side.
These Old Bones
A good for nothing inhuman lump of flesh pimped out his own granddaughter after helping himself to her. She was in their care for looking after and he decide to sell her off for a while for money. The will be blood and justice on the guilty.
The Need
A tale of the gruesome kind a man served for uncle Sam in Afghanistan and turned rouge. He has a passion for the ears of the dead. He literally cuts out the ears of those that he now kills for himself not uncle Sam. In the mountains of Afghan, what he seen done to the farmers and women turned him rogue and killed his own and ever since he's been killing.
Beautiful Even In Death
A married man in his 40's been meddling with a cousin on the side and realises he can't have her to himself any more so he kills her. His son tries to tell his mom that he dad is a murderer and all hell breaks loose, father and son beat each other to a pulp. One comes out alive who is going to be believed?
The Old Mechanic
A veteran of World War Two a wife beater and a bad grandfather. A grandson is forced to be in his company on one occasion. His ma has been telling stories of his evils and badness since stories were told to him. This time though he the Old Mechanic wants to set things straight and do good for his grandson.
"I unable to adjust from what I'd seen and done. Cause once a man takes another mans life it's the guilt of memory that haunts him and he will forever live in the shadow of the dead."
Rough Company
All about bad Kin and company. A mother gives birth to a son the father is her step-father. He's no good and she's on the run from him and out to make some quick bucks. A insurance scam is the money idea for her, the scam turns out to occurred in the wrong place and injured the wrong kind of man. Death is wanted on those involved from the bedside of the injured man and he hires a a hit man to take them out. In the end when blood is spilled and the deed is done the mothers son is left alive. The boy has a dark past right from conception but now he will have a chance at life at least without bad company.
Crimes In Southern Indiana
You are put amongst nasty characters that deal in Crystal meth, illegals, smuggling, dogfights and you witness dogs die unjustly. There will be some light at the end of the tunnel.
Author videos including readings and video interview by others at my webpage http://more2read.com/review/crimes-in-southern-indiana-stories-by-frank-bill/
Read: Frank Bill's 'Crimes in Southern Indiana' interview by Scott Shoger @nuvo.net
Read: The first three stories - "Hill Clan Cross," "These Awful Bones" and "All the Awful" (collectively, the Hill Clan Trilogy) - from Crimes in Southern Indiana (via Macmillan)
Read: "The Heartland: Ten Years after 9/11," a short story published in the online edition of Granta on Sept. 27
Read: "We Brought Tomorrow Until Today Was Gone," a "work in progress" published on Farrar, Straus and Giroux's website
May 5, 2023
Crimes in Southern Indiana is an incredibly well-written connection of sorta-interconnected stories about rural Southern Indiana. Don't expect buttercups and rainbow sprinkles. These stories give a glimpse of the depths of human depravity and the violence that can spurt forth. Often the characters here are disconnected from society and have little left to loose. They are just trying to survive.
They range from domestic violence to meth dealer's revenge to a man willing to sell his granddaughter to the Hill Clan for a few books for his wife's cancer treatments. But don't despair. There are moments here where the spark of life bursts forth and even those beaten to a pulp stand up and fight back, leaving behind a trail of bodies and gore.
They range from domestic violence to meth dealer's revenge to a man willing to sell his granddaughter to the Hill Clan for a few books for his wife's cancer treatments. But don't despair. There are moments here where the spark of life bursts forth and even those beaten to a pulp stand up and fight back, leaving behind a trail of bodies and gore.
August 28, 2014
After the first three stories (which will quickly sift out the Eat-Pray-Love lightweights), it's hard not to think of a Tarantino movie. Murder, rape, revenge, drugs, guns (lots of guns), dogs, meth labs, pot, booze, hard men and hard women, living in a hard land during a merciless time (the 1980s to the present). Characters in previous stories show up again (though in this grim landscape, you only have so many bites at the apple), as Frank Bill populates (and de-populates) his little blood soaked postage stamp of earth with enough familiarity to have you wondering at times if you aren't in fact reading a loose novel (like Faulkner's Hamlet). In the end, I felt this effort does stand as a collection of short stories, most of which seem to clock in at 15 pages or so. The stories are so short that I found myself wishing Bill had extended some of them into something longer. Most of the time they work fine just as they are, but there were a couple that faltered a bit due to the rush to wrap them up. That said, the dialogue is spot-on, the violence, memorable. Does Bill wallow in it? Yes. But what I found, which was strangely satisfying, is a pretty steady pattern of "Old Testament Wisdom" in most of these stories. When lines are crossed and your loved ones are "touched," then you must touch back. To do otherwise would be to ignore "the doctrines of existence."
August 5, 2012
Unrelentingly tedious hillbilly pulp. Like the bloody bits of Tarantino but not the talky chunks? Want to like Woodrell but find him too high-falutin? C'mon down! Two-dimensional and one-dimensional characters trapped in a setting that's way more cartoonish than Gotham or Metropolis. Reminiscent of the kid in the creative writing workshop who can't write his way out of a short story without a death or beating. Contrived stabs at shock value, with half-baked stories like "Granpappy sells lil granddaughter to the evil drugs-n-pimps gang! Can you believe it?! Crazy, right?!" The general theme is "desperate people are capable of terrible things" - and that's as deep as the investigation goes. Which may be fine - after all, the author is writing in a time-honored style that is the literary equivalent of the popcorn movie. No harm there. But the necessary momentum and pacing, the suspense, the emotional involvement, the evocative turns of phrase... just not there. Instead. A few clipped non-sentences like someone just discovered Cormac McCarthy. The disappointment.
May 23, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...
“Y hoy había vendido a su nieta, Knee High Audry, al clan de los Hill para que la prostituyeran. Necesitaba dinero extra para pagar la medicación del cáncer de su mujer, Josephine. Pues sí, pensó, soy un hijo de la gran puta.”
Frank Bill ha sido un descubrimiento que me ha pillado tan de sorpresa que no podía salir de mi asombro a medida que avanzaba a lo largo de estos diecisiete relatos, preguntándome donde había estado escondido este hombre hasta ahora, pero llegan los de la editorial de Malas Tierras, y desvelan una mina de oro. Es brillante en su concepción de la violencia, no tanto por la estridencia sino por la claridad y contundencia de cómo la expone. Lo comparan con Donald Ray Pollock, pero confieso que prefiero mil veces antes a Frank Bill, aunque es cierto que Knockemstiff es rompedora pero ya digo que yo no los compararía. Los relatos de Bill no son muy largos y asi y todo es capaz de aunar en unas pocas páginas historias que podrían ser novelas completas, pero sin embargo, y en unas pocas páginas, es capaz de elaborar el pasado, presente y casi el futuro de unos personajes que viven al límite. Es seco, contundente, de frases a veces cortas, pero no todo es violencia, no nos engañemos, hay mucho más más allá de esta violencia que tanto llama la atención: una humanidad inesperada y que puede trastocar al lector casi más que esta violencia, tanto, que el lector se encuentra preguntándose cómo ha conseguido asomar este breve resquicio de luz tras unos párrafos de oscuridad doméstica, como éste, por ejemplo:
“Pasaron años hasta que su madre reunió el coraje para desoír la norma implícita del matrimonio. Se divorció del Mecánico. Se casó otra vez, con un hombre que, decía ella, estaba más loco que una cabra, pero que la adoraba y la respetaba, que la amaba. Que la dejaba dormir hasta la salida del sol. La despertaba con El precio es justo mientras removía para ella una cucharada de café soluble en una taza de agua caliente sin el ladrido de la violencia.”
Los personajes de Frank Bill puede parecer que viven en un mundo absolutamente caótico en ese sur de Indiana, porque no se corta un pelo a la hora de abordar violencia sexual, adicción, corrupción, abusos a menores, asesinatos inesperados, casi inabordables en la mayoría de historias… pero ya digo que no es una violencia gratuita porque siempre va acompañada por ese “algo” que le da una segunda y tercera capa en la que aborda otros temas, algunos muy traumáticos. Por ejemplo, en el relato El viejo mecánico, uno de los mejores relatos de esta colección, Bill se atreve a comparar la violencia doméstica con el trastorno de estrés postraumático de los veteranos de una guerra reflexionando sobre hasta qué punto han sido temas tabú, temas intocables en una sociedad que los barría bajo la alfombra. Un relato que comienza de una forma determinada, y en varios giros que se van desvelando, va dosificando la tensión y la atmósfera del relato, haciendo que la percepción del personaje protagonista vaya cambiando continuamente frente al lector.
"Hubo un tiempo en que la neurosis de guerra se ignoraba. Lo que las repercusiones de un conflicto provocaban en el cerebro de un hombre. Haber visto, oído, participado. Y, como la guerra, una agresión a una mujer se pasaba por alto. Hubo un tiempo en que -hasta que la muerte nos separe- era una norma obligatoria del matrimonio. Cuando las mujeres no dejaban a sus maridos. Les obedecían. "
La mayoría de los relatos están interconectados, entrelazados, algunos personajes que pasaban por allí en alguna historia, o que simplemente eran mencionados de paso, se convierten en los protagonistas de otras. Las mujeres por otra parte juegan aquí un papel tan importante como ellos, los hombres por mucho que sea un mundo de machos, en este sur de Indiana. Ellas, supervivientes de la violencia en algunos casos, se convierten en otros y bajo la pluma de Frank Bill en auténticas bombas de relojería a la hora de tomarse la justicia por su cuenta y riesgo... no tienen mucho que perder porque lo que importa es sobrevivir.
“Hay que joderse. Y después de tantos años huyendo tienes que venir aquí a entregarte -murmuró Scoot – . La culpa es una carga demasiado pesada para cualquiera. Viene envuelta en todas las equivocaciones que un hombre es capaz de cometer y que en realidad son las lecciones que aprende en la vida para sí no repetirlas.”
Ante una colección de relatos como ésta, lo mejor es NO revelar mucho más porque algunas historias son como bofetadas, imprevisibles continuamente sorprendiendo. Cada uno de los diecisiete relatos me han parecido magníficos, pero quizás mi favorito ha sido “La penitencia de Scott McCutchen”, porque de alguna forma es un compendio del estilo, y de la atmósfera con la que nos vamos a encontrar en el resto de sus historias. Un relato donde la prosa de Frank Bill alcanza el cénit a la hora de abordar la vida de un hombre continuamente huyendo, y que sin embargo, en un momento de su vida se da un respiro, parándose. Uno de sus relatos que me acompañarán ya para siempre.
"Después de aquello, él la concibió en su mente no a partir de imágenes sino de palabras, de la construcción sencilla aunque áspera del lenguaje que le había ofrecido."
(La penitencia de Scott McCutchen)
“Y hoy había vendido a su nieta, Knee High Audry, al clan de los Hill para que la prostituyeran. Necesitaba dinero extra para pagar la medicación del cáncer de su mujer, Josephine. Pues sí, pensó, soy un hijo de la gran puta.”
Frank Bill ha sido un descubrimiento que me ha pillado tan de sorpresa que no podía salir de mi asombro a medida que avanzaba a lo largo de estos diecisiete relatos, preguntándome donde había estado escondido este hombre hasta ahora, pero llegan los de la editorial de Malas Tierras, y desvelan una mina de oro. Es brillante en su concepción de la violencia, no tanto por la estridencia sino por la claridad y contundencia de cómo la expone. Lo comparan con Donald Ray Pollock, pero confieso que prefiero mil veces antes a Frank Bill, aunque es cierto que Knockemstiff es rompedora pero ya digo que yo no los compararía. Los relatos de Bill no son muy largos y asi y todo es capaz de aunar en unas pocas páginas historias que podrían ser novelas completas, pero sin embargo, y en unas pocas páginas, es capaz de elaborar el pasado, presente y casi el futuro de unos personajes que viven al límite. Es seco, contundente, de frases a veces cortas, pero no todo es violencia, no nos engañemos, hay mucho más más allá de esta violencia que tanto llama la atención: una humanidad inesperada y que puede trastocar al lector casi más que esta violencia, tanto, que el lector se encuentra preguntándose cómo ha conseguido asomar este breve resquicio de luz tras unos párrafos de oscuridad doméstica, como éste, por ejemplo:
“Pasaron años hasta que su madre reunió el coraje para desoír la norma implícita del matrimonio. Se divorció del Mecánico. Se casó otra vez, con un hombre que, decía ella, estaba más loco que una cabra, pero que la adoraba y la respetaba, que la amaba. Que la dejaba dormir hasta la salida del sol. La despertaba con El precio es justo mientras removía para ella una cucharada de café soluble en una taza de agua caliente sin el ladrido de la violencia.”
Los personajes de Frank Bill puede parecer que viven en un mundo absolutamente caótico en ese sur de Indiana, porque no se corta un pelo a la hora de abordar violencia sexual, adicción, corrupción, abusos a menores, asesinatos inesperados, casi inabordables en la mayoría de historias… pero ya digo que no es una violencia gratuita porque siempre va acompañada por ese “algo” que le da una segunda y tercera capa en la que aborda otros temas, algunos muy traumáticos. Por ejemplo, en el relato El viejo mecánico, uno de los mejores relatos de esta colección, Bill se atreve a comparar la violencia doméstica con el trastorno de estrés postraumático de los veteranos de una guerra reflexionando sobre hasta qué punto han sido temas tabú, temas intocables en una sociedad que los barría bajo la alfombra. Un relato que comienza de una forma determinada, y en varios giros que se van desvelando, va dosificando la tensión y la atmósfera del relato, haciendo que la percepción del personaje protagonista vaya cambiando continuamente frente al lector.
"Hubo un tiempo en que la neurosis de guerra se ignoraba. Lo que las repercusiones de un conflicto provocaban en el cerebro de un hombre. Haber visto, oído, participado. Y, como la guerra, una agresión a una mujer se pasaba por alto. Hubo un tiempo en que -hasta que la muerte nos separe- era una norma obligatoria del matrimonio. Cuando las mujeres no dejaban a sus maridos. Les obedecían. "
La mayoría de los relatos están interconectados, entrelazados, algunos personajes que pasaban por allí en alguna historia, o que simplemente eran mencionados de paso, se convierten en los protagonistas de otras. Las mujeres por otra parte juegan aquí un papel tan importante como ellos, los hombres por mucho que sea un mundo de machos, en este sur de Indiana. Ellas, supervivientes de la violencia en algunos casos, se convierten en otros y bajo la pluma de Frank Bill en auténticas bombas de relojería a la hora de tomarse la justicia por su cuenta y riesgo... no tienen mucho que perder porque lo que importa es sobrevivir.
“Hay que joderse. Y después de tantos años huyendo tienes que venir aquí a entregarte -murmuró Scoot – . La culpa es una carga demasiado pesada para cualquiera. Viene envuelta en todas las equivocaciones que un hombre es capaz de cometer y que en realidad son las lecciones que aprende en la vida para sí no repetirlas.”
Ante una colección de relatos como ésta, lo mejor es NO revelar mucho más porque algunas historias son como bofetadas, imprevisibles continuamente sorprendiendo. Cada uno de los diecisiete relatos me han parecido magníficos, pero quizás mi favorito ha sido “La penitencia de Scott McCutchen”, porque de alguna forma es un compendio del estilo, y de la atmósfera con la que nos vamos a encontrar en el resto de sus historias. Un relato donde la prosa de Frank Bill alcanza el cénit a la hora de abordar la vida de un hombre continuamente huyendo, y que sin embargo, en un momento de su vida se da un respiro, parándose. Uno de sus relatos que me acompañarán ya para siempre.
"Después de aquello, él la concibió en su mente no a partir de imágenes sino de palabras, de la construcción sencilla aunque áspera del lenguaje que le había ofrecido."
(La penitencia de Scott McCutchen)
February 28, 2013
This is without a doubt the best book of short stories I have ever read. It has plenty of rednecks and meth. And violence. Think Breaking Bad, (I don't really know any redneck type shows. Maybe parts of The Walking Dead?), meets Nikita. Seriously, here is a tidbit from the story "Old Testament Wisdom":
But when the girl swung the tin door open none of that would matter. Because she was carrying on the wisdom. And watching from the four-by-four, Billy Hines could forgive himself and her grandfather could rest in peace after his granddaughter pulled the trigger, just as he had that night ten years ago, until the clip was empty.
I loved every single one of these stories so much. I would love to read novels written about each one, because they ended too quickly. Some of them intertwine, like most short story collections do, but every character is unique. I mean, you have redneck drug addicts so you wouldn't think Frank Bill could put a twist on each one but he does. And guess what! He is writing a book that includes some of the characters from at least one of these stories! I am so excited to read it.
As a warning, I will say that these stories are violent. There are lots of sentences like "His knees exploded like eggs when the bullets hit them. and someone's eyes get cut in half horizontally,etc. But they weren't as violent as I thought they would be. Maybe I am just too desensitized to violence (Thanks, the media). Not that I see knife fights or gang rapes on my way to school or anything. My school is kind of close to some bad parts of Worcester, MA (a very ghetto city) but I'm pretty sheltered in my life actually.
I wonder if this is realistic of southern Indiana life. I'm assuming that things like this don't happen every single day, but Frank Bill makes mention of something I've heard before: conflicts between families that don't involve other people. After the rape of a relative, a man goes and beats up the guy that did it. The "witnesses" in the bar deny seeing anything, and they say that it is between the two families. So there are little things like that which are probably common occurrences.
My favorite story is probably "Old Testament Wisdom" because it has a kick-ass heroine that seeks revenge on the bad guys. But all of the stories have excellent plots and demonstrate the author's incredible talent for writing.
But when the girl swung the tin door open none of that would matter. Because she was carrying on the wisdom. And watching from the four-by-four, Billy Hines could forgive himself and her grandfather could rest in peace after his granddaughter pulled the trigger, just as he had that night ten years ago, until the clip was empty.
I loved every single one of these stories so much. I would love to read novels written about each one, because they ended too quickly. Some of them intertwine, like most short story collections do, but every character is unique. I mean, you have redneck drug addicts so you wouldn't think Frank Bill could put a twist on each one but he does. And guess what! He is writing a book that includes some of the characters from at least one of these stories! I am so excited to read it.
As a warning, I will say that these stories are violent. There are lots of sentences like "His knees exploded like eggs when the bullets hit them. and someone's eyes get cut in half horizontally,etc. But they weren't as violent as I thought they would be. Maybe I am just too desensitized to violence (Thanks, the media). Not that I see knife fights or gang rapes on my way to school or anything. My school is kind of close to some bad parts of Worcester, MA (a very ghetto city) but I'm pretty sheltered in my life actually.
I wonder if this is realistic of southern Indiana life. I'm assuming that things like this don't happen every single day, but Frank Bill makes mention of something I've heard before: conflicts between families that don't involve other people. After the rape of a relative, a man goes and beats up the guy that did it. The "witnesses" in the bar deny seeing anything, and they say that it is between the two families. So there are little things like that which are probably common occurrences.
My favorite story is probably "Old Testament Wisdom" because it has a kick-ass heroine that seeks revenge on the bad guys. But all of the stories have excellent plots and demonstrate the author's incredible talent for writing.
June 1, 2015
This book is to short stories as Howard Stern was to Phil Donahue. It is shocking, offensive, lewd, nasty, bloody, violent, crude, sexist, abusive (animals, people, families), and any remaining adjectives that evoke disgust. A drug induced slice of America I never care to go to........ever. The state of Indiana should probably sue the author for libel. Whatever tourism dollars that would have come to this part of our great country are sure to dry up provided the traveler has ever read even one of the stories from this book. The scary part- this is written in such detail that I have no doubt it does exist- in the exact form this author describes.
And that's a pretty good explanation for why I liked it. The first two stories in particular are a test......a sissy test if you will. If you can stomach them, it is all down hill from there. I barely passed. The guy can write though. If you liked The Devil All the Time or Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock then you will fall right in place here. If you couldn't handle those, this is one to avoid at all costs.
DO NOT READ ON MY RECOMMENDATION IF I KNOW YOU IN REAL LIFE........WE WILL PROBABLY HAVE A STRAINED FRIENDSHIP FROM THERE FORWARD.
And that's a pretty good explanation for why I liked it. The first two stories in particular are a test......a sissy test if you will. If you can stomach them, it is all down hill from there. I barely passed. The guy can write though. If you liked The Devil All the Time or Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock then you will fall right in place here. If you couldn't handle those, this is one to avoid at all costs.
DO NOT READ ON MY RECOMMENDATION IF I KNOW YOU IN REAL LIFE........WE WILL PROBABLY HAVE A STRAINED FRIENDSHIP FROM THERE FORWARD.
April 29, 2014
23/4 - I've never read anything like it, just as the inside front cover predicted. It's nothing like what I was expecting either. It doesn't really have a blub anywhere on the book, so from the title and front cover image I was expecting either true crime or horror revolving around isolated farms owned by families of inbred yokels who practice cannibalism on the unlucky who break down in their hunting territory. Crimes in Southern Indiana is nothing like either of those possibilities. I've read about eight stories so far, and some of them have been connected to each other, kind of like continuing chapters from the same book, while others have been standalone. There is a lot of very graphic violence and disturbing situations - not for children or the squeamish. It's also not what I would consider required reading if you're intent on making a visit to Southern Indiana, this book is more likely to scare you away (especially from the people) rather than encourage you to plan your holiday. To be continued...
25/4 - As it's ANZAC day and this is my only review for the day I would like to ask everyone reading this to pause for a minute of silence in honour of all the men and women who fought for our safety and freedom. For me personally I think of my great-grandfathers and grandfather who fought at Gallipoli, the Western Front, and Papua New Guinea respectively through both world wars.
Back to the review. Please, if Crimes in Southern Indiana is anywhere close to the truth of life in the 'heartland' of America, don't tell me. I don't want to know that this is life for people living in the so called 'lucky country'. The stories in this book paint a very bleak picture of Southern Indiana. So far, all bar one story have featured people shooting each other with a wide variety of guns, some I haven't even heard of. Most of the gun violence is in revenge for earlier slights against a person or family, an eye for an eye is the real law out there in the 'heartland', the police haven't got a chance and often followed the idea of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. To be continued...
27/4 - With my last post (since I've finished the book) I've got to give you a sample of some of the spectacularly evocative language featured in Crimes in Southern Indiana:
Pitchfork and Darnell burst through the scuffed motel door like a two barrels of buckshot.
First sentence of the first page of the first story, Hill Clan Cross, in the book.
The opening paragraph continues with:
Using the daisy-patterned bed to divide the dealers from the buyers, Pitchfork buried a .45-caliber Colt in Karl's peat moss unibrow with his right hand. Separated Irvine's green eyes with the sawed-off 12-gauge in his left, pushed the two young men away from the mattress, stopped them at a wall painted with nicotine, and shouted, "Drop the rucks, Karl!"
Immediately, the words grabbed me and I could see, just so clearly, the picture the words were painting. In my recent review of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian I called into question the way it was written - sentenceless, mostly punctuationless, littered with highfalutin words most readers don't understand and scatterings of Spanish that a non-Spanish speaker can't read - despite the many reviewers calling it beautifully written. I found the paragraph from Crimes in Southern Indiana far more compelling. That's the kind of writing I was expecting from such a highly regarded author of so many years experience, but I didn't get it from the experienced author, I got it from Frank Bill, the largely unknown, first time author. Interesting, isn't it? Something to think about.
25/4 - As it's ANZAC day and this is my only review for the day I would like to ask everyone reading this to pause for a minute of silence in honour of all the men and women who fought for our safety and freedom. For me personally I think of my great-grandfathers and grandfather who fought at Gallipoli, the Western Front, and Papua New Guinea respectively through both world wars.
Back to the review. Please, if Crimes in Southern Indiana is anywhere close to the truth of life in the 'heartland' of America, don't tell me. I don't want to know that this is life for people living in the so called 'lucky country'. The stories in this book paint a very bleak picture of Southern Indiana. So far, all bar one story have featured people shooting each other with a wide variety of guns, some I haven't even heard of. Most of the gun violence is in revenge for earlier slights against a person or family, an eye for an eye is the real law out there in the 'heartland', the police haven't got a chance and often followed the idea of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. To be continued...
27/4 - With my last post (since I've finished the book) I've got to give you a sample of some of the spectacularly evocative language featured in Crimes in Southern Indiana:
Pitchfork and Darnell burst through the scuffed motel door like a two barrels of buckshot.
First sentence of the first page of the first story, Hill Clan Cross, in the book.
The opening paragraph continues with:
Using the daisy-patterned bed to divide the dealers from the buyers, Pitchfork buried a .45-caliber Colt in Karl's peat moss unibrow with his right hand. Separated Irvine's green eyes with the sawed-off 12-gauge in his left, pushed the two young men away from the mattress, stopped them at a wall painted with nicotine, and shouted, "Drop the rucks, Karl!"
Immediately, the words grabbed me and I could see, just so clearly, the picture the words were painting. In my recent review of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian I called into question the way it was written - sentenceless, mostly punctuationless, littered with highfalutin words most readers don't understand and scatterings of Spanish that a non-Spanish speaker can't read - despite the many reviewers calling it beautifully written. I found the paragraph from Crimes in Southern Indiana far more compelling. That's the kind of writing I was expecting from such a highly regarded author of so many years experience, but I didn't get it from the experienced author, I got it from Frank Bill, the largely unknown, first time author. Interesting, isn't it? Something to think about.
October 24, 2020
What if I told you that this book is based on a true story? You may want to cancel the honeymoon you had planned for Southern Indiana and reconsider Mogadishu.
The epigraph for this collection of stories should be, “I never promised you a rose garden.” What he does deliver to the faithful is an incestuous arterial stream of murder, rape, meth-fueled massacres, incest, spousal abuse, under-age drinking, and even worse than all that…wait for it…dog-napping!
It’s like the author had a board of that children’s game of Life with a wheel in the middle. He spins the wheel and whatever aspect of life the pointer shows, he writes a little story about something truly fucking awful happening there. Call it fun for the whole family, except replace “fun” with “death and destruction” but in a good way.
I read Love and Other Wounds by Jordan Harper and then this fine book in almost one, not-very-long bender and when I finished Crimes of Southern Indiana the two sets of stories had all mixed together like the bodies of two crowded jetliners that had collided upon landing, so sorting out the bodies took a partial reread, which was just fine by me. I think rescue workers at the above-mentioned aviation nightmare would probably be less-traumatized than anyone stupid enough to read these two short story collections back-to-back, and I mean that in a good way, whatever the fuck that means. I think it means I had so much fun reading these that I probably shouldn’t even admit that out loud.
As with the Jordan Harper stories, most of these start off a little foggy, like you’ve just woken up with a screaming hangover and desperately try to piece together the mess from last night’s blackout.
As with the Jordan Harper story collection, what the fuck is wrong with readers that this has so few ratings and reviews and some piece of disingenuous trash like Woman in the Window has…ugh…too damn many?
If I were forced to point out one criticism of this collection, it would be that every story has the same tone, like he's playing piano and only using one octave. Perhaps readers are uncomfortable when stories change drastically within a collection from completely menacing to the humorous or absurd. I just found it hard to separate one from the other.
The epigraph for this collection of stories should be, “I never promised you a rose garden.” What he does deliver to the faithful is an incestuous arterial stream of murder, rape, meth-fueled massacres, incest, spousal abuse, under-age drinking, and even worse than all that…wait for it…dog-napping!
It’s like the author had a board of that children’s game of Life with a wheel in the middle. He spins the wheel and whatever aspect of life the pointer shows, he writes a little story about something truly fucking awful happening there. Call it fun for the whole family, except replace “fun” with “death and destruction” but in a good way.
I read Love and Other Wounds by Jordan Harper and then this fine book in almost one, not-very-long bender and when I finished Crimes of Southern Indiana the two sets of stories had all mixed together like the bodies of two crowded jetliners that had collided upon landing, so sorting out the bodies took a partial reread, which was just fine by me. I think rescue workers at the above-mentioned aviation nightmare would probably be less-traumatized than anyone stupid enough to read these two short story collections back-to-back, and I mean that in a good way, whatever the fuck that means. I think it means I had so much fun reading these that I probably shouldn’t even admit that out loud.
As with the Jordan Harper stories, most of these start off a little foggy, like you’ve just woken up with a screaming hangover and desperately try to piece together the mess from last night’s blackout.
As with the Jordan Harper story collection, what the fuck is wrong with readers that this has so few ratings and reviews and some piece of disingenuous trash like Woman in the Window has…ugh…too damn many?
If I were forced to point out one criticism of this collection, it would be that every story has the same tone, like he's playing piano and only using one octave. Perhaps readers are uncomfortable when stories change drastically within a collection from completely menacing to the humorous or absurd. I just found it hard to separate one from the other.
December 30, 2011
You might try to comfort yourself by thinking that Frank Bill's exaggerating for dramatic effect in these short, tightly written tales of country meth addicts, domestic brutality, unpredictably vicious rednecks, and rural ultra-violence. You might try to tell yourself that things this grim and lurid could never happen in real life. But I can tell you, they do.
This is not a book for the faint of heart; it's pure distilled redneck noir, and there are few happy endings. But the quality of the writing keeps you coming back for just one more page, then another, until it's all gone, like a bottle of cheap whiskey that you can't put down and that's gone all too soon.
I got this book for Christmas, and Frank Bill just made it to the top of the "Buy As Soon As It Comes Out list."
This is not a book for the faint of heart; it's pure distilled redneck noir, and there are few happy endings. But the quality of the writing keeps you coming back for just one more page, then another, until it's all gone, like a bottle of cheap whiskey that you can't put down and that's gone all too soon.
I got this book for Christmas, and Frank Bill just made it to the top of the "Buy As Soon As It Comes Out list."
September 22, 2011
[This review was originally published at The Nervous Breakdown.]
When you think of places where crime lurks, locations where you should keep the car rolling through stop signs, where you never stop to ask for directions, a few names may pop into your head. Maybe you think of Detroit or East St. Louis, Baltimore or Miami. It’s time to add Corydon, Indiana, to that list, as well as the entire southern part of the state.
In Frank Bill’s violent, gut-wrenching, and heartfelt collection of short stories, Crimes in Southern Indiana, there is nowhere safe to hide—the criminals are happy to walk right in the front door pointing a shotgun in your face, spitting tobacco on the floor. A granddaughter is sold as a sex slave. A war veteran tries to forget the killings he committed out in the field as well as the abuse he inflicted on his family at home. Dogfights turn into moments of self-preservation and sudden morality. Family turns on itself while the police provide inadequate protection. All of this unfolds with a raw, unflinching portrayal of meth heads, delinquents, and lost souls searching for a way out. The stories are interlinked and overlapping, as it has to be in any small town, the hero in one story meeting his demise in another, the lawmaker in one tale becoming the criminal in the next.
Early on we get a strong sense of what life what must be like in Corydon and the surrounding communities. In “All the Awful” we witness the sale of Audry by her grandfather, ironically named Able, into slavery, her young flesh an easy commodity to move on the black market:
“One of the man’s hands gripped Audry’s wrists above her head. Forced them to the ground. She bucked her pelvis up. Wanted him off of her. The other hand groped the rounded shapes beneath her soiled wifebeater. Her eyes clasped. Held tears. The man’s tobacco-stained lips and bourbon breath dragged against her neck.”
Suffice it to say that Audry has a bit of spite and spirit left, unwilling to succumb to the fate that has been dealt to her. It’s a quick lesson on family and the men that inhabit the town she lives in, something she’ll surely never forget.
The fact that meth is a part of the lifestyle in Crimes in Southern Indiana is no shock—rural communities fall victim to the widespread drug, cheap to sell but dangerous to manufacture, explosions riddling the countryside and across the southlands. Eager to show both sides of the coin in his depiction of drug use and prosecution, Frank Bill takes on the mindset of the addict in “The Need,” painting a vivid picture of an addled mind:
“Speeding into the gravel curve, Wayne lost control of the Ford Courier, stomped the gas instead of the brake. Gunned the engine and met the wilderness of elms head-on. His head split the windshield, creating warm beads down his forehead, while flashbacks of an edge separating flesh and a screaming female amped through his memory.
Blood flaked off as Wayne balled his hands into fists, remembering the need he could no longer contain.”
We might be able to muster some sympathy for a man such as Wayne, if his barbaric acts earlier in the book, and still to come in this story, weren’t so heinous. In fact, one of the moral dilemmas that Frank Bill presents to us is this very duality of human nature. How can someone wish death upon another while at the same time seething at the violent acts that have just been committed? It’s hypocritical to condemn the same killings and brutality that eventually worm their way into your flesh and blood, your jaw clenched, temples throbbing for revenge, and justice. The plight of the vigilante is understood across these stories, even if we are constantly uncertain who is the darkest soul on the page.
This need to condemn while also striving to understand is evident in the story “The Old Mechanic.” We are told of his back story, his abuse of a wife, violent and unflinching, and yet later, we see this man as a victim of the wars he fought, forever traumatized, unable to deal with his fears and emotions, lashing out at those around him. The following two examples illustrate this nauseating problem:
“Here was a time when the shell shock of war was ignored. What the repercussions of warfare did to a man’s brain. The seeing, hearing, and participating. And like the war, the abusing of a woman was overlooked. People pretended it never happened. This was a time when till-death-do-us-part was an enforced rule of matrimony. When wives didn’t leave their husbands. They obeyed them.”
Paired with this later passage, the Old Mechanic tries to bond with his grandson, Frank, who fears and hates him, clutching his knife, ready to defend so much as a stray hand placed on his head:
“Frank is torn between not knowing the Old Mechanic and wanting to know him. He places the stories he’s grown up with in the back of his mind, the cinnamon candy and Tom and Jerry, the dead dog, and remembers what his mother told him: the Old Mechanic deserves a chance.
Frank stands up and faces the Old Mechanic, places a hand on his shoulder, knowing the Old Mechanic could just be tricking him. He’s not letting go of this bayonet. But he also wants to know. ‘Really, you really served in a real war, in World War Two? You really killed people?’”
Another lesson that we are taught is to stand up for your own and take care of whatever family business needs to be settled, over any span of time, in whatever way you deem appropriate. The death of her father, the slaughter that took place on her property, it fills Abby (and policeman Billy Hines as well) with echoes that never stop reverberating, pulling her forward on a leash that cannot be severed:
“The girl thumbed the hammer of the .45-caliber Colt. Then the safety. He thought he’d gotten away with what he’d done ten years ago. He’d been questioned. Had an alibi. Then he was forgotten when her grandfather wouldn’t talk.
But when the girl swung the tin door open none of that would matter. Because she was carrying on his wisdom. And watching from the four-by-four, Billy Hines could forgive himself and her grandfather could rest in peace after his granddaughter pulled the trigger, just as he had that night ten years ago, until the clip was empty.”
With Crimes in Southern Indiana, we bear witness to a series of tragedies that snowball across the crossroads of America, one minute struggling to digest the atrocities that have been revealed, the next minute applauding the vicious retribution that is dealt out with no remorse. By forcing us to be a part of these events, and this community, Bill pulls us into a web of complicated family dynamics, laws that hold no value, and an entrepreneurial attitude that can only be called survival. Revealing vivid details, visceral language and an honesty that cannot be denied, Frank Bill has left a stained and dog-eared diary behind for those that are brave enough to open it.
When you think of places where crime lurks, locations where you should keep the car rolling through stop signs, where you never stop to ask for directions, a few names may pop into your head. Maybe you think of Detroit or East St. Louis, Baltimore or Miami. It’s time to add Corydon, Indiana, to that list, as well as the entire southern part of the state.
In Frank Bill’s violent, gut-wrenching, and heartfelt collection of short stories, Crimes in Southern Indiana, there is nowhere safe to hide—the criminals are happy to walk right in the front door pointing a shotgun in your face, spitting tobacco on the floor. A granddaughter is sold as a sex slave. A war veteran tries to forget the killings he committed out in the field as well as the abuse he inflicted on his family at home. Dogfights turn into moments of self-preservation and sudden morality. Family turns on itself while the police provide inadequate protection. All of this unfolds with a raw, unflinching portrayal of meth heads, delinquents, and lost souls searching for a way out. The stories are interlinked and overlapping, as it has to be in any small town, the hero in one story meeting his demise in another, the lawmaker in one tale becoming the criminal in the next.
Early on we get a strong sense of what life what must be like in Corydon and the surrounding communities. In “All the Awful” we witness the sale of Audry by her grandfather, ironically named Able, into slavery, her young flesh an easy commodity to move on the black market:
“One of the man’s hands gripped Audry’s wrists above her head. Forced them to the ground. She bucked her pelvis up. Wanted him off of her. The other hand groped the rounded shapes beneath her soiled wifebeater. Her eyes clasped. Held tears. The man’s tobacco-stained lips and bourbon breath dragged against her neck.”
Suffice it to say that Audry has a bit of spite and spirit left, unwilling to succumb to the fate that has been dealt to her. It’s a quick lesson on family and the men that inhabit the town she lives in, something she’ll surely never forget.
The fact that meth is a part of the lifestyle in Crimes in Southern Indiana is no shock—rural communities fall victim to the widespread drug, cheap to sell but dangerous to manufacture, explosions riddling the countryside and across the southlands. Eager to show both sides of the coin in his depiction of drug use and prosecution, Frank Bill takes on the mindset of the addict in “The Need,” painting a vivid picture of an addled mind:
“Speeding into the gravel curve, Wayne lost control of the Ford Courier, stomped the gas instead of the brake. Gunned the engine and met the wilderness of elms head-on. His head split the windshield, creating warm beads down his forehead, while flashbacks of an edge separating flesh and a screaming female amped through his memory.
Blood flaked off as Wayne balled his hands into fists, remembering the need he could no longer contain.”
We might be able to muster some sympathy for a man such as Wayne, if his barbaric acts earlier in the book, and still to come in this story, weren’t so heinous. In fact, one of the moral dilemmas that Frank Bill presents to us is this very duality of human nature. How can someone wish death upon another while at the same time seething at the violent acts that have just been committed? It’s hypocritical to condemn the same killings and brutality that eventually worm their way into your flesh and blood, your jaw clenched, temples throbbing for revenge, and justice. The plight of the vigilante is understood across these stories, even if we are constantly uncertain who is the darkest soul on the page.
This need to condemn while also striving to understand is evident in the story “The Old Mechanic.” We are told of his back story, his abuse of a wife, violent and unflinching, and yet later, we see this man as a victim of the wars he fought, forever traumatized, unable to deal with his fears and emotions, lashing out at those around him. The following two examples illustrate this nauseating problem:
“Here was a time when the shell shock of war was ignored. What the repercussions of warfare did to a man’s brain. The seeing, hearing, and participating. And like the war, the abusing of a woman was overlooked. People pretended it never happened. This was a time when till-death-do-us-part was an enforced rule of matrimony. When wives didn’t leave their husbands. They obeyed them.”
Paired with this later passage, the Old Mechanic tries to bond with his grandson, Frank, who fears and hates him, clutching his knife, ready to defend so much as a stray hand placed on his head:
“Frank is torn between not knowing the Old Mechanic and wanting to know him. He places the stories he’s grown up with in the back of his mind, the cinnamon candy and Tom and Jerry, the dead dog, and remembers what his mother told him: the Old Mechanic deserves a chance.
Frank stands up and faces the Old Mechanic, places a hand on his shoulder, knowing the Old Mechanic could just be tricking him. He’s not letting go of this bayonet. But he also wants to know. ‘Really, you really served in a real war, in World War Two? You really killed people?’”
Another lesson that we are taught is to stand up for your own and take care of whatever family business needs to be settled, over any span of time, in whatever way you deem appropriate. The death of her father, the slaughter that took place on her property, it fills Abby (and policeman Billy Hines as well) with echoes that never stop reverberating, pulling her forward on a leash that cannot be severed:
“The girl thumbed the hammer of the .45-caliber Colt. Then the safety. He thought he’d gotten away with what he’d done ten years ago. He’d been questioned. Had an alibi. Then he was forgotten when her grandfather wouldn’t talk.
But when the girl swung the tin door open none of that would matter. Because she was carrying on his wisdom. And watching from the four-by-four, Billy Hines could forgive himself and her grandfather could rest in peace after his granddaughter pulled the trigger, just as he had that night ten years ago, until the clip was empty.”
With Crimes in Southern Indiana, we bear witness to a series of tragedies that snowball across the crossroads of America, one minute struggling to digest the atrocities that have been revealed, the next minute applauding the vicious retribution that is dealt out with no remorse. By forcing us to be a part of these events, and this community, Bill pulls us into a web of complicated family dynamics, laws that hold no value, and an entrepreneurial attitude that can only be called survival. Revealing vivid details, visceral language and an honesty that cannot be denied, Frank Bill has left a stained and dog-eared diary behind for those that are brave enough to open it.
September 9, 2014
Praise from Donald Ray Pollock is certainly a compliment, and I had been looking forward to this for a while.
It lives up to the praise from another master of the noir. Noir it certainly is. It reads as a series of short stories that are linked to each other, at the very least by the Southern Indiana setting, and also some characters appear in successive stories. Many of the most unpleasant topics are dealt with, not least drug abuse, incest, torture, and murder very much most foul. Frank Bill writes with a language close to that of Tom Waites and in doing so it is the making of the book, the difference that makes quality dark writing as opposed to simply trying to shock the reader. Bill's scenes and commentary is certainly disturbing, but it just leaves the reader wanting more. To achieve that is the secret of this genre.
It lives up to the praise from another master of the noir. Noir it certainly is. It reads as a series of short stories that are linked to each other, at the very least by the Southern Indiana setting, and also some characters appear in successive stories. Many of the most unpleasant topics are dealt with, not least drug abuse, incest, torture, and murder very much most foul. Frank Bill writes with a language close to that of Tom Waites and in doing so it is the making of the book, the difference that makes quality dark writing as opposed to simply trying to shock the reader. Bill's scenes and commentary is certainly disturbing, but it just leaves the reader wanting more. To achieve that is the secret of this genre.
November 16, 2015
Yeah, he thought, I’s a son of a bitch.
Wow, my heartrate is up having finished this book. These stories are wild, violent, and bloody. All madness and mayhem everywhere.
The stories are short and well-contained. I liked how certain characters appeared (or were mentioned) in several stories, playing the part of victim in one and as a perpetrator in the other, tying these separate stories together.
And the dogs....the dogs. Sigh. I read through all the violence done to and by the humans without batting an eye, but when it came to man's best friend I felt my heart tug for each one of them.
April 27, 2022
This was recommended to me in the same conversation as Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff, but for all the superficial similarities the gulf in quality is huge. Frank Bill's autobiographical immersion in his subject matter might be every bit as "authentic" as Pollock's for all I know, but he certainly doesn't write like it: this is hyper-stylised to within an inch of its life, but there's no real flair to it, and you can always sense how hard it's trying to sound as whiskey-soaked and nicotine-stained as possible, like a middling Tom Waits impersonator.
March 1, 2023
Holy hell this is the first time I've read anything by this author and Frank Bill you have a new fan for life cuz after reading this collection of short stories I went and purchased 3 more books by you. This collection was just fucking raw. This is southern noir at its best man. These stories just show the savagery and the brutality that the human animal is capable of. The author sets the scenes and characters up so well that you are transported to the south where vengeance, vigilante justice, and crime are a part of life. This collection fucking rules I highly recommend this.
April 25, 2018
Starkly original crime fiction that stunned me with it's violent depiction of poverty and desperation. Unforgettably brilliant short stories that I highly recommend!
May 4, 2023
17 Stories / 17 Knockouts
As a reader, I find few things as rewarding as discovering a new-to-me powerhouse writer. I've seen a lot of comparisons to McCarthy and Pollock, but this dude hits harder. No disrespect to those two authors (both of whom I admire), but this guy's prose punches like mid-to-late-'80s-era Mike Tyson. Don't believe me? Read this collection, and you'll see what I mean. I'm off to read DONNYBROOK next, and anything else Bill has ever published or ever will. This is a writer you do not want to miss. Highly recommended!
As a reader, I find few things as rewarding as discovering a new-to-me powerhouse writer. I've seen a lot of comparisons to McCarthy and Pollock, but this dude hits harder. No disrespect to those two authors (both of whom I admire), but this guy's prose punches like mid-to-late-'80s-era Mike Tyson. Don't believe me? Read this collection, and you'll see what I mean. I'm off to read DONNYBROOK next, and anything else Bill has ever published or ever will. This is a writer you do not want to miss. Highly recommended!
April 5, 2012
Crimes in Southern Indiana sounded like my kind of book. 'Blasts off like a rocket ship and hits as hard as an axe handle to the side of the head'*
It is frenetic. Its fierce, violent and bloody. But it is also repetitious & one dimensional. Nothing meaningful transpires, there is no pleasure, not even of the sadistic kind, the characters forget to want in the taking.
After the works of Donald Ray Pollock & Daniel Woodrell, I guess I'm spoiled for the pulpy end of the genre, but given this is Frank Bill's debut, there may be better things ahead.
It is frenetic. Its fierce, violent and bloody. But it is also repetitious & one dimensional. Nothing meaningful transpires, there is no pleasure, not even of the sadistic kind, the characters forget to want in the taking.
After the works of Donald Ray Pollock & Daniel Woodrell, I guess I'm spoiled for the pulpy end of the genre, but given this is Frank Bill's debut, there may be better things ahead.
April 8, 2012
To quote Donald Ray Pollock on this: `Good Lord, where the hell did this guy come from?'
Frank Bill describes his work more succinctly and directly than I'm about to when he says at his blog, `House Of Grit', `I don't waste words, I write them.'
In `Crimes In Southern Indiana' we have a book to cherish.
Essentially a collection of short stories, the work grabs hold harder with each page read.
Stories overlap as characters and histories reappear in new situations, the circles becoming tighter and tighter until the lines of definition begin to blur and it begins to feel like a novel and like a work of major force.
They tell of a culture that seems completely engrained in the communities and families we get to visit. It's a culture of depth and of major contradiction, one that an outsider might feel the need to eradicate without wanting to throw out the babies with the bathwater. There's good and bad in there and they're so tangled together that there's little hope of separation.
Family loyalty and blood ties are deep-rooted. Revenge is on an eye -for-an-eye basis; better still, two eyes are taken for the one. History and economics has left the people impoverished and forgotten. War veterans pick up the pieces. Police do what they can and sometimes what they shouldn't. Children are ruled with iron-fists and belt-buckles. Need drives all, even the selling of a young girl or the delivery of a knife into a throat. Guns are as part of daily life as pieces of furniture. Hunting takes on new boundaries. Friendships are tight until they aren't. People react to survive in any way they can.
In all the snapshots shown, the centre of the event is often an act of brutality. Within a short space of time, Bill is able to explain lives and reasons and facts without ever being heavy-handed. What is clear is that black and white aren't really colours - they're illusions. There were times during the collection that I was applauding acts of immense brutality and I'll applaud the next time I read them, too.
What I love about a really good short story is the way that it can engage with feeling and with power to leave me completely bowled over. The effect of stringing a series of interwoven tales of the highest calibre is absolutely stunning on all levels (stunned by craft, plot, character, situation, imagination, heart and courage).
Frank Bill is a man who can take hold of the emotional core of a situation as if it were some winged insect, and at the end decide whether to squash it or let it go. He never shirks from difficult finales and tells things exactly as they have to be.
Miss this one and you're making a huge mistake.
Simply magnificent.
Frank Bill describes his work more succinctly and directly than I'm about to when he says at his blog, `House Of Grit', `I don't waste words, I write them.'
In `Crimes In Southern Indiana' we have a book to cherish.
Essentially a collection of short stories, the work grabs hold harder with each page read.
Stories overlap as characters and histories reappear in new situations, the circles becoming tighter and tighter until the lines of definition begin to blur and it begins to feel like a novel and like a work of major force.
They tell of a culture that seems completely engrained in the communities and families we get to visit. It's a culture of depth and of major contradiction, one that an outsider might feel the need to eradicate without wanting to throw out the babies with the bathwater. There's good and bad in there and they're so tangled together that there's little hope of separation.
Family loyalty and blood ties are deep-rooted. Revenge is on an eye -for-an-eye basis; better still, two eyes are taken for the one. History and economics has left the people impoverished and forgotten. War veterans pick up the pieces. Police do what they can and sometimes what they shouldn't. Children are ruled with iron-fists and belt-buckles. Need drives all, even the selling of a young girl or the delivery of a knife into a throat. Guns are as part of daily life as pieces of furniture. Hunting takes on new boundaries. Friendships are tight until they aren't. People react to survive in any way they can.
In all the snapshots shown, the centre of the event is often an act of brutality. Within a short space of time, Bill is able to explain lives and reasons and facts without ever being heavy-handed. What is clear is that black and white aren't really colours - they're illusions. There were times during the collection that I was applauding acts of immense brutality and I'll applaud the next time I read them, too.
What I love about a really good short story is the way that it can engage with feeling and with power to leave me completely bowled over. The effect of stringing a series of interwoven tales of the highest calibre is absolutely stunning on all levels (stunned by craft, plot, character, situation, imagination, heart and courage).
Frank Bill is a man who can take hold of the emotional core of a situation as if it were some winged insect, and at the end decide whether to squash it or let it go. He never shirks from difficult finales and tells things exactly as they have to be.
Miss this one and you're making a huge mistake.
Simply magnificent.
May 11, 2017
CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA by Frank Bill is an impressive collection of backwoods short stories involving crimes native to the rural geographic area, and several of them are intertwined with characters reappearing in subsequent stories. All of the stories involve crime and depravity that although fictional could be true of remote areas such as described here, and interesting to note that meth takes the place of moonshine as the #1 commodity causing all manner of social ills and multiple instances of betrayal.
Frank Bill, author of Donnybrook (of which one of the stories here is a precursor to) writes hard hitting raunchy tales with no pulled punches of survival of the fittest in the sticks where justice doesn't usually include the law, unless they appear in the form of corrupt opportunists.
Highly recommended for fans of “hick-lit”, or anyone interested in something like Elmore Leonard and “Justified” but without any boundaries, definitely not for the faint of heart.
5 stars.
Frank Bill, author of Donnybrook (of which one of the stories here is a precursor to) writes hard hitting raunchy tales with no pulled punches of survival of the fittest in the sticks where justice doesn't usually include the law, unless they appear in the form of corrupt opportunists.
Highly recommended for fans of “hick-lit”, or anyone interested in something like Elmore Leonard and “Justified” but without any boundaries, definitely not for the faint of heart.
5 stars.
September 16, 2011
It's amazing the characters of this region managed to live long enough to appear in their stories, given the rate at which they're bludgeoned and exterminated so indiscriminately. The first couple tales will tell you right away whether this is for you or not. Full of vengeance, cheatin', meth, dogfighting, etc. — hard-livin' folk playing their dealt hands the only way they know how, past always nipping at their doors. It's very consistent, and though the tales get and certain descriptions get a bit repetitive after awhile, it finishes strong. Had to take it in small doses, partly because of the nature of the material, but also the massive amount of characters and bloodlines and histories-of-wrongdoings introduced. If you like Don Pollock's work, there's a good chance you'll dig this as well.
February 22, 2013
This book was a big disappointment. Not only did it come highly recommended by my brother who I usually agree with on books and movies, but it had a rave blurb from Donald Ray Pollock, whose Knockemstiff is my favorite book I've read in the last few months. Unlike Knockemstiff or other rural gothic books like Winter's Bone or early Cormac McCarthy, this book doesn't bother much with creating characters with any depth before brutalizing them.
This isn't a study of real people malformed by a harsh environment dealing with their limited possibilities, it's just a gory comic book without pictures.
This isn't a study of real people malformed by a harsh environment dealing with their limited possibilities, it's just a gory comic book without pictures.
January 26, 2024
Not sure Frank Bill would be welcome as an employee for the Indiana Tourist Board, but this is a decent collection of stories of the brutal small town lives of people sinking fast.
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