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Country Hardball
A powerfully observed, evocative, and “downright dazzling” (The New York Times) portrait of the American working class in this collection of related stories, perfect for fans of Bonnie Jo Campbell and Denis Johnson
After more than a decade spent in and out of juvenile detention, halfway houses, and jail, Roy Alison returns to his rural hometown determined to do better. But what he finds is a working-class community devastated by the economic downturn—a town without anything to hold onto but the past.
Staying with his grandmother, Roy discovers a family history of good intentions and bad choices. Around him, families lose their sons to war, hunting accidents, drugs. And Roy, along with the town, falls into old patterns established generations ago.
With Steve Weddle’s signature “powerful, empathetic” (Sean Chercover, Wall Street Journal bestselling author) prose, this novel-in-stories is a masterful and understated exploration of hardship, truth and hope.
After more than a decade spent in and out of juvenile detention, halfway houses, and jail, Roy Alison returns to his rural hometown determined to do better. But what he finds is a working-class community devastated by the economic downturn—a town without anything to hold onto but the past.
Staying with his grandmother, Roy discovers a family history of good intentions and bad choices. Around him, families lose their sons to war, hunting accidents, drugs. And Roy, along with the town, falls into old patterns established generations ago.
With Steve Weddle’s signature “powerful, empathetic” (Sean Chercover, Wall Street Journal bestselling author) prose, this novel-in-stories is a masterful and understated exploration of hardship, truth and hope.
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 4, 2013
24 people are currently reading
543 people want to read
About the author
Steve Weddle
30 books103 followersSteve Weddle’s THE LAST OUTLAW CAMP, pitched as DEADWOOD meets BOARDWALK EMPIRE, the story of a small town boy who returns home and becomes embroiled in some ill-conceived ransom plans with local scofflaws and ornery characters, set against the unyielding backdrop of the Great Depression, to Alison Dasho at Lake Union Publishing, for publication in 2024, by Josh Getzler at HG Literary (world).
Weddle's Country Hardball (Tyrus, 2013) was called "downright dazzling" by the New York Times. The French translation, Le Bon Fils, will be published in 2016 by Gallmeister.
His most recent short story, "South of Bradley," appears in Playboy magazine.
Weddle's Country Hardball (Tyrus, 2013) was called "downright dazzling" by the New York Times. The French translation, Le Bon Fils, will be published in 2016 by Gallmeister.
His most recent short story, "South of Bradley," appears in Playboy magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
March 26, 2014
Steve Weddle introduces readers to a rural town that seems to be on its way to being obsolete in his debut Country Hardball. The jobs are scarce, the reasons to be happy are few and far between, and there is no shortage of more woes to come. As we are given insight to many different townsfolk, the main character Roy Allison seems to hold all the intermingling stories together.
Roy Allison has had more than a few run ins with the law. He's even endured a stint in Juvenile Detention. In an effort to remake his life, he returns to live with his grandmother to the town of his youth. From his first chapter on, it's apparent there are maybe some people who don't want him to remind him that his past is never too far from him. And it could quite possibly creep up and leave you bloody and dying in a creek.
Many of the stories in this novel are similar to Allison's. We are introduced to some hard working people who are one car repair away from bankruptcy, or banking on their sons ability to play baseball to climb out of the hole that has become this town. Weddle does not tell there story in an effort to get tears jerking but in a way that proves the resilience that is the human spirit.
Although with few resources, each character finds a way to get up each morning and keep moving on. Sure there are characters who may choose a sketchy way of skirting poverty while others just go to their 9-5s, each story relays the message that the choices we make are what matters. At many times I thought that maybe this town gave up... but that wasn't entirely true for me once I finished the novel.
Ultimately, Country Hardball is an interesting told in stories that deserves to be read. Steve Weddle definitely held my attention and had me invested completely even with the short glimpses into their lives provided. I hope it doesn't always remain true that once somethings starts going, there's nothing that can bring it back. If that's true than our country has a problem.
Copy provided by Tyrus Books via a Goodreads Giveaway
Roy Allison has had more than a few run ins with the law. He's even endured a stint in Juvenile Detention. In an effort to remake his life, he returns to live with his grandmother to the town of his youth. From his first chapter on, it's apparent there are maybe some people who don't want him to remind him that his past is never too far from him. And it could quite possibly creep up and leave you bloody and dying in a creek.
Many of the stories in this novel are similar to Allison's. We are introduced to some hard working people who are one car repair away from bankruptcy, or banking on their sons ability to play baseball to climb out of the hole that has become this town. Weddle does not tell there story in an effort to get tears jerking but in a way that proves the resilience that is the human spirit.
Although with few resources, each character finds a way to get up each morning and keep moving on. Sure there are characters who may choose a sketchy way of skirting poverty while others just go to their 9-5s, each story relays the message that the choices we make are what matters. At many times I thought that maybe this town gave up... but that wasn't entirely true for me once I finished the novel.
Ultimately, Country Hardball is an interesting told in stories that deserves to be read. Steve Weddle definitely held my attention and had me invested completely even with the short glimpses into their lives provided. I hope it doesn't always remain true that once somethings starts going, there's nothing that can bring it back. If that's true than our country has a problem.
Copy provided by Tyrus Books via a Goodreads Giveaway
January 25, 2014
Every year, a bunch of my citified friends and I make an escape from the metro Nashville area to the Arkansas Ozarks. Our mission to try and get back to the simpler things in life; a relaxing few days away from phones and emails all the while chasing monster trout up and down the sometimes muddy currents where the Buffalo, Norfork, and White rivers all kinda mix together. Along the way, we have ran into some quite remarkably messed up locals whether that be our appointed guide for the day, a waitress at the Mexican restaurant, or some random person at the Dollar General out by the river. Inevitably, the discussion around the fire pit devolves into, "How do these people survive in this world?"
Well, this book answers that question, and others through the inner related short stories (mostly short short stories) but in a grand sense it lays out the possibilities that seemingly unrelated components of life really have deeper connections for all of us along life's journey. Weddle paints the picture by connecting the dots from the ancestral roots of pre-modern rural life to the present day spiral and pattern of despair that sometime accompanies the stresses of living in forgotten communities and hamlets. Those parts of our country that go unknown to the masses until some disaster or touching heartstrings story might refocus our attention there for an hour or two while watching Anderson Cooper on the tube.
I was dang thankful to win this title through a Goodreads "first reads" give away, but you can look on my shelf and see that those books in no way get extra merit from me- this is a solid 5 and future titles from this man are on auto buy. The closest comparison would be Knockemstiff but there's more breathing room in Weddle's version of rural life. Violence, yes, but also a root and a track from which that stems. Great job, I will get the point a little more the next time I leave the cocoon of city life.
Well, this book answers that question, and others through the inner related short stories (mostly short short stories) but in a grand sense it lays out the possibilities that seemingly unrelated components of life really have deeper connections for all of us along life's journey. Weddle paints the picture by connecting the dots from the ancestral roots of pre-modern rural life to the present day spiral and pattern of despair that sometime accompanies the stresses of living in forgotten communities and hamlets. Those parts of our country that go unknown to the masses until some disaster or touching heartstrings story might refocus our attention there for an hour or two while watching Anderson Cooper on the tube.
I was dang thankful to win this title through a Goodreads "first reads" give away, but you can look on my shelf and see that those books in no way get extra merit from me- this is a solid 5 and future titles from this man are on auto buy. The closest comparison would be Knockemstiff but there's more breathing room in Weddle's version of rural life. Violence, yes, but also a root and a track from which that stems. Great job, I will get the point a little more the next time I leave the cocoon of city life.
December 24, 2015
This book should probably be in the top 5 for "Country Noire". As noted by the title it is hard, as in hard-boiled crime. I did not realize ,when I purchased, that it was a book of short stories. The side benefit is that with basically the same characters in each short story, the collection reads almost like a novel. Piecing all of the stories together creates a cohesive whole.** The other thing that puts this above 90% of books in the genre is that violence is entirely played down and non-graphic. I am accustomed to busted knuckles, dripping blood and gore, yet a murder in these stories might be nothing more than "he placed the gun against her head, he pulled the trigger". In fact the lack of graphic violence only seems to heighten the threat. I've seen Faulkner do the same thing to great effect. The questions then become whether your criminal friends can be trusted, will your cousin have your back, or how complicit will the deputy be in the crime that is planned? Creepy and frightening, this is definitely top-shelf!
January 21, 2014
A deceptively deep and penetrating look at the folks in a small town in Southern Arkansas. The economic woes of the country have made their way there and hunkered down for the duration. Eighteen short stories acquaint the reader with the families of the Pribbles, Tatums, Jenkins, Rudds and others. Everything is intertwined here, in the town and within the stories. The tone is bleak, but real.
This was a First-reads giveaway, thank you. A mighty fine debut.
This was a First-reads giveaway, thank you. A mighty fine debut.
Want to read
January 25, 2014My sincere thanks for friend Josh Webber's recommendation of this work to me. This is an example of how valuable goodreads is to readers, offering each of us to put books in the hands of those whom we believe will enjoy them.
November 25, 2013
Steve Weddle’s Country Hardball is a tremendous collection of stories that intersect and overlap to form a major modern work. He really has put together something rather special here and I’d urge you to read it.
There’s so much to love about the book that it’s difficult to know where to start.
I’ll begin with the cover. That’s not the obvious place, but it does hint at what’s to come. It has the silhouette of a man walking down a lane that passes a small house and then disappears as if to nowhere. Above his head is a circle of sunlight that’s surrounded by oppressive and powerful looking dark clouds. It’s a strange balance of the static and the moving. A blend of hope within hopelessness and hopelessness within hope. And the house, solitary and small, could hold anything from a warm welcome to a sinister ending. In these ways, it gives a suggestion of what’s inside.
The stories themselves are beautifully balanced. They tend to play out major moments in people’s lives as seen through what might be everyday happenings or simple interactions. It’s that ability to focus upon the small and suggest enormity that really highlights the talent of the author.
Weddle has a wonderful sense of touch. The weight of the words is practically perfect and, like I imagine the battle of wits between a baseball pitcher and a hitter to be, the changes of pace and direction are gripping.
Should you read this, you’ll get the chance to walk a mile or two in another’s shoes. The shoes aren’t likely to be new or well-healed, but by the time you get to take them off, you’ll know you’ve been on a journey.
Weddle must have a wonderful ability to empathise with people because, more often than not, I felt I’d really inhabited someone’s life for a spell. Understood their woes, their fears, their dilemmas and their need to cope. Each tale did something to my breathing; as I reached the end, I’d find I was either deeply inhaling, exhaling or simply holding on to my breath like I didn’t want to let it go for a little while longer so that I could savour the last nuances of the page.
A review, any review, will struggle to do the book justice. I did try and pick out a few quotes here and there for a while in the hope that I’d be able to give a sense of what I’m trying to say. In the end, I was sticking so many markers in between pages that I couldn’t hold the thing up any more without losing them.
Here are a couple of moments from The Thing With Feathers. A boy shoots a bird, injures it, and suddenly wants to take back the damage:
‘The bird fluttered at his touch, shifted along the ground, then settled under the boy’s hand,’
which sets him thinking about his mother:
‘He thought of lying in bed with his mother when she got the sadness,’
and then takes us to the time the bad news arrives:
‘One of the women looked and saw him and said she was sorry and everything was going to be all right and it would be fine and it would be okay. It’s bad now, but will be okay. It will be okay. But it wasn’t.’
There’s such a melancholy beauty to the sentences and phrases that I couldn’t help but be moved. That’s the way I felt throughout – moved and shaken and wanting more.
And then there was this:
‘On a good day I could get a Texas Rangers game [on the radio]. I didn’t much care for any of them, but if they were playing the New York Yankees, at least I’d have someone to root against. Sometimes it just works out better to root against something.’
Brilliant.
Each of the stories was my favourite while I was reading it – I think they’re all that good. With a small amount of distance from it now, I loved the opener about a boy who’s had a family heirloom taken from him by bullies and think it really sets the tone perfectly. A story about parents whose child is trying out for the All Stars and who can’t afford for him to make the grade (maybe they could buy just one more lottery ticket a week – they’ll think of something) is really special. The story of the store manager who remembers burying an elephant when the circus came to town while he tries to decide which of his employees to lay off is stunning. Not to mention the ex-military man who finds the girl who’s been missing for a while.
Important to me is the political flavour of the work; there’s no capital P to the word in this collection, but it is often an indictment of the poverty many have to suffer in these times.
Best thing I can do now is shuffle on and let you buy the book and read it for yourself. No doubt you’ll be as impressed by these tales as I have been.
If there’s justice, Country Hardball will be studied one day and still be talked about fifty years hence. Here’s hoping.
There’s so much to love about the book that it’s difficult to know where to start.
I’ll begin with the cover. That’s not the obvious place, but it does hint at what’s to come. It has the silhouette of a man walking down a lane that passes a small house and then disappears as if to nowhere. Above his head is a circle of sunlight that’s surrounded by oppressive and powerful looking dark clouds. It’s a strange balance of the static and the moving. A blend of hope within hopelessness and hopelessness within hope. And the house, solitary and small, could hold anything from a warm welcome to a sinister ending. In these ways, it gives a suggestion of what’s inside.
The stories themselves are beautifully balanced. They tend to play out major moments in people’s lives as seen through what might be everyday happenings or simple interactions. It’s that ability to focus upon the small and suggest enormity that really highlights the talent of the author.
Weddle has a wonderful sense of touch. The weight of the words is practically perfect and, like I imagine the battle of wits between a baseball pitcher and a hitter to be, the changes of pace and direction are gripping.
Should you read this, you’ll get the chance to walk a mile or two in another’s shoes. The shoes aren’t likely to be new or well-healed, but by the time you get to take them off, you’ll know you’ve been on a journey.
Weddle must have a wonderful ability to empathise with people because, more often than not, I felt I’d really inhabited someone’s life for a spell. Understood their woes, their fears, their dilemmas and their need to cope. Each tale did something to my breathing; as I reached the end, I’d find I was either deeply inhaling, exhaling or simply holding on to my breath like I didn’t want to let it go for a little while longer so that I could savour the last nuances of the page.
A review, any review, will struggle to do the book justice. I did try and pick out a few quotes here and there for a while in the hope that I’d be able to give a sense of what I’m trying to say. In the end, I was sticking so many markers in between pages that I couldn’t hold the thing up any more without losing them.
Here are a couple of moments from The Thing With Feathers. A boy shoots a bird, injures it, and suddenly wants to take back the damage:
‘The bird fluttered at his touch, shifted along the ground, then settled under the boy’s hand,’
which sets him thinking about his mother:
‘He thought of lying in bed with his mother when she got the sadness,’
and then takes us to the time the bad news arrives:
‘One of the women looked and saw him and said she was sorry and everything was going to be all right and it would be fine and it would be okay. It’s bad now, but will be okay. It will be okay. But it wasn’t.’
There’s such a melancholy beauty to the sentences and phrases that I couldn’t help but be moved. That’s the way I felt throughout – moved and shaken and wanting more.
And then there was this:
‘On a good day I could get a Texas Rangers game [on the radio]. I didn’t much care for any of them, but if they were playing the New York Yankees, at least I’d have someone to root against. Sometimes it just works out better to root against something.’
Brilliant.
Each of the stories was my favourite while I was reading it – I think they’re all that good. With a small amount of distance from it now, I loved the opener about a boy who’s had a family heirloom taken from him by bullies and think it really sets the tone perfectly. A story about parents whose child is trying out for the All Stars and who can’t afford for him to make the grade (maybe they could buy just one more lottery ticket a week – they’ll think of something) is really special. The story of the store manager who remembers burying an elephant when the circus came to town while he tries to decide which of his employees to lay off is stunning. Not to mention the ex-military man who finds the girl who’s been missing for a while.
Important to me is the political flavour of the work; there’s no capital P to the word in this collection, but it is often an indictment of the poverty many have to suffer in these times.
Best thing I can do now is shuffle on and let you buy the book and read it for yourself. No doubt you’ll be as impressed by these tales as I have been.
If there’s justice, Country Hardball will be studied one day and still be talked about fifty years hence. Here’s hoping.
February 1, 2014
Crisp, tight writing, but takes forever for the stories to go anywhere. Will check out his next book.
March 22, 2014
Out of the park.
April 12, 2018
Je serai bref, car je doute de deux choses, soit la traduction est une des plus horribles que j'ai lu de toute ma vie, soit le format numérique que j'ai lu avait un problème quelconque. On parle de la qualité de l'écriture sur le bandeau, mais ce que j'ai lu était horrible. Une structure de phrase déficiente, avec des virgules et des coupures qui n'avaient aucun sens. Je n'ai pas pu le finir en raison de ce manque de sens, il semblait littéralement traduit sur Google traduction, et par la version actuel, mais remontons de cinq ou six ans... Je ne peux tout simplement pas croire qu'il n'y avait pas de problème technique avec cette version...
October 23, 2020
We live as we dream---alone. I can't say I 100% agree with that statement, but man, fun was had seeing it play out from different points of view. A novel in short stories, Country Hardball not only has rhythm, but voice and characters to spare. Roy Alison and Skinny Dennis McWilliams for me being the standouts. The third being Weddle himself. The man, he can write, there's no doubt in that, but what he also does is make you feel. Which, in the end, is what it's all about. Go forth, seek out, purchase and enjoy. Tell 'em another lover of crime fiction sent you.
August 19, 2013
This review is based on a version of a book I received from NetGalley. The only errors I noted were in spacing so I’m assuming the final version of the book, including some of the excerpts included here will be essentially the same as what I read. Since the writing was so good, I wanted to include some excerpts, so hopefully they’ll stay in the final published version. CDB (8/19/13)
First, let me say that this book has excellent writing and stories and provides a true sense of life in the rural area of Columbus County, Arkansas. I’ve decided to give this a top rating despite having some misgivings about that rating because of my occasional confusion while reading the book. However, after thinking about it especially after waiting a week or so to write this review, I’m convinced that the writing is just too good to not warrant the top rating.
The book starts out almost immediately giving the gloomy darkness that will permeate throughout the novel’s stories. The book starts with Champion Tatum and his son still trying to get over the death of Champion’s wife:
In the second section (chapter?) of the book, the main character of the book, Roy Allison is introduced and it is in these sections that the book is told in the first person. As you learn later, Roy is returning from spending time in juvenile detention and although he now has a job with the county he is not always welcomed when trying to do his job.
Roy’s life becomes difficult after accidentally killing his parents at 16 years old in a car accident while taking them to the hospital. He’s hoping to improve now upon his return to the area but that’s not being easy.
One of the themes that Roy and others in the book have is around life choices as in this excerpt:
Roy doesn’t always make the right choices and he continues to struggle with his life as do others in the other stories of county residents. The reader can make his or her own decision about whether the choices are the right ones or if Roy and others really had a choice.
I’m a big baseball fan (in addition to be a crime fiction fan) and this book certainly has a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) baseball theme that is often present through the various stories. Characters will be watching or listening to baseball and some of the characters will know or even play baseball (look for it). You don’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate how this is being presented but as a baseball fan you will really enjoy the baseball presence and will as a result get more out of this great book.
In the published description of this book it is being described as a “A novel-in-stories in the tradition of Bonnie Jo Campbell, Donald Ray Pollock, Denis Johnson, and Alan Heathcock.” Well, unfortunately, I don’t know any of those authors, but the book is definitely told in a series of interlocking stories. It was an approach that I enjoyed but at times found a bit confusing. Although reading and keeping notes on an electronic reader has its advantages, in this case, I would have liked being able to flip back and forth through the pages of a real book. For me though, I immediately felt I was reading a style similar to Daniel Woodrell. Again, that’s probably my ignorance in not reading more in today’s “country noir” style then in the noir style of authors such as David Goodis and Scott Phillips.
This book is the first novel published by Steve Weddle. Steve has had a few of his stories published, but I’ve known him more as a publisher and editor of the Needle books of mostly noir short stories. I actually met Steve in 2010 at Noircon in Philadelphia and after that bought a couple of the Needle books, but I’ve not talked to him since and certainly our brief meeting had no influence on anything I’ve written here. Although I’ve enjoyed the Needle books, here’s hoping Steve spends more time writing novels and hopefully I’ll get to meet him again at Noircon in 2014.
First, let me say that this book has excellent writing and stories and provides a true sense of life in the rural area of Columbus County, Arkansas. I’ve decided to give this a top rating despite having some misgivings about that rating because of my occasional confusion while reading the book. However, after thinking about it especially after waiting a week or so to write this review, I’m convinced that the writing is just too good to not warrant the top rating.
The book starts out almost immediately giving the gloomy darkness that will permeate throughout the novel’s stories. The book starts with Champion Tatum and his son still trying to get over the death of Champion’s wife:
Eleanor Tatum had come home from the mill late that Saturday night last June, skipped church the next morning, and walked into the front yard to put a bullet through her temple.
“Never seen a woman do that,” Champion had overheard one of the deputies saying.
“Must have been pretty messed up, do something like that,” a tall man Champion hadn’t seen before said. “Women usually take pills. You know when they cash in.”
“Damned shame,” another deputy said, shaking his head, scratching into this notepad.
They all shook their heads and agreed it was a damned shame.
In the second section (chapter?) of the book, the main character of the book, Roy Allison is introduced and it is in these sections that the book is told in the first person. As you learn later, Roy is returning from spending time in juvenile detention and although he now has a job with the county he is not always welcomed when trying to do his job.
“Mr. Greer, my name’s Roy Allsion.” I pulled some papers out of my back pocket.
“I know who you are, shitface.” He raised the barrels of the shotgun to my face. “Everybody knows who you are. You’re the piece of shit who killed his parents.”
Roy’s life becomes difficult after accidentally killing his parents at 16 years old in a car accident while taking them to the hospital. He’s hoping to improve now upon his return to the area but that’s not being easy.
One of the themes that Roy and others in the book have is around life choices as in this excerpt:
You get far enough down one trail, doesn’t matter much which way you go from there – they’re all the wrong choices. Some days you just do what you learned to do, what you’ve lived your life doing. A body tumbling down a hill, into a ravine.
Roy doesn’t always make the right choices and he continues to struggle with his life as do others in the other stories of county residents. The reader can make his or her own decision about whether the choices are the right ones or if Roy and others really had a choice.
I’m a big baseball fan (in addition to be a crime fiction fan) and this book certainly has a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) baseball theme that is often present through the various stories. Characters will be watching or listening to baseball and some of the characters will know or even play baseball (look for it). You don’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate how this is being presented but as a baseball fan you will really enjoy the baseball presence and will as a result get more out of this great book.
In the published description of this book it is being described as a “A novel-in-stories in the tradition of Bonnie Jo Campbell, Donald Ray Pollock, Denis Johnson, and Alan Heathcock.” Well, unfortunately, I don’t know any of those authors, but the book is definitely told in a series of interlocking stories. It was an approach that I enjoyed but at times found a bit confusing. Although reading and keeping notes on an electronic reader has its advantages, in this case, I would have liked being able to flip back and forth through the pages of a real book. For me though, I immediately felt I was reading a style similar to Daniel Woodrell. Again, that’s probably my ignorance in not reading more in today’s “country noir” style then in the noir style of authors such as David Goodis and Scott Phillips.
This book is the first novel published by Steve Weddle. Steve has had a few of his stories published, but I’ve known him more as a publisher and editor of the Needle books of mostly noir short stories. I actually met Steve in 2010 at Noircon in Philadelphia and after that bought a couple of the Needle books, but I’ve not talked to him since and certainly our brief meeting had no influence on anything I’ve written here. Although I’ve enjoyed the Needle books, here’s hoping Steve spends more time writing novels and hopefully I’ll get to meet him again at Noircon in 2014.
June 23, 2021
A tale of country crime fiction told in a series of short stories. Beautifully written. This is a must read for anyone who enjoys crime fiction.
December 16, 2016
Le résumé du livre m'avait attiré irrémédiablement… et puis, c'était un Gallmeister et jusqu'à présent, je n'avais jamais été déçue par un Gallmeister. Oh, il y en a eu qui m'ont moins plu que d'autres, mais déçue, "moi jamais !".
Je vous présente donc le patient zéro… Celui qui est le premier à me décevoir grandement, alors que je misais beaucoup sur lui.
Première surprise, ce n'est pas un roman, mais un recueil de nouvelles qui se croisent, un roman choral, un peu à la manière de "Chienne de vie" de Franck Bill ou de "Les loups à leur porte" de Jeremy Fel.
Alors que j'avais eu un coup de coeur pour ces deux précités et trouvé leur construction super bien foutue, et bien ici, je l'ai trouvée brouillonne.
Composé de 18 histoires qui se croisent et s'entremêlent, ce roman choral qui avait tout d'un grand, est assez difficile à appréhender. Pourtant, j'y étais entrée avec un sourire béat car la première histoire m'avait plu.
Et puis, j'ai pas capté le comment du pourquoi de la seconde, et ensuite, j'ai perdu pied, je me suis perdue et j'ai balancé le roman avant la fin… Oui, je l'ai abandonné !
Râlant car il avait vraiment tout pour me plaire, d'ailleurs, voyez le menu : des personnages bien typés; des points de vue différents qui restituent bien la triste réalité de l'Arkansas (la patrie de Bill Clinton); un côté rural prononcé; des personnages durement touchés par la crise économique et qui font face, comme ils peuvent, au chômage et à tout son cortège de misères; de la violence qui vire au drame sordide; sans oublier des braquages, des cambriolages et des trafics de drogue en tout genre.
Un roman noir, un "rural noir" avec sa population qui s'enfonce dans la désillusion puisqu'ils n'ont aucun perspective d'avenir agréable. Et s'ils en avaient un peu, le guerre en Irak leur a pris des fils qui s'étaient engagés.
Le personnage pivot de ce roman choral est Roy Allison. La vie n'est pas rose non plus pour lui car le choupinet a tué ses parents lors d'un accident de la route alors qu'il avait consommé de la drogue.
Son passé est comme un cancer qui ne veut pas le lâcher. Difficile de trouver un job quand on lance à la gueule que vous êtes responsable de la mort de vos parents.
Alors comment cela se fesse-t-il qu'avec d'aussi bons ingrédients et une bonne mise en scène des 18 chapitres, on arrive à un désastre pareil dans mon ressenti de lecture et un abandon sur l'autoroute de la lecture ?
La narration confuse, tout simplement ! J'ai eu de la peine à trouver mon chemin dans ces 18 chapitres, eu du mal à trouver la sortie du labyrinthe de l'intrigue.
Et plus j'avançais dans ma lecture, et plus ma confusion augmentait à chaque fois que je tournais un page, rendant ma lecture tellement laborieuse que j'ai baissé les bras et écouté la petite voix dans ma tête qui m'incitait à abandonner purement et simplement ma lecture.
Dommage, il y avait de la qualité dans l'écriture, de la profondeur dans certaines histoires, des personnages et des paragraphes qui reflétaient bien le marasme économique de l'Arkansas mais le tout était mal cuisiné et le plat final est un roman choral qui m'a déçu.
Fallait bien que ça arrive un jour, mais cela ne m'empêchera pas de continuer de lire ou de me jeter sur les romans publiés chez Gallmeister, et ce, quelque soit la collection.
Je vous présente donc le patient zéro… Celui qui est le premier à me décevoir grandement, alors que je misais beaucoup sur lui.
Première surprise, ce n'est pas un roman, mais un recueil de nouvelles qui se croisent, un roman choral, un peu à la manière de "Chienne de vie" de Franck Bill ou de "Les loups à leur porte" de Jeremy Fel.
Alors que j'avais eu un coup de coeur pour ces deux précités et trouvé leur construction super bien foutue, et bien ici, je l'ai trouvée brouillonne.
Composé de 18 histoires qui se croisent et s'entremêlent, ce roman choral qui avait tout d'un grand, est assez difficile à appréhender. Pourtant, j'y étais entrée avec un sourire béat car la première histoire m'avait plu.
Et puis, j'ai pas capté le comment du pourquoi de la seconde, et ensuite, j'ai perdu pied, je me suis perdue et j'ai balancé le roman avant la fin… Oui, je l'ai abandonné !
Râlant car il avait vraiment tout pour me plaire, d'ailleurs, voyez le menu : des personnages bien typés; des points de vue différents qui restituent bien la triste réalité de l'Arkansas (la patrie de Bill Clinton); un côté rural prononcé; des personnages durement touchés par la crise économique et qui font face, comme ils peuvent, au chômage et à tout son cortège de misères; de la violence qui vire au drame sordide; sans oublier des braquages, des cambriolages et des trafics de drogue en tout genre.
Un roman noir, un "rural noir" avec sa population qui s'enfonce dans la désillusion puisqu'ils n'ont aucun perspective d'avenir agréable. Et s'ils en avaient un peu, le guerre en Irak leur a pris des fils qui s'étaient engagés.
Le personnage pivot de ce roman choral est Roy Allison. La vie n'est pas rose non plus pour lui car le choupinet a tué ses parents lors d'un accident de la route alors qu'il avait consommé de la drogue.
Son passé est comme un cancer qui ne veut pas le lâcher. Difficile de trouver un job quand on lance à la gueule que vous êtes responsable de la mort de vos parents.
Alors comment cela se fesse-t-il qu'avec d'aussi bons ingrédients et une bonne mise en scène des 18 chapitres, on arrive à un désastre pareil dans mon ressenti de lecture et un abandon sur l'autoroute de la lecture ?
La narration confuse, tout simplement ! J'ai eu de la peine à trouver mon chemin dans ces 18 chapitres, eu du mal à trouver la sortie du labyrinthe de l'intrigue.
Et plus j'avançais dans ma lecture, et plus ma confusion augmentait à chaque fois que je tournais un page, rendant ma lecture tellement laborieuse que j'ai baissé les bras et écouté la petite voix dans ma tête qui m'incitait à abandonner purement et simplement ma lecture.
Dommage, il y avait de la qualité dans l'écriture, de la profondeur dans certaines histoires, des personnages et des paragraphes qui reflétaient bien le marasme économique de l'Arkansas mais le tout était mal cuisiné et le plat final est un roman choral qui m'a déçu.
Fallait bien que ça arrive un jour, mais cela ne m'empêchera pas de continuer de lire ou de me jeter sur les romans publiés chez Gallmeister, et ce, quelque soit la collection.
Read
February 4, 2014I'm not a huge fan of straight-up genre fiction. I like my expectations constantly challenged, rather than met. There are works of many genres, classics, that I love, but those works tend to break out of the silos some people seem so intent on creating.
I know what noir is, though I'm less sure what "country noir" is; the little I've been exposed to struck me as the mirror image of the cover to Ice-T's HOME INVASION album: a suburban boy's fever dream of beat-up pickup trucks, greasy baseball caps, guns, and meth, often with less depth than Warner Bros. cartoons. See the rustics with their simple ways blow themselves to bits. Thank God you're reading this from the comfort of your hipster neighborhood in the big city.
That kind of thing.
So if you're like me, and you hear that Steve Weddle's novel-in-stories COUNTRY HARDBALL is "country noir," believe me when I say that such an easy categorization is inadequate.
If COUNTRY HARDBALL has a main character, it's probably Roy Alison, though a better candidate might be the entire (unnamed) town situated somewhere near the border of Lousiana and Arkansas. We meet Roy first, see him struggle a past that was the diametric opposite of Seneca's definition of luck, but then we get glimpses of a host of people. There's a narrative thread, a series of crimes, and at times it's just a thread, popping up in offhand mentions by characters occupied with their own situations. There's crime, yes, and violence, but it's quotidian, rather than hyperbolic; the consequences seem real, and rather than caricatures, we see the authentic struggles of some of the offenders.
The accumulative effect of the book makes you wonder if, for these people (and by extension huge swaths of the American working class and underclass), the Apocalypse already came and went, perhaps several generations ago, and these characters can only pick through the remains of what's left. It's a tough read at times, and the bleakness can feel unrelenting. Weddle's prose is efficient and biting. Characters aren't allowed to philosophize beyond their knowledge, but neither are they given to folksy adages. They sound and think like real people, people Weddle knows, and such familiarity and empathy allow COUNTRY HARDBALL to transcend genre.
I know what noir is, though I'm less sure what "country noir" is; the little I've been exposed to struck me as the mirror image of the cover to Ice-T's HOME INVASION album: a suburban boy's fever dream of beat-up pickup trucks, greasy baseball caps, guns, and meth, often with less depth than Warner Bros. cartoons. See the rustics with their simple ways blow themselves to bits. Thank God you're reading this from the comfort of your hipster neighborhood in the big city.
That kind of thing.
So if you're like me, and you hear that Steve Weddle's novel-in-stories COUNTRY HARDBALL is "country noir," believe me when I say that such an easy categorization is inadequate.
If COUNTRY HARDBALL has a main character, it's probably Roy Alison, though a better candidate might be the entire (unnamed) town situated somewhere near the border of Lousiana and Arkansas. We meet Roy first, see him struggle a past that was the diametric opposite of Seneca's definition of luck, but then we get glimpses of a host of people. There's a narrative thread, a series of crimes, and at times it's just a thread, popping up in offhand mentions by characters occupied with their own situations. There's crime, yes, and violence, but it's quotidian, rather than hyperbolic; the consequences seem real, and rather than caricatures, we see the authentic struggles of some of the offenders.
The accumulative effect of the book makes you wonder if, for these people (and by extension huge swaths of the American working class and underclass), the Apocalypse already came and went, perhaps several generations ago, and these characters can only pick through the remains of what's left. It's a tough read at times, and the bleakness can feel unrelenting. Weddle's prose is efficient and biting. Characters aren't allowed to philosophize beyond their knowledge, but neither are they given to folksy adages. They sound and think like real people, people Weddle knows, and such familiarity and empathy allow COUNTRY HARDBALL to transcend genre.
December 7, 2013
"Country Hardball" seeks the truth. The 18 stories are vignettes, in a way, but each is much more than a sketch or detail. Individually, they can be taken on their own. Together, in the big sweep, the gravity grows.
These are stories about lives and cultures that are often overlooked. In this case, Louisiana. As the economic mood brightens a bit in 2013 (unemployment rate is “just” 7 percent; let’s celebrate!) Weddle reminds us that real people are struggling in the backwaters—real people with real hopes, real dreams and very dicey choices ahead. Do they focus on the fact that they are at the bottom of a hole? Or do they see a way out? As one character, notes, “All holes have sides.” Do you try to get away? To where? Do you take what’s not yours? How? And what will be the consequences? If you’ve got a plan, will it work? And how sure are you that it will?
Weddle’s writing is unflashy. He uses words for power and accuracy, not show. He is after intimacy, odd moments and big life choices both. He goes for bone-shaking honesty in studying the lives of people on the economic edge, where a busted alternator can make or break the budget and you measure distances between the new bad thing and the last bad thing. “Debts to Pay” spotlights the sharp edges. “The tree through the porch. The rotten tooth. The burned-out relay in the septic tank. You ask yourself how other people do it. When it go so tough. How anyone ever gets ahead. Just a little, you say. Just a hundred bucks in the coffee can you won’t have to go into a month when something else goes wrong.”
There are glimmers of hope and humor and love amid the ruins. "Country Hardball" starts bleak and gradually rises up in tone and tenor. Don’t give up on "Country Hardball" and don’t give up on these people. They might be at the bottom of a hole, but all holes have sides.
These are stories about lives and cultures that are often overlooked. In this case, Louisiana. As the economic mood brightens a bit in 2013 (unemployment rate is “just” 7 percent; let’s celebrate!) Weddle reminds us that real people are struggling in the backwaters—real people with real hopes, real dreams and very dicey choices ahead. Do they focus on the fact that they are at the bottom of a hole? Or do they see a way out? As one character, notes, “All holes have sides.” Do you try to get away? To where? Do you take what’s not yours? How? And what will be the consequences? If you’ve got a plan, will it work? And how sure are you that it will?
Weddle’s writing is unflashy. He uses words for power and accuracy, not show. He is after intimacy, odd moments and big life choices both. He goes for bone-shaking honesty in studying the lives of people on the economic edge, where a busted alternator can make or break the budget and you measure distances between the new bad thing and the last bad thing. “Debts to Pay” spotlights the sharp edges. “The tree through the porch. The rotten tooth. The burned-out relay in the septic tank. You ask yourself how other people do it. When it go so tough. How anyone ever gets ahead. Just a little, you say. Just a hundred bucks in the coffee can you won’t have to go into a month when something else goes wrong.”
There are glimmers of hope and humor and love amid the ruins. "Country Hardball" starts bleak and gradually rises up in tone and tenor. Don’t give up on "Country Hardball" and don’t give up on these people. They might be at the bottom of a hole, but all holes have sides.
March 15, 2014
My emotions were completely raw after reading Country Hardball. I had to go just sit, alone, and let this novel sink in. Steve Weddle has taken eighteen short stories and woven them into a blanket of beauty.
The book is about a man, Roy Alison, that made a terrible mistake as a young man. Because of that mistake he has been in juvenile detention and jail. He decides he wants to go back home to his little hometown and try to make something go right in his life. He starts out by spending some quality time with his grandmother. She tells him stories and he listens. In the meantime he is trying to put together the puzzle of what really happened to his grandfather. Roy is following that road called life. He comes across a lot of bumps and he comes across some forks which require him to make some important decisions.
The story of Roy is the link in all the short stories in this novel, but every story takes you into a person's life in this rural town. These people work hard and have hard lives. You just feel a veil of sadness throughout the book, but it doesn't keep you from wanting to keep reading it. In fact, you find yourself taking a deep breath, and diving back in to see what will happen next in this community.I found myself feeling as if these characters were family.
I just thank Steve Weddle for writing such a great book that, definitely, tugged at my heart. What is so amazing is this is his debut novel. I hope this is the beginning of many more novels from Weddle.
The book is about a man, Roy Alison, that made a terrible mistake as a young man. Because of that mistake he has been in juvenile detention and jail. He decides he wants to go back home to his little hometown and try to make something go right in his life. He starts out by spending some quality time with his grandmother. She tells him stories and he listens. In the meantime he is trying to put together the puzzle of what really happened to his grandfather. Roy is following that road called life. He comes across a lot of bumps and he comes across some forks which require him to make some important decisions.
The story of Roy is the link in all the short stories in this novel, but every story takes you into a person's life in this rural town. These people work hard and have hard lives. You just feel a veil of sadness throughout the book, but it doesn't keep you from wanting to keep reading it. In fact, you find yourself taking a deep breath, and diving back in to see what will happen next in this community.I found myself feeling as if these characters were family.
I just thank Steve Weddle for writing such a great book that, definitely, tugged at my heart. What is so amazing is this is his debut novel. I hope this is the beginning of many more novels from Weddle.
October 24, 2013
Woah. That was good. The kind of good that redefines what you really mean when you say that something is 'good'. There is a lot of why I love Dennis Lehane in the writings of Steve Weddle. He has this capacity of letting a moment soak up and swell about a dozen times its normal size, so the reader can gasp its meaning in its entirety.
Crime is not a trigger to story in COUNTRY HARDBALL, but it seems to always be an end, whether it's a conscious choice or a byproduct of of financial shortcomings. It's always looming around the corner, like the monster of a local folklore. Seriously, this is good. This is universal-good. It's Raymond Carver meets Dennis Lehane. If you know what's good for you, read some Steve Weddle.
Crime is not a trigger to story in COUNTRY HARDBALL, but it seems to always be an end, whether it's a conscious choice or a byproduct of of financial shortcomings. It's always looming around the corner, like the monster of a local folklore. Seriously, this is good. This is universal-good. It's Raymond Carver meets Dennis Lehane. If you know what's good for you, read some Steve Weddle.
June 16, 2015
Nailed it.
June 24, 2023
I did not like this book. I just felt it was all over the place and difficult to follow
July 14, 2022
Country Hardball is slow burn southern noir at its best. From the first story, “Champion,” I knew Steve Weddle was my kind of writer. The story reminds me a little of Raymond Carver’s “Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes.”
The novel-in-stories centers loosely around Roy Alison, who after a series of screw ups and a stint in prison, makes an earnest go at living on the straight and narrow. But like one of the characters says about the past: “You can let go all you want, boy, but it ain’t up to you. It don’t let go of you.” And, unfortunately for Roy, that holds true.
From a sentence level, Weddle delivers a bevy of understated truth bombs. Here’s one I love about the darkness seeping into his life: “If you’ve never felt it, then you don’t know what I’m talking about. The darkness that fills in from the edges. You think you can hold it back, but it seeps through like mud through door cracks.”
As a fan of grit-lit, something I found refreshing about Weddle’s book is the lack of gratuitous violence. Sure, there’s violence, but not the kind of over-the-top variety that marks much of the genre. How much did I like this book? I’ve read it twice. I can’t wait to read Weddle’s next one.
The novel-in-stories centers loosely around Roy Alison, who after a series of screw ups and a stint in prison, makes an earnest go at living on the straight and narrow. But like one of the characters says about the past: “You can let go all you want, boy, but it ain’t up to you. It don’t let go of you.” And, unfortunately for Roy, that holds true.
From a sentence level, Weddle delivers a bevy of understated truth bombs. Here’s one I love about the darkness seeping into his life: “If you’ve never felt it, then you don’t know what I’m talking about. The darkness that fills in from the edges. You think you can hold it back, but it seeps through like mud through door cracks.”
As a fan of grit-lit, something I found refreshing about Weddle’s book is the lack of gratuitous violence. Sure, there’s violence, but not the kind of over-the-top variety that marks much of the genre. How much did I like this book? I’ve read it twice. I can’t wait to read Weddle’s next one.
June 25, 2019
Weddle taps into small town rural life like he knows it well. This is a novel of interconnected short stories, which is almost a metaphor, in itself, for rural life.
The stories paint a picture of a town where everyone knows one another and their lives are intertwined. They all live their stories alone, but since everyone knows everyone, there is a deeper level of interconnection than there would be in city life.
The focus is on small crime and small time justice. It’s a portrait of working class people just going about their life paths and, along the way, trying to piece together some kind of meaning in their lives.
It scratches home a bit, for me, being from a small rural town, but sometimes it feels as though intelligence is nearly absent in these stories. It’s not too difficult to believe; Weddle’s characters feel real, but it’s frustrating and sad to watch these lost souls flounder around and not be able to find any comfortable meaning in their lives. I do think that is a key point of the stories though.
The stories paint a picture of a town where everyone knows one another and their lives are intertwined. They all live their stories alone, but since everyone knows everyone, there is a deeper level of interconnection than there would be in city life.
The focus is on small crime and small time justice. It’s a portrait of working class people just going about their life paths and, along the way, trying to piece together some kind of meaning in their lives.
It scratches home a bit, for me, being from a small rural town, but sometimes it feels as though intelligence is nearly absent in these stories. It’s not too difficult to believe; Weddle’s characters feel real, but it’s frustrating and sad to watch these lost souls flounder around and not be able to find any comfortable meaning in their lives. I do think that is a key point of the stories though.
January 13, 2017
Country Hardball tells the story of Roy's return to his hometown and his gradual slide towards his past life. Weaves a series of peripherally related storylines around this central first-person narrative. These storylines read like short stories and act as vignettes presenting a small town in economic decline.
In Roy, Weddle has created an intriguing protagonist. The weakness, however, is that the peripheral storylines too often distract from the main narrative. While Weddle does, in places, weave some of these threads into the central storyline, the end result felt (to me, at least) slightly unsatisfying.
Having said that, the writing is strong (the prose is both stark and lyrical, where it needs to be), the protagonist is well realised, and the author creates a real sense of time and place.
I would recommend Country Hardball to readers looking for a spin on American noir, or an insight into the dark side of small town life.
3/4
In Roy, Weddle has created an intriguing protagonist. The weakness, however, is that the peripheral storylines too often distract from the main narrative. While Weddle does, in places, weave some of these threads into the central storyline, the end result felt (to me, at least) slightly unsatisfying.
Having said that, the writing is strong (the prose is both stark and lyrical, where it needs to be), the protagonist is well realised, and the author creates a real sense of time and place.
I would recommend Country Hardball to readers looking for a spin on American noir, or an insight into the dark side of small town life.
3/4
November 6, 2021
In Country Hardball, a perpetual criminal Roy Alison and Deputy Skinny Dennis McWilliams are like those two strands of DNA that spiral around that backbone ladder full of genetic material. That shared genetic material holding them together is the transgressions of the small hardscrabble town they and their ancestors grew up in. Blood binds them to this unforgiving place. Binds them to patterns they know are regrettable but keep weaving. This book will show you how these two characters and all their other family, friends, and neighbors feel having little opportunity but poor choices. The writing is sharp and cuts deep. I highly recommend Country Hardball.
July 7, 2017
A one word review would be "incomplete". This like watching a baseball game where you are only allowed to hear every third half inning but at the end you try to put together the whole game. Even though the half innings you heard were great, your reconstruction of the game may be lacking.
The short stories Weddle writes are good but there are a lot of loose connections and unanswered questions. I will try his next book.
The short stories Weddle writes are good but there are a lot of loose connections and unanswered questions. I will try his next book.
March 1, 2018
Falling into several genres ---country noir, interlinked short story novel, debut novel---Mr. Weddle's offering features a slew of characters embroiled in the hard knock school of life. From the point of view of the race there might not be much to choose between being in hardscrabble country or deep city back alleys: human misery sears the soul everywhere. But Steve Waddel makes the landscape count and the history of the people resonate.
Recommended.
Recommended.
January 2, 2020
I won this book on goodreads. I tried to read through the whole thing but this book is just not my cup of tea. Every chapter changes stories so it's really hard to keep up with the characters. I didn't even get half way before I said I couldn't do it anymore. I tried I did, but nope. There is nothing that really drags you in to make you want to keep reading. Shame really.
February 22, 2020
Just too dark and depressing for me.
March 3, 2020
Solid debut. The characters were funny, authentic and the stories were well crafted.
February 26, 2024
Weddle writes a set of short stories about folks living in rural Arkansas. Characters from one story show up in another. Fragments of life as people try to get by.
May 10, 2025
Excellent read, each chapter worked as a short story and as a novel in its entirety. I would highly recommend.
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