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Joe
“Brilliant . . . Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit.” —The Washington Post Book World
Now a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green.
Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won’t slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he’s desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption--or ruin.
Now a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green.
Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won’t slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he’s desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption--or ruin.
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Larry Brown
77 books677 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Larry Brown was an American writer who was born and lived in Oxford, Mississippi. Brown wrote fiction and nonfiction. He graduated from high school in Oxford but did not go to college. Many years later, he took a creative writing class from the Mississippi novelist Ellen Douglas. Brown served in the United States Marine Corps from 1970 to 1972. On his return to Oxford, he worked at a small stove company before joining the city fire department. An avid reader, Brown began writing in his spare time while he worked as a firefighter in Oxford in 1980.
Brown was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction. Brown was the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction, which he won in 1992 for his novel, Joe and again in 1997 for his novel Father and Son. In 1998, he received a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, which granted him $35,000 per year for three years to write. In 2000, the State of Mississippi granted him a Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. For one semester, Brown taught as a writer-in-residence in the creative writing program at the University of Mississippi, temporarily taking over the position held by his friend Barry Hannah. He later served as visiting writer at the University of Montana in Missoula. He taught briefly at other colleges throughout the United States.
Brown died of an apparent heart attack at his home in the Yocona community, near Oxford, in November 2004.
Larry Brown was an American writer who was born and lived in Oxford, Mississippi. Brown wrote fiction and nonfiction. He graduated from high school in Oxford but did not go to college. Many years later, he took a creative writing class from the Mississippi novelist Ellen Douglas. Brown served in the United States Marine Corps from 1970 to 1972. On his return to Oxford, he worked at a small stove company before joining the city fire department. An avid reader, Brown began writing in his spare time while he worked as a firefighter in Oxford in 1980.
Brown was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction. Brown was the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction, which he won in 1992 for his novel, Joe and again in 1997 for his novel Father and Son. In 1998, he received a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, which granted him $35,000 per year for three years to write. In 2000, the State of Mississippi granted him a Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. For one semester, Brown taught as a writer-in-residence in the creative writing program at the University of Mississippi, temporarily taking over the position held by his friend Barry Hannah. He later served as visiting writer at the University of Montana in Missoula. He taught briefly at other colleges throughout the United States.
Brown died of an apparent heart attack at his home in the Yocona community, near Oxford, in November 2004.
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May 26, 2020
“Coke, then whiskey, Coke and then whiskey. He wiped his mouth and capped the bottle and lit another cigarette.”
I felt hot and sticky, grimy, parched, and a bit reckless while in the company of Joe and this cast of down-and-out, law-breaking, drunken, gun-toting, and sometimes vile cast of characters. I wanted to crack open a beer (I don’t drink beer!), swig it down in three gulps and toss the can over my shoulder without a care in the world. I wanted to jump in the shower and wash off the filth and dust of a day’s work. I craved a shot of bourbon so I could finally unwind before revving up my Ford F-150 and raising some hell in town! Of course, I didn’t do any of those things, because honestly, this New York gal is not really cut out for the redneck life. I’ve never even driven a pickup truck much less owned one, and I don’t keep a bottle of whiskey under the driver’s seat of my car either. Not that we don’t have rednecks in this part of the country, but that lifestyle is more foreign to me than living on the moon would be. And yet, I’ve spent a bit of time there thanks to author Larry Brown and now understand a little bit more about what makes these folks tick.
Joe is not the sort of guy you want to bring home to mama. She just wouldn’t approve. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but feel for him. You want to help him get his life back in order. Step away from the booze, especially while driving, quit the gambling and womanizing, keep the hands off the cops, and try to settle down – at least mellow out around the edges just a bit. He’s got a couple of kids that he loves but rarely sees, and an ex-wife that might still have a soft spot for him deep down inside. He’s a hard worker. We meet up with him about the same time that an even more lowdown, bedraggled family limps into town to squat in a long-abandoned log cabin.
“They trudged on beneath the burning sun, but anyone watching could have seen that they were almost beaten.”
They’re a miserable lot, this Jones family. Wade Jones, the patriarch, makes a perversion of the titles ‘dad’ and ‘husband’. He’s of the most loathsome, worthless variety of man one will ever come across.
“He lay limp as a hot noodle, quietly exuding a rich reek, a giddy putrefaction of something gone far past bad, a perfect example of nonviolent protest.”
Their mother is powerless, and the youngest daughter is insubstantial. The eldest daughter has some fire to her. And then there’s Gary. You’ll pity and love this kid. If you don’t, then you might want to figure out where you left your heart. He’s fifteen and not what you would call a strapping fellow. What he lacks in education, refinement and size, he more than makes up for in integrity, determination and an eagerness to learn and work. Joe and Gary form a bond. Whether that bond will uplift one or the other, you will want to decide for yourself. You can’t but hope that it will indeed do just that. They most certainly have an affinity for one another. Joe ‘gets’ Gary, and Gary looks up to Joe.
“The boy’s name was Gary. He was small but he carried the most.”
There’s not a distinct plot to this novel. However, the fantastic storytelling paired with sharp characterization won me over. It’s sometimes savage, and if I could have closed my eyes during a couple of scenes I just might have! The heat is oppressive, the landscape feels primitive, and all of it so tangible that you’ll want to wipe the dust from your eyes and slake your incessant thirst. This is my second Larry Brown novel, with Dirty Work being my first. I’m both surprised by how much I’ve taken to such visceral and often violent writing, as well as impressed by it.
“Into each life a little rain must fall but perhaps it monsooned in his.”
I felt hot and sticky, grimy, parched, and a bit reckless while in the company of Joe and this cast of down-and-out, law-breaking, drunken, gun-toting, and sometimes vile cast of characters. I wanted to crack open a beer (I don’t drink beer!), swig it down in three gulps and toss the can over my shoulder without a care in the world. I wanted to jump in the shower and wash off the filth and dust of a day’s work. I craved a shot of bourbon so I could finally unwind before revving up my Ford F-150 and raising some hell in town! Of course, I didn’t do any of those things, because honestly, this New York gal is not really cut out for the redneck life. I’ve never even driven a pickup truck much less owned one, and I don’t keep a bottle of whiskey under the driver’s seat of my car either. Not that we don’t have rednecks in this part of the country, but that lifestyle is more foreign to me than living on the moon would be. And yet, I’ve spent a bit of time there thanks to author Larry Brown and now understand a little bit more about what makes these folks tick.
Joe is not the sort of guy you want to bring home to mama. She just wouldn’t approve. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but feel for him. You want to help him get his life back in order. Step away from the booze, especially while driving, quit the gambling and womanizing, keep the hands off the cops, and try to settle down – at least mellow out around the edges just a bit. He’s got a couple of kids that he loves but rarely sees, and an ex-wife that might still have a soft spot for him deep down inside. He’s a hard worker. We meet up with him about the same time that an even more lowdown, bedraggled family limps into town to squat in a long-abandoned log cabin.
“They trudged on beneath the burning sun, but anyone watching could have seen that they were almost beaten.”
They’re a miserable lot, this Jones family. Wade Jones, the patriarch, makes a perversion of the titles ‘dad’ and ‘husband’. He’s of the most loathsome, worthless variety of man one will ever come across.
“He lay limp as a hot noodle, quietly exuding a rich reek, a giddy putrefaction of something gone far past bad, a perfect example of nonviolent protest.”
Their mother is powerless, and the youngest daughter is insubstantial. The eldest daughter has some fire to her. And then there’s Gary. You’ll pity and love this kid. If you don’t, then you might want to figure out where you left your heart. He’s fifteen and not what you would call a strapping fellow. What he lacks in education, refinement and size, he more than makes up for in integrity, determination and an eagerness to learn and work. Joe and Gary form a bond. Whether that bond will uplift one or the other, you will want to decide for yourself. You can’t but hope that it will indeed do just that. They most certainly have an affinity for one another. Joe ‘gets’ Gary, and Gary looks up to Joe.
“The boy’s name was Gary. He was small but he carried the most.”
There’s not a distinct plot to this novel. However, the fantastic storytelling paired with sharp characterization won me over. It’s sometimes savage, and if I could have closed my eyes during a couple of scenes I just might have! The heat is oppressive, the landscape feels primitive, and all of it so tangible that you’ll want to wipe the dust from your eyes and slake your incessant thirst. This is my second Larry Brown novel, with Dirty Work being my first. I’m both surprised by how much I’ve taken to such visceral and often violent writing, as well as impressed by it.
“Into each life a little rain must fall but perhaps it monsooned in his.”
July 5, 2017
Sociologist could use Larry Brown's "Joe" as a Southeastern study journal. Larry knew these people, heart and soul. The goodness of heart in some and the evil souls of others. "Joe" tells a gripping story.
You would not want Joe in your family. He is only gonna let you down.
Would you want Joe as your friend? Good choice if you do. Through thick or thin, Joe is there for his friends. Doesn't matter your station in life, if you're Joe's friend then he'll celebrate the good times with you and he is just as quick to help you in the bad times. Bet on Joe's friendship like a good hand in cards... He's all in.
Now if you find yourself on Joe's bad side. If Joe is your enemy, you've got two choices... make amends or kiss your ass goodbye.
You would not want Joe in your family. He is only gonna let you down.
Would you want Joe as your friend? Good choice if you do. Through thick or thin, Joe is there for his friends. Doesn't matter your station in life, if you're Joe's friend then he'll celebrate the good times with you and he is just as quick to help you in the bad times. Bet on Joe's friendship like a good hand in cards... He's all in.
Now if you find yourself on Joe's bad side. If Joe is your enemy, you've got two choices... make amends or kiss your ass goodbye.
December 17, 2021
This was headed for a five-star rating right up until the final page. Then the ending happened, which I hated. It loses a point for that.
June 9, 2023
«Joe» lo tiene todo para que un lector como yo lo disfrute de principio a fin. Larry Brown, en la onda de Ray Pollock o Harry Crews, escribe sobre esa basura blanca de la Norteamérica más profunda en la que muy pocos son capaces de sobrevivir manteniendo a flote unos pocos valores que, también es cierto, ellos entienden a su manera. Un mundo en el que la pobreza y la falta de perspectivas deja todo el campo libre al alcohol, al juego, a las peleas, a las armas, al abuso y al maltrato de la mujer, a familias destrozadas que serán el catalizador de la rabia y la desesperación que impedirán que el círculo de marginalidad se rompa alguna vez.
Joe es un hombre que lo intenta, pero su orgullo, su alcoholismo y su propensión a la violencia son una mala combinación para enfrentarse a una policía que se la tiene jurada desde que dio una paliza a uno de los suyos. Tampoco son cualidades que le ayudan a conservar el amor de su exmujer ni el aprecio de sus hijos. Solo le queda su perro, algunas visitas femeninas, un viejo amigo, el tendero John Coleman, y la reciente presencia de un chaval, Gary. Pese a sus quince años, Gary muestra una fortaleza y una disposición para el trabajo duro que impresiona a Joe, que lo tomará a su cuidado iniciándolo en las actividades tradicionales del pueblo, la bebida, el tabaco y el prostíbulo local.
El otro gran personaje de la novela es Wade Jones, el padre de Gary, un ser aborrecible y bestial, un despojo de hombre para el que ni sus circunstancias nos inclinan a la compasión ni sus pillerías a la sonrisa. Nada contaré de sus hazañas, que a buen seguro les revolverán las tripas. El final de la novela, aunque se va intuyendo, no deja de ser escalofriante.
Tampoco puedo decir nada malo de su estilo, ese tipo de estilo que no busca protagonismo, neutro, frío, sencillo, directo, capaz de contar del mismo modo la muerte de un perro a dentelladas que la compra compulsiva de sellos por parte de Joe solo por cruzar unas pocas palabras con su mujer en el local donde trabaja. Nada que lo emparente con Faulkner, con el que frecuentemente se le compara, imagino yo que porque ambos tratan honestamente a la misma gente en los mismos parajes haciendo las mismas cosas, no por nada los dos nacieron en Oxford, Mississippi.
Bien, pues a pesar de todo lo que llevo dicho, no puedo darle más de tres estrellas (tres y media sería lo justo). No tengo nada que objetar, es solo la sensación que tengo al acabar la novela, no puedo aclararles más. Aun así, tengo la intención de leer sus cuento, que he visto que por ahí dicen que son lo mejor de su literatura.
April 3, 2022
Pure Southern noir, rural Mississippi-style. Where the kudzu and honeysuckle creep and strangle anything in its path. RC colas and banana moonpies. Old Mr. Coleman will let you run a tab at his store as long as you don't take advantage.
Full of backwoods critters and miscreants, this novel is harsh, raw, and brimming with good story. One reviewer noted that she wished for one character's death with every chapter - and so did I. That would be one Wade Jones, a despicable excuse for a human being. I do not have the words to describe the ugliness of his soul, assuming he has one. Couldn't help but develop a fondness for Joe, despite his many flaws.
Ready to get punched in the gut? Grab a copy of this, hunker down, and start reading. Great storytelling in these here pages.
Full of backwoods critters and miscreants, this novel is harsh, raw, and brimming with good story. One reviewer noted that she wished for one character's death with every chapter - and so did I. That would be one Wade Jones, a despicable excuse for a human being. I do not have the words to describe the ugliness of his soul, assuming he has one. Couldn't help but develop a fondness for Joe, despite his many flaws.
Ready to get punched in the gut? Grab a copy of this, hunker down, and start reading. Great storytelling in these here pages.
April 30, 2020
Joe was a bad husband, loved his wife but just couldn't stop drinking and carousing. He was a bad father who never took much interest in his kids. He's done prison time, drinks too much, likes to play the cops for fools when he can; you might say he's one to stay away from. But he has a good heart, and he's a mighty good friend to have when you need one.
Gary is a 15 year old lost soul who needs a friend, needs a job to help his family, isn't afraid to work, and has a father who is evil incarnate. I'm not ashamed to say I wished for Wade Jones death in every chapter.
You know all those adjectives on book blurbs to describe some authors writing? Raw, visceral, powerful, gritty, unadorned, etc, etc?
All of those are true about Larry Brown. This is the fourth novel I've read by him, and the fourth time I have been stunned by an ending. He knows his characters inside and out, he knows the landscape he describes, and he can by God tell a story.
I'll say it again. I am stunned, just stunned.
Gary is a 15 year old lost soul who needs a friend, needs a job to help his family, isn't afraid to work, and has a father who is evil incarnate. I'm not ashamed to say I wished for Wade Jones death in every chapter.
You know all those adjectives on book blurbs to describe some authors writing? Raw, visceral, powerful, gritty, unadorned, etc, etc?
All of those are true about Larry Brown. This is the fourth novel I've read by him, and the fourth time I have been stunned by an ending. He knows his characters inside and out, he knows the landscape he describes, and he can by God tell a story.
I'll say it again. I am stunned, just stunned.
May 24, 2020
Larry Brown sets the scene in Mississippi as a family trudges down the road carrying all their possessions. Gary, one of two central characters is described as “small, but he carries the most.” This is a prophetic description. His family has lived all over in many small towns, in tarpaper shacks, and in ditches by the side of the road. In this story, they will stop to take up residence in an unclaimed cabin. Gary is fifteen, he thinks. He has no birth certificate. As the story develops, I empathize with Gary’s plight more and more. His abusive, alcoholic father, Wade Jones is a shiftless, no good, low-down rotten skunk, who’ll do anything he has to do to get his next bottle of beer or whiskey. That includes stealing money from his hardworking son. Wade Jones is reminiscent of Erskine Caldwell’s despicable character, Jeeter Lester in “Tobacco Road.” Wade Jones, however, has a whole lot more marbles in his head and is much more conniving than Jeeter; and thankfully, Brown gives this story something that “Tobacco Road” lacked entirely, ...Hope. Gary’s mother is portrayed by Brown as a mostly powerless victim. She seems beyond raising the motivation much less the momentum it would take to leave Wade Jones. She is a cautionary figure for anyone caught in the cyclical patterns of abuse.
The first sequence of events is oppressive, but Brown paints a wash of hope onto the page with some beautiful writing. “It was that part of evening when the sun has gone but day light still remains.” Gary is what daylight remains for this family.
Joe is the other central character, and he and Gary are the hands on the clock that create time in this story. Joe is running a crew of men who are injecting poison into the trees to kill them off so another stand of trees can be planted. Gary asks Joe for work and young as he is, turns out to be one of Joe’s hardest workers. Joe could be a good-ole boy stereotype, but Brown makes sure that doesn’t happen. Brown rounds him out, making him fully fleshed in all aspects, but what I like most about Joe is he cares about Gary.
Brown builds ominous clouds that rise up out of both character’s past and present. I am riveted and become convinced that anything could happen. Grit lit as a definition of the hardscrabble south without romanticism seems appropriate for this narrative. The suspense is oddly enticing, even as I hold my breath praying that nothing bad happens to Joe or Gary. At the same time, I hope that Wade Jones will drop dead.
I loved Brown’s prose style, which is often beautifully descriptive. For those who don’t like loads of descriptive verbiage, let not your heart be troubled. There’s also authentic southern dialog, action, hunting, drinking, a feud, womanizing, dog and drunken man slobbering, and epicness. Joe’s ex-wife, Charlotte, will balance the portrayal of Gary’s mother’s victimhood with strength and the ability to do what it takes to give her children a decent life. This was a May book read for the group, ‘On the Southern Literary Trail,’ and for me, a selection that was captivating.
The first sequence of events is oppressive, but Brown paints a wash of hope onto the page with some beautiful writing. “It was that part of evening when the sun has gone but day light still remains.” Gary is what daylight remains for this family.
Joe is the other central character, and he and Gary are the hands on the clock that create time in this story. Joe is running a crew of men who are injecting poison into the trees to kill them off so another stand of trees can be planted. Gary asks Joe for work and young as he is, turns out to be one of Joe’s hardest workers. Joe could be a good-ole boy stereotype, but Brown makes sure that doesn’t happen. Brown rounds him out, making him fully fleshed in all aspects, but what I like most about Joe is he cares about Gary.
Brown builds ominous clouds that rise up out of both character’s past and present. I am riveted and become convinced that anything could happen. Grit lit as a definition of the hardscrabble south without romanticism seems appropriate for this narrative. The suspense is oddly enticing, even as I hold my breath praying that nothing bad happens to Joe or Gary. At the same time, I hope that Wade Jones will drop dead.
I loved Brown’s prose style, which is often beautifully descriptive. For those who don’t like loads of descriptive verbiage, let not your heart be troubled. There’s also authentic southern dialog, action, hunting, drinking, a feud, womanizing, dog and drunken man slobbering, and epicness. Joe’s ex-wife, Charlotte, will balance the portrayal of Gary’s mother’s victimhood with strength and the ability to do what it takes to give her children a decent life. This was a May book read for the group, ‘On the Southern Literary Trail,’ and for me, a selection that was captivating.
May 3, 2020
Joe: Down and Out in Mississippi
I finished Joe last night. As always, Brown captured me through his staccato prose. The dialogue is a mirror of life among the have nots. Brown's sense of place is carved as sharply as his characters. The hard scrabble setting of north Mississippi is perfectly described.
Brown's cast of characters might well have travelled the roads of Faulkner's The Hamlet, rarely making it into Jefferson. Here are the Snopeses, Varners, and their neighbors. They're not ready to be town folk.
"Joe" depicts the lives of down and outers, losers, cons, alcoholics, and a choir of profane characters. The principle trinity is Joe Ransom, Gary Jones, and his monstrous father, Ward Jones. By novel's end I hoped for his long and painful death.
When I first met the Jones clan, I sensed a close portrait of Faulkner's Burden clan. Hapless, unfortunate, However, Brown slowly reveals a much darker evil in family patriarch, Ward.
Joe Ransom strikes me as one of Brown's more appealing characters. Faulted without doubt. A man capable of violence, quick to fight. A man who has done time for assaulting peace officers, Ransom resists authority though his behavior may send him back to Parchman as a three time loser. The three strikes habitual offender.
Although Joe neglected his own children, and drank his way out of his marriage, Brown places Ransom in the place of mentor and surrogate father of fifteen year old Gary ,Jones. All in all this is a near perfect novel of redemption. This is a blend of rude humor, pathos, drama, and tragedy.
Only Brown's ambiguous conclusion prevents this novel from being a five star read. With Joe, Larry Brown established his reputation as one of the finest writers of contemporary Southern literature.
I finished Joe last night. As always, Brown captured me through his staccato prose. The dialogue is a mirror of life among the have nots. Brown's sense of place is carved as sharply as his characters. The hard scrabble setting of north Mississippi is perfectly described.
Brown's cast of characters might well have travelled the roads of Faulkner's The Hamlet, rarely making it into Jefferson. Here are the Snopeses, Varners, and their neighbors. They're not ready to be town folk.
"Joe" depicts the lives of down and outers, losers, cons, alcoholics, and a choir of profane characters. The principle trinity is Joe Ransom, Gary Jones, and his monstrous father, Ward Jones. By novel's end I hoped for his long and painful death.
When I first met the Jones clan, I sensed a close portrait of Faulkner's Burden clan. Hapless, unfortunate, However, Brown slowly reveals a much darker evil in family patriarch, Ward.
Joe Ransom strikes me as one of Brown's more appealing characters. Faulted without doubt. A man capable of violence, quick to fight. A man who has done time for assaulting peace officers, Ransom resists authority though his behavior may send him back to Parchman as a three time loser. The three strikes habitual offender.
Although Joe neglected his own children, and drank his way out of his marriage, Brown places Ransom in the place of mentor and surrogate father of fifteen year old Gary ,Jones. All in all this is a near perfect novel of redemption. This is a blend of rude humor, pathos, drama, and tragedy.
Only Brown's ambiguous conclusion prevents this novel from being a five star read. With Joe, Larry Brown established his reputation as one of the finest writers of contemporary Southern literature.
October 4, 2020
It seems strange to say that I "liked" a book so filled with unpleasant characters doing nasty deeds, but I did. Larry Brown goes to some dark places, but his writing is so fine that you won't mind the journey into those unlit areas. He knows these rural denizens, driven by poverty and boredom to seek an escape, any escape from their lives of misery.
Brown instantly becomes one of those authors that makes you say, "I gotta read everything by this guy!"
Brown instantly becomes one of those authors that makes you say, "I gotta read everything by this guy!"
October 24, 2020
The second novel by the late, great Larry Brown features criminals and drifters, parolees and dumpster divers; those looking to elevate themselves, those just trying to get by, and those who wallow at the bottom of society and drag others down with them. There are no moments of true joy, only brief moments of hope that are often squashed and which lead more often than not to greater despair, despite a mildly redemptive arc for the title character. Squeamish, avoid.
August 28, 2008
Hell fire! Nothing to do? Have you a cold beer and a double banana moon pie. Slip your pistol under the seat, roll the window down and cruise through a hot Mississippi night in your dented pick-up.
Ants, bees, the bugs of summer, keyed-up guard dogs, coons, snakes, are all characters as vivid as the humans in this beautifully written novel. The major characters are inanimate: liquor and firearms.
Rambunctiousness is one thing, pure evil another.
There is a caste-system in this country. Those that have no vehicle are on the bottom rung, invisible.
You get a view here of destitution so extreme that one family shown here has dropped through a crack and they live in another ( non driving ) dimension.
the view from a bench seat at 60 miles an hour is quite different from a muddy high-way shoulder among discarded beer cans miles from nothing.
All the men in this novel drink heavily even as they simultaneously piss it out the other end. Joe digs out a bullet from his own biceps, puts band-aids on his 4 bullet wounds, then goes out gambling. I have to admire that optimism.
The soul of this novel is the growing relationship between Joe, a 44 year old seasoned, hard working, hard fighting, hard drinking man who has seen the inside of the slammer more than once and Gary, a 15 year old painfully innocent and honest boy intent on improving his situation, who has never seen a toothbrush.
Sometimes it seemed that the boy didn't know a lot of things a boy his age should know. They'd been driving by the Rock Ridge Colored Church one day back in the spring and the boy had asked him who lived in that big white house.
I enjoyed the peripherals: the war veteran John Coleman and his gas station and general store, his itchy scalp where the shrapnel still lies and his unspoken desire to have had children.
You might think these walking wounded are out looking for a war to fight. They might fight each other over various grievances or money but I don't think they fight out of boredom or for no reason.
They reach their potential when they take on evil in the form of a selfish greedy snake-like daddy that shoplifts, murders, steals food from the mouths of his family, stinks like dead chickens and abuses children.
Like you another beer?
June 9, 2020
The Publisher Says: Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won’t slow down—not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he’s desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a chance just as his own chances have dwindled to almost nothing. Together they follow a twisting map to redemption—or ruin.
Kirkus, back in 1991 when they hated everything, said this of the book: "...Brown...pares his prose close to the bone, stripping away the slightest hint of sociology or regional color. This is white trash, lumpen fiction with a vengeance, and a vision of angelic desolation."
My Review: Selected as the May 2020 Moderator's Choice in the On the Southern Literary Trail group, this is the novel that solidified Larry Brown's place in Grit Lit/Hick Lit's pantheon. He was a major talent; his short stories will, I think, be anthologized and lionized for a long time to come. He started out as a writer known for them; and I think that, like Hemingway, they will be his lasting contribution to Southern Literature's grittier edge.
This is not to denigrate or diminish his accomplishment in this, his most accessible novel:
You know where you are; you know who you're with; you're not going for a madeleine with Proust. This is poverty, this is heat, this is misery on an epic scale but never ever looked at...it's witnessed, it's so real and so present that there is just not one doubt about its honesty. Heat and poverty are characters in this scene so cinematically framed. The people are, in fact, incidental if not ornamental. They exist as morality-play embodiments of Poverty, and they continue to do so throughout the book.
Is that a flaw? Is honest appraisal and presentation of reality ever a flaw?
Is that a speech delivered to make an author's point, or is it the vox populi, the distilled belief of the Average Man that he is in fact average, the proper measure of a man's worth? It's certainly a refutation of the three-hundred-year-old moralism vox populi, vox dei! There is no god in this book, there is no numinous or immanent quality to anything. The landscape is hot, dry, miserable; the people are dumb, violent, miserable; the vox regis or deorum is notable only for its absence.
Also notably absent here are women's voices. They exist to bear children and beatings. They are adversaries to what low, animal joys men can find in sex (more akin to rape, in my opinion) and beer. Children are the punishment women inflict on men (as men see it) for the fleeting pleasure of the rut. The idea of pleasure is, in general, absent from this world. It is a place where no one at all ever makes even a feint at a genuine smile.
What redeems this read from being a complete, utter, suicidal-depression-inducing downer? Joe Ransom. Drunken convict that he is, awful father he may be, but to Gary Jones he is Jesus freshly down from the cross. Gary's sperm donor is a memorable...a matchless, actually...portrait of the kind of person I, in my damned close to infinite privilege, have never interacted with. He pimps out his prepubescent daughter. He does nothing of value to anyone, not even himself:
That's the least-offensive thing the man utters in this book. Probably in the whole of life. His son, his who-knows-how decent and good-souled son, makes him feel more worthless than he already does; not, however, as worthless as he actually is.
Gary goes to work for Joe on a county work crew. Joe, ex-con bad dad Joe, shines like a savior to him, modeling the astounding heights of not-stealing, of not-beating while being a man. Gary's life changes because he sees a possibility he never saw before. As events unfold, that possibility is embodied in a redemptive act of startling generosity, of genuine salvation.
And Joe chooses to save, not his own flesh and blood, but someone whose life trajectory makes Joe's own fucked-up life look like my wealth and privilege by comparison. If not for Larry Brown, I doubt I'd've made a second's time for these men.
Isn't this what fiction's meant to do? To make us, all of us really but especially the most shockingly privileged among us, pause and allow The Other to take unsentimental shape in our emotions?
Larry Brown did this to me, for me, and I am deeply grateful to him for it.
Kirkus, back in 1991 when they hated everything, said this of the book: "...Brown...pares his prose close to the bone, stripping away the slightest hint of sociology or regional color. This is white trash, lumpen fiction with a vengeance, and a vision of angelic desolation."
My Review: Selected as the May 2020 Moderator's Choice in the On the Southern Literary Trail group, this is the novel that solidified Larry Brown's place in Grit Lit/Hick Lit's pantheon. He was a major talent; his short stories will, I think, be anthologized and lionized for a long time to come. He started out as a writer known for them; and I think that, like Hemingway, they will be his lasting contribution to Southern Literature's grittier edge.
This is not to denigrate or diminish his accomplishment in this, his most accessible novel:
The road lay long and black ahead of them and the heat was coming now through the thin soles of their shoes. There were young beans pushing up from the dry brown fields, tiny rows of green sprigs that stretched away in the distance.
You know where you are; you know who you're with; you're not going for a madeleine with Proust. This is poverty, this is heat, this is misery on an epic scale but never ever looked at...it's witnessed, it's so real and so present that there is just not one doubt about its honesty. Heat and poverty are characters in this scene so cinematically framed. The people are, in fact, incidental if not ornamental. They exist as morality-play embodiments of Poverty, and they continue to do so throughout the book.
Is that a flaw? Is honest appraisal and presentation of reality ever a flaw?
“That boy,” he said. “I’ve done him ever favor I could. Some folks you can’t do nothing with. Just sorry. God knows I’ve done plenty of drinking and stuff in my time, but I be damn if I ever tried to cheat anybody out of any money.”
Is that a speech delivered to make an author's point, or is it the vox populi, the distilled belief of the Average Man that he is in fact average, the proper measure of a man's worth? It's certainly a refutation of the three-hundred-year-old moralism vox populi, vox dei! There is no god in this book, there is no numinous or immanent quality to anything. The landscape is hot, dry, miserable; the people are dumb, violent, miserable; the vox regis or deorum is notable only for its absence.
Also notably absent here are women's voices. They exist to bear children and beatings. They are adversaries to what low, animal joys men can find in sex (more akin to rape, in my opinion) and beer. Children are the punishment women inflict on men (as men see it) for the fleeting pleasure of the rut. The idea of pleasure is, in general, absent from this world. It is a place where no one at all ever makes even a feint at a genuine smile.
What redeems this read from being a complete, utter, suicidal-depression-inducing downer? Joe Ransom. Drunken convict that he is, awful father he may be, but to Gary Jones he is Jesus freshly down from the cross. Gary's sperm donor is a memorable...a matchless, actually...portrait of the kind of person I, in my damned close to infinite privilege, have never interacted with. He pimps out his prepubescent daughter. He does nothing of value to anyone, not even himself:
“She don’t like to be around anybody drinkin, don’t even like to smell it. I drink and I like to drink. That’s it.”
That's the least-offensive thing the man utters in this book. Probably in the whole of life. His son, his who-knows-how decent and good-souled son, makes him feel more worthless than he already does; not, however, as worthless as he actually is.
Gary goes to work for Joe on a county work crew. Joe, ex-con bad dad Joe, shines like a savior to him, modeling the astounding heights of not-stealing, of not-beating while being a man. Gary's life changes because he sees a possibility he never saw before. As events unfold, that possibility is embodied in a redemptive act of startling generosity, of genuine salvation.
And Joe chooses to save, not his own flesh and blood, but someone whose life trajectory makes Joe's own fucked-up life look like my wealth and privilege by comparison. If not for Larry Brown, I doubt I'd've made a second's time for these men.
Isn't this what fiction's meant to do? To make us, all of us really but especially the most shockingly privileged among us, pause and allow The Other to take unsentimental shape in our emotions?
Larry Brown did this to me, for me, and I am deeply grateful to him for it.
July 22, 2020
Joe Ransom is one of the most complex characters I’ve had the pleasure to “meet”. Wade Jones is one of the most despicable characters I’ve come across. Larry Brown’s creation of these characters takes place in the backroads of Mississippi, with an abundance of Deep South dialogue that doesn’t detract but enhances the setting and the pacing of Joe and Wade’s “meet up”.
Brown slowly moves the reader through the daily life of Joe who drives a beat up pickup truck, complete with shotgun rack, slurping whiskey, gulping beer, and smoking cigarettes. Seems cliche’, but there is so much more to Joe and Brown takes his time getting us to the end - and what a finale it is.
Masterly writing of dirt poor, rural, evil vs good, good ol’ boys.
This audible book was perfectly narrated by Tom Stechschulte.
Brown slowly moves the reader through the daily life of Joe who drives a beat up pickup truck, complete with shotgun rack, slurping whiskey, gulping beer, and smoking cigarettes. Seems cliche’, but there is so much more to Joe and Brown takes his time getting us to the end - and what a finale it is.
Masterly writing of dirt poor, rural, evil vs good, good ol’ boys.
This audible book was perfectly narrated by Tom Stechschulte.
February 4, 2020
Joe by Larry Brown is a gritty, often repulsive, sometimes difficult to stomach, but ultimately immensely affecting and powerful novel.
Brown’s subjects are a bunch of poor, and always down on their luck Southern rednecks who exist on the road, in shacks, trashed trucks and dilapidated mobile homes. From hour to hour, from cigarette to cigarette, from beer to beer with no apparent goal of meaning these people scrape a meager existence in the most depressing of circumstances. Most of the characters are hard, unforgiving, mean spirited and totally lacking morality or human virtue. However, the reluctant antihero Joe, despite his never ending habit of drinking a phenomenal amount of beer and whiskey, getting into fights with nearly everyone he encounters including the law, using his dog as a terrorizing killing machine, and driving his beat up truck while heavily intoxicated, still tries to live with a weirdly nebulous hard to pin down integrity.
Joe Ransom is in his late forties, newly divorced, with two older kids that he rarely sees, and a not too committed semi girlfriend who’s barely half his age. His relationship with the law is ever aggravated because of his proclivity for driving drunk, often sipping from a bottle of whiskey, and slinging empty beer bottles out the window, but also because he lives with the bitter memories of the three or more years he spent in jail for assaulting a police officer while under the influence of the ever flowing alcohol.
While Joe is an utterly self-destructive, hard-drinking, and sometimes ruthless individual caught up in the machoism of his demographic circumstances, he is essentially a decent kind of guy with a moral compass that is in stark opposition to nearly everyone else he encounters. Only his one and only friend John, who runs the local store and petrol pump, seems to genuinely understand and respect his often flawed attempt at decency.
Joe is the manager a crew who poison trees for a lumber company, that is looking to replant an entire tract of land with more profitable spruce trees, and he reluctantly gives a job to a young teenage boy Gary, who’s the unfortunate offspring of a migratory unemployed and unemployable destitute family that lives in a remote long abandoned log cabin, and pretty much survives from the help of strangers or from what they can beg, borrow and steal. The young boy, although eager to work can’t read or write and lacks the most rudimentary skills for living, but Joe is impressed by his determination, and slowly a strangely delicate but respectful friendship develop between the two of them. Throughout the novel Joe acts as a kind of taciturn mentor to Gary, who’s drunkenly vicious, deeply amoral father violently steals the money from Gary as soon as he earns it, and Joe upholds his role as the boys unsung hero until the abhorrent and gut wrenching conclusion.
Brown is a master of the descriptive detail, illustrated in various scenes that amongst others depict a rundown brothel, a gruesome and deadly dogfight, drunken men butchering a deer on a kitchen counter, and countless of scenes of late night driving and drinking. The novel is perfectly pitched, and the language is as stark and merciless as the cracked surface of a long dried out riverbed in the heat ravaged heart of Mississippi.
I believe the strength of the narrative lies in the fact that Brown never patronizes his ignorant, alcohol addicted, promiscuous, good for nothing low life characters. Instead he fluently and persuasively imbues our protagonist and his young friend with a deep felt compassion, and illuminate their otherwise prosaic lives, so that the reader at the end feels a true human connection.
Brown’s subjects are a bunch of poor, and always down on their luck Southern rednecks who exist on the road, in shacks, trashed trucks and dilapidated mobile homes. From hour to hour, from cigarette to cigarette, from beer to beer with no apparent goal of meaning these people scrape a meager existence in the most depressing of circumstances. Most of the characters are hard, unforgiving, mean spirited and totally lacking morality or human virtue. However, the reluctant antihero Joe, despite his never ending habit of drinking a phenomenal amount of beer and whiskey, getting into fights with nearly everyone he encounters including the law, using his dog as a terrorizing killing machine, and driving his beat up truck while heavily intoxicated, still tries to live with a weirdly nebulous hard to pin down integrity.
Joe Ransom is in his late forties, newly divorced, with two older kids that he rarely sees, and a not too committed semi girlfriend who’s barely half his age. His relationship with the law is ever aggravated because of his proclivity for driving drunk, often sipping from a bottle of whiskey, and slinging empty beer bottles out the window, but also because he lives with the bitter memories of the three or more years he spent in jail for assaulting a police officer while under the influence of the ever flowing alcohol.
While Joe is an utterly self-destructive, hard-drinking, and sometimes ruthless individual caught up in the machoism of his demographic circumstances, he is essentially a decent kind of guy with a moral compass that is in stark opposition to nearly everyone else he encounters. Only his one and only friend John, who runs the local store and petrol pump, seems to genuinely understand and respect his often flawed attempt at decency.
Joe is the manager a crew who poison trees for a lumber company, that is looking to replant an entire tract of land with more profitable spruce trees, and he reluctantly gives a job to a young teenage boy Gary, who’s the unfortunate offspring of a migratory unemployed and unemployable destitute family that lives in a remote long abandoned log cabin, and pretty much survives from the help of strangers or from what they can beg, borrow and steal. The young boy, although eager to work can’t read or write and lacks the most rudimentary skills for living, but Joe is impressed by his determination, and slowly a strangely delicate but respectful friendship develop between the two of them. Throughout the novel Joe acts as a kind of taciturn mentor to Gary, who’s drunkenly vicious, deeply amoral father violently steals the money from Gary as soon as he earns it, and Joe upholds his role as the boys unsung hero until the abhorrent and gut wrenching conclusion.
Brown is a master of the descriptive detail, illustrated in various scenes that amongst others depict a rundown brothel, a gruesome and deadly dogfight, drunken men butchering a deer on a kitchen counter, and countless of scenes of late night driving and drinking. The novel is perfectly pitched, and the language is as stark and merciless as the cracked surface of a long dried out riverbed in the heat ravaged heart of Mississippi.
I believe the strength of the narrative lies in the fact that Brown never patronizes his ignorant, alcohol addicted, promiscuous, good for nothing low life characters. Instead he fluently and persuasively imbues our protagonist and his young friend with a deep felt compassion, and illuminate their otherwise prosaic lives, so that the reader at the end feels a true human connection.
January 24, 2021
Wieder ein sehr beeindruckendes Buch,welches in die Tiefen der bösen Seele blicken lässt. Durchzogen von Gewalt, Alkohol , Arbeitslosigkeit und Gewalt schimmert hier auch ein guter und menschlicher Kern durch,der jedoch kaum wachsen kann durch die desolaten Umstände. Der Schreibstil ist wieder genial, das Ende etwas offen aber so perfekt, leider gab es ein paar Passagen,die mich verwirrt haben und die nicht aufgeklärt wurden,was aber auch ein stilistischen Mittel und somit gewollt sein kann. Trotzdem absolut empfehlenswert.
April 23, 2014
I’m glad to know that when Fay walks out of the story in Joe, she walks right into her own.
October 28, 2020
Gritty with a capitol G. I generally like southern grit but this book lacked almost any redeeming value. To top it off, the ending was a real head-scratcher. I've heard really good things about the late Larry Brown, but this was a disappointment.
My thanks to the folks at the Pulp Fiction group for introducing this and many other fine books.
My thanks to the folks at the Pulp Fiction group for introducing this and many other fine books.
November 1, 2020
Reading Joe is like living a whole other life. It’s gritty, rough, and exhausting. But oh, can Larry Brown write. Rural Mississippi is as much a character as all the hard-drinking men and the two main characters, young Gary Jones who finds a skewed but noble mentor in Joe Ransom.
This is my third Larry Brown book. I may wait until I’m feeling more grounded and energetic than I do right now to read another.
This is my third Larry Brown book. I may wait until I’m feeling more grounded and energetic than I do right now to read another.
July 18, 2014
You might be a redneck if you read this novel, and you feel as though you’ve met a few of your kin. You might be a redneck if you read between these pages, and you feel like you’re coming home. You might be a redneck if words like y’all and fixin’ to flow freely from your lips. You might be a redneck if JOE makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You might be a redneck if you’re building relations with your second cousin on your mama’s side. You might be a redneck if you whistle between the gaps of your missing teeth. You might be a redneck if soda pop is your favorite breakfast beverage.
This novel helped me get reacquainted with my southern side, where the tea is always sweet, the hollers are narrow enough that you pinch your gut around the turns, the neighbors greet one another in the morning, where the gathering spots are the local Wal-Mart and Burger King and, where the widest road is a four-lane highway. Where an entire town gets all up in your business and “Country Roads” is your state’s unofficial song. Yes, I’m talking about West By God Virginia, which ain’t all that different from the heartland of Mississippi. At least according to the latest poll where we’re ranked as the two most obese states.
So, yes, one could make the argument that I already had a predisposition to like this novel, and I’d agree with you. But Larry Brown knows how to spin a tale on the back roads, conjuring up dirt and dust, and a voice that sang me to sleep in a country twang where the syllables were extended on account of them being important words, and y’all don’t want to miss ’em the first go round.
If you missed this book the first go round, as I’m willing to bet a few of ya might’a done, you’d better find that horse and saddle up and don’t forget your spurs, in case this particular colt decides to shove you off.
Cross-posted at Robert's Reads
This novel helped me get reacquainted with my southern side, where the tea is always sweet, the hollers are narrow enough that you pinch your gut around the turns, the neighbors greet one another in the morning, where the gathering spots are the local Wal-Mart and Burger King and, where the widest road is a four-lane highway. Where an entire town gets all up in your business and “Country Roads” is your state’s unofficial song. Yes, I’m talking about West By God Virginia, which ain’t all that different from the heartland of Mississippi. At least according to the latest poll where we’re ranked as the two most obese states.
So, yes, one could make the argument that I already had a predisposition to like this novel, and I’d agree with you. But Larry Brown knows how to spin a tale on the back roads, conjuring up dirt and dust, and a voice that sang me to sleep in a country twang where the syllables were extended on account of them being important words, and y’all don’t want to miss ’em the first go round.
If you missed this book the first go round, as I’m willing to bet a few of ya might’a done, you’d better find that horse and saddle up and don’t forget your spurs, in case this particular colt decides to shove you off.
Cross-posted at Robert's Reads
April 18, 2018
Unforgettable masterpiece.
I might write more tomorrow but tonight I'm just not up to doing it justice.
Previous Notes:
November 12, 2013 – Shelved as: to-read
April 8, 2018 – Started Reading
April 8, 2018 – page 0
0.0% "My last and final unread Larry Brown novel."
April 8, 2018 – page 54
15.34%
April 14, 2018 – page 106
30.11% "I've been caught up with current events for the past several days. Outrage daily intensifying, I need to return to the world ...Mississippi of my twenties."
April 14, 2018 – page 159
45.17% "Beautiful writing as mournful as a funeral."
April 14, 2018 – page 177
50.28% "I gotta lay my burden down for the night, to quote Furry Lewis.
Fay walks on page 161. I reckon she won't return until the sequel, "Fay" by Larry Brown.
Tender moments in this novel brings you down to batting back tears."
April 16, 2018 – page 219
62.22% "Unpleasant to read dog-fight in the whore house segment.
Half pit-bull (Joe's dog) vs the resident protective Doberman of the brothel.
Call me a softie but I hate reading about a dog-fight.
We learn the story behind Fay's and Gary's low-down, worthless, alcoholic, murderous daddy.
This is Faulkner for those who don't care for Faulkner's high-falutin' vocabulary and biblical references."
April 16, 2018 – page 279
79.26% "I have to stop for the night.
The heart can stand only so much breakage."
April 17, 2018 – Finished Reading
I might write more tomorrow but tonight I'm just not up to doing it justice.
Previous Notes:
November 12, 2013 – Shelved as: to-read
April 8, 2018 – Started Reading
April 8, 2018 – page 0
0.0% "My last and final unread Larry Brown novel."
April 8, 2018 – page 54
15.34%
April 14, 2018 – page 106
30.11% "I've been caught up with current events for the past several days. Outrage daily intensifying, I need to return to the world ...Mississippi of my twenties."
April 14, 2018 – page 159
45.17% "Beautiful writing as mournful as a funeral."
April 14, 2018 – page 177
50.28% "I gotta lay my burden down for the night, to quote Furry Lewis.
Fay walks on page 161. I reckon she won't return until the sequel, "Fay" by Larry Brown.
Tender moments in this novel brings you down to batting back tears."
April 16, 2018 – page 219
62.22% "Unpleasant to read dog-fight in the whore house segment.
Half pit-bull (Joe's dog) vs the resident protective Doberman of the brothel.
Call me a softie but I hate reading about a dog-fight.
We learn the story behind Fay's and Gary's low-down, worthless, alcoholic, murderous daddy.
This is Faulkner for those who don't care for Faulkner's high-falutin' vocabulary and biblical references."
April 16, 2018 – page 279
79.26% "I have to stop for the night.
The heart can stand only so much breakage."
April 17, 2018 – Finished Reading
January 4, 2022
One of those books I couldn't pry myself loose from in order to go to sleep. Joe is an intriguing guy with a lot going on in his life. The more you get to know about him, the way he deals with people, his criminal past, his broken family, the more I couldn't help but like him. So when he takes Gary, who rambled into town with his transient family led by the revolting father Wade, under his wing, I thought I knew where the story was heading. But the story took its time getting there, piling on little adventures both comedic and serious to add more depth to the characters. While the ending didn't play out exactly in my mind (and there's more than enough wiggle room left in the writing) I was still highly satisfied by this book.
October 5, 2018
I must of read a different book than y'all did. The story was slow, with little happening, and an unsatisfying end. The characters were mostly uninteresting and underdeveloped, with occasional hints, and stereotypical: the men were all drunkards, and the women interesting mostly in companionship (or sex.) Male arguments were either resolved with guns, knives or fists. White trash.
April 24, 2018
"I think he cut somebody. He just got to where he stayed in jail all the time. He's on probation right now."
"He is?"
"He was. Motherfucker dead now."
"He is?"
"He was. Motherfucker dead now."
May 26, 2012
This story deals with characters that you may have read about before in other southern tales, ones that you may have seen in town, your local, but had never got to know more of.
The author deals with big problems in families and communities, a tale dealing with lesser than over the picket fence dream family, you get another slice of ones not quite living that dream but finding their way through the pitfalls and making decisions to make a change.
This story revolves around three men, three generations, three hearts.
The youngest being the fifteen year old Gary, he is a hard worker and a good heart trying to see through the wrongs that have hit his path, someone who learned of the smell of Whiskey early in his life, hated the presence of it in his fathers life.
Joe, in the middle of the three ages, another hard worker and a kind heart but also a troubled one, through mistakes, bad choices and a spiralling life.
Joe sees in Gary someone he hopes to help out and prevent from travelling darker roads.
Wade Jones the oldest, the father of Gary, has a wicked heart that maybe once had some goodness, but readers may feel doubt in him ever even possessing that. Everything serves the bottle, every penny earned from Gary's sweat and toil to serve his bottle, the family to starve and drift so that his bottle be served. This man has no limits to what he would do to see the emptying of a bottle, he is the real bad guy of the tale, the wicked heart.
The main character Gary, is what has you in the story.
The author has you wanting to know of what his becoming will be and hooked in the narrative.
The great writing has you immersed in the momentum and has you seeing great words in motion, scenes unfolding like you are there in visceral pace at times.
This my first to read of Larry Brown’s and did so now due to the movie adaption, that was longer than i had planned considering Frank Bill’s recommendation to this novel back when i hosted in an interview with him here>>
http://more2read.com/review/interview-with-frank-bill
Larry Brown in my mind can be considered a writer up there with writers who have crafted memorable and likeable southern characters like that of the great William Faulkner and the living Cormac McCarthy, alongside writers like Daniel Woodrell, Frank Bill, Donald Ray Pollock, and many others.
Some excerpts that show you his skill.
“It was that part of the evening when the sun has gone but daylight still remains. the whippoorwills called to each other and moved about, and the choir of frogs had assembled in the ditches to sing their melancholy songs. bats scurried overhead, swift and gone in the gathering dusk. the boy didn’t know where he and his family were, other than one name: Mississippi. ”
‘Late that night the rain fell thinly in the streets around the square, slashes of water streaming diagonally in the air above the wet sidewalks. passing cars sprayed it up from their wheels, and the blooming taillights spread a weak red glow across the pavement as the hum of their engines quietly receded into a night no lonelier than any other. The stained marble solider raised in tribute to a long dead and vanquished army went on with his charge, the tip of his bayonet broken off by tree primers, his epaulets covered with pigeon droppings. Easing up to the square in uncertain caution came a junk mobile, replete with inner-tube strips hung from the bumpers and decals on the fenders and wired dogs’ heads wagging on the back shelf, the windows rolled tightly on the skull-bursting music screaming to be loosed from within. Untagged, un-inspected, unmuffled, its gutted iron bowels hung low and scraped upon the street, un-pinioned at last by rusty coat hangers, a dying shower of sparks flowing in brilliant orange bits. No tail-lights glimmered from this derelict vehicle, no red flash of brakes as it pulled to a stop. It inched forward in jerks, low on transmission fluid. the old man watched these things. later that night he was thrown in jail."
The movie was not able to capture what Joe was feeling in this moment.
"As she put it in a drawer under the counter, the Doberman (in the movie an Alsatian) walked out of the hall and stood looking at him. Coal black, a chain of silver, sleek and lithely muscled, and the lips lifting ever so slowly from the white teeth that lined his mouth. The dog hate him, had always hated him, ever since he was a puppy. He wished for the pistol under the seat with a slight chilling of his blood and felt that something that hated so strongly for so little ought not be allowed to hate anymore. The dog stood ravenous and slobbering on the bright yellow linoleum, the flanks tense and the brown eyes not blinking. Joe looked into the animal’s eyes and the eyes looked back with a deep and yearning hatred."
The author deals with big problems in families and communities, a tale dealing with lesser than over the picket fence dream family, you get another slice of ones not quite living that dream but finding their way through the pitfalls and making decisions to make a change.
This story revolves around three men, three generations, three hearts.
The youngest being the fifteen year old Gary, he is a hard worker and a good heart trying to see through the wrongs that have hit his path, someone who learned of the smell of Whiskey early in his life, hated the presence of it in his fathers life.
Joe, in the middle of the three ages, another hard worker and a kind heart but also a troubled one, through mistakes, bad choices and a spiralling life.
Joe sees in Gary someone he hopes to help out and prevent from travelling darker roads.
Wade Jones the oldest, the father of Gary, has a wicked heart that maybe once had some goodness, but readers may feel doubt in him ever even possessing that. Everything serves the bottle, every penny earned from Gary's sweat and toil to serve his bottle, the family to starve and drift so that his bottle be served. This man has no limits to what he would do to see the emptying of a bottle, he is the real bad guy of the tale, the wicked heart.
The main character Gary, is what has you in the story.
The author has you wanting to know of what his becoming will be and hooked in the narrative.
The great writing has you immersed in the momentum and has you seeing great words in motion, scenes unfolding like you are there in visceral pace at times.
This my first to read of Larry Brown’s and did so now due to the movie adaption, that was longer than i had planned considering Frank Bill’s recommendation to this novel back when i hosted in an interview with him here>>
http://more2read.com/review/interview-with-frank-bill
Larry Brown in my mind can be considered a writer up there with writers who have crafted memorable and likeable southern characters like that of the great William Faulkner and the living Cormac McCarthy, alongside writers like Daniel Woodrell, Frank Bill, Donald Ray Pollock, and many others.
Some excerpts that show you his skill.
“It was that part of the evening when the sun has gone but daylight still remains. the whippoorwills called to each other and moved about, and the choir of frogs had assembled in the ditches to sing their melancholy songs. bats scurried overhead, swift and gone in the gathering dusk. the boy didn’t know where he and his family were, other than one name: Mississippi. ”
‘Late that night the rain fell thinly in the streets around the square, slashes of water streaming diagonally in the air above the wet sidewalks. passing cars sprayed it up from their wheels, and the blooming taillights spread a weak red glow across the pavement as the hum of their engines quietly receded into a night no lonelier than any other. The stained marble solider raised in tribute to a long dead and vanquished army went on with his charge, the tip of his bayonet broken off by tree primers, his epaulets covered with pigeon droppings. Easing up to the square in uncertain caution came a junk mobile, replete with inner-tube strips hung from the bumpers and decals on the fenders and wired dogs’ heads wagging on the back shelf, the windows rolled tightly on the skull-bursting music screaming to be loosed from within. Untagged, un-inspected, unmuffled, its gutted iron bowels hung low and scraped upon the street, un-pinioned at last by rusty coat hangers, a dying shower of sparks flowing in brilliant orange bits. No tail-lights glimmered from this derelict vehicle, no red flash of brakes as it pulled to a stop. It inched forward in jerks, low on transmission fluid. the old man watched these things. later that night he was thrown in jail."
The movie was not able to capture what Joe was feeling in this moment.
"As she put it in a drawer under the counter, the Doberman (in the movie an Alsatian) walked out of the hall and stood looking at him. Coal black, a chain of silver, sleek and lithely muscled, and the lips lifting ever so slowly from the white teeth that lined his mouth. The dog hate him, had always hated him, ever since he was a puppy. He wished for the pistol under the seat with a slight chilling of his blood and felt that something that hated so strongly for so little ought not be allowed to hate anymore. The dog stood ravenous and slobbering on the bright yellow linoleum, the flanks tense and the brown eyes not blinking. Joe looked into the animal’s eyes and the eyes looked back with a deep and yearning hatred."
July 18, 2022
"El chico se acordaba de la época en que su hermana hablaba, pero hacía ya mucho tiempo que no decía nada. Si lloraba, eran solo lágrimas. La felicidad apenas la mostraba con una sonrisa. Y, últimamente, no es que se prodigasen mucho."
De Larry Brown me ha gustado todo lo que he leído (graciasss DirtyWorks), no solo me gustan sus historias sino que me entusiasman por cuestiones que ya he expuesto en otras reseñas, pero también tengo que reconocer que esta novela, en particular, es la que me ha resultado la más dura, la más cruda, la más desesperanzadora, quizás porque hay niños de por medio que es un tema incómodo, pero también porque aquí he visto a un Larry Brown más oscuro. El talento de Larry Brown está en que no juzga a sus personajes, parece que siempre hay un ligero atisbo de luz por muy sórdido que sea lo que esté contando, y aquí también lo hay; ese atisbo de luz está en la relación de un niño de quince años, Gary, con Joe Ransome, el primer referente masculino que se ha encontrado en su vida. Joe es un pendenciero, un alcoholico, un ex convicto, con una vida familiar desastrosa por culpa del alcohol, separado, apenas ve a sus hijos… , sí, Joe es muchas cosas pero es al mismo tiempo un tipo con un innato sentido de la nobleza.
"Joe se levantó. Era peor de lo que pensaba. Un mocoso errante arrastrado por el viento mendigando un poco de bondad humana. Pidiendo la oportunidad para ganarse la vida. Ofreciendo sus manos para producir, no para tomar."
Joe no es una novela con un argumento específico es más bien como si Larry Brown hubiera cogido a Gary y Joe los hubiera situado en un momento específico de lugar y tiempo entre vagabundeos y viajes en camioneta bebiendo cerveza y bourbon recorriendo los bosquees, el río, los senderos rurales y realmente son estos encuentros de los dos lo que le dan vida a la novela. Gary que vive en una cabaña abandonada junto a una familia totalmente desestructurada y vagabunda es el sostén de su familia con un padre abusivo y una madre mentalmente ausente y es su encuentro con Joe lo que trae un poco de luz a su vida en un momento crucial; confieso que es esto lo que me ha resultado más duro de esta novela, la vulnerabilidad del personaje del adolescente junto a una familia que siempre le ha restado, y sin embargo, Gary es un niño honesto y lo suficientemente noble como para querer cambiar su vida, realmente Brown consigue romperte el alma con algunas situaciones familiares muy impactantes pero que no dejan de ser la vida misma.
Una novela magnífica con el estilo poderoso y contundente de Larry Brown, siempre preciso, pero al mismo tiempo golpeando al lector donde más duele consiguiendo despertarle y sacándole de su zona más segura y lanzándole a la dura realidad. La traducción es de Javier Lucini.
"Cuando volvió en sí, los faros de la camioneta alumbraban las entrañas verdes y oscuras del bosque y los bichos bailoteaban en los haces de luz. A lo lejos, a través de la negra noche, se distinguía vagamente el lamento de las sirenas, el canto de las sirenas, como almas perdidas en el firmamento. Y débiles destellos de luz azul a través de los árboles."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
♫♫ ♫ Ghosteen
De Larry Brown me ha gustado todo lo que he leído (graciasss DirtyWorks), no solo me gustan sus historias sino que me entusiasman por cuestiones que ya he expuesto en otras reseñas, pero también tengo que reconocer que esta novela, en particular, es la que me ha resultado la más dura, la más cruda, la más desesperanzadora, quizás porque hay niños de por medio que es un tema incómodo, pero también porque aquí he visto a un Larry Brown más oscuro. El talento de Larry Brown está en que no juzga a sus personajes, parece que siempre hay un ligero atisbo de luz por muy sórdido que sea lo que esté contando, y aquí también lo hay; ese atisbo de luz está en la relación de un niño de quince años, Gary, con Joe Ransome, el primer referente masculino que se ha encontrado en su vida. Joe es un pendenciero, un alcoholico, un ex convicto, con una vida familiar desastrosa por culpa del alcohol, separado, apenas ve a sus hijos… , sí, Joe es muchas cosas pero es al mismo tiempo un tipo con un innato sentido de la nobleza.
"Joe se levantó. Era peor de lo que pensaba. Un mocoso errante arrastrado por el viento mendigando un poco de bondad humana. Pidiendo la oportunidad para ganarse la vida. Ofreciendo sus manos para producir, no para tomar."
Joe no es una novela con un argumento específico es más bien como si Larry Brown hubiera cogido a Gary y Joe los hubiera situado en un momento específico de lugar y tiempo entre vagabundeos y viajes en camioneta bebiendo cerveza y bourbon recorriendo los bosquees, el río, los senderos rurales y realmente son estos encuentros de los dos lo que le dan vida a la novela. Gary que vive en una cabaña abandonada junto a una familia totalmente desestructurada y vagabunda es el sostén de su familia con un padre abusivo y una madre mentalmente ausente y es su encuentro con Joe lo que trae un poco de luz a su vida en un momento crucial; confieso que es esto lo que me ha resultado más duro de esta novela, la vulnerabilidad del personaje del adolescente junto a una familia que siempre le ha restado, y sin embargo, Gary es un niño honesto y lo suficientemente noble como para querer cambiar su vida, realmente Brown consigue romperte el alma con algunas situaciones familiares muy impactantes pero que no dejan de ser la vida misma.
Una novela magnífica con el estilo poderoso y contundente de Larry Brown, siempre preciso, pero al mismo tiempo golpeando al lector donde más duele consiguiendo despertarle y sacándole de su zona más segura y lanzándole a la dura realidad. La traducción es de Javier Lucini.
"Cuando volvió en sí, los faros de la camioneta alumbraban las entrañas verdes y oscuras del bosque y los bichos bailoteaban en los haces de luz. A lo lejos, a través de la negra noche, se distinguía vagamente el lamento de las sirenas, el canto de las sirenas, como almas perdidas en el firmamento. Y débiles destellos de luz azul a través de los árboles."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
♫♫ ♫ Ghosteen
July 24, 2007
Southern-fried gothic. Grab a bourbon, put your car up on blocks, get depressed, and read this book. Not bad 'tall.
February 19, 2014
I thought this was good, but not as good as Father and Son.
Brown is/was a talented writer, whose strength seems to be in the simplicity of his language and the powerful images his writing elicits in the reader's mind. It just goes to show, a really good writer can throw away his thesaurus and still create beautiful and literary prose.
Brown is also a master at creating a subtle sense of tension and feeling of hopelessness, which is a hallmark of Southern Gothic Fiction...the life sucks and then you die view of the world. I think what draws fans of the genre, though, is the knowledge that life sucks a lot more for some than others. There's something sobering and, at times, strangely satisfying about confronting just how unfair and cruel life can be.
Would recommend this to fans of the genre. Brown is certainly up there with the William Gay's and Ron Rash's of our day and age and may even approach legends like Flannery O'Connor and Erskine Caldwell.
Brown is/was a talented writer, whose strength seems to be in the simplicity of his language and the powerful images his writing elicits in the reader's mind. It just goes to show, a really good writer can throw away his thesaurus and still create beautiful and literary prose.
Brown is also a master at creating a subtle sense of tension and feeling of hopelessness, which is a hallmark of Southern Gothic Fiction...the life sucks and then you die view of the world. I think what draws fans of the genre, though, is the knowledge that life sucks a lot more for some than others. There's something sobering and, at times, strangely satisfying about confronting just how unfair and cruel life can be.
Would recommend this to fans of the genre. Brown is certainly up there with the William Gay's and Ron Rash's of our day and age and may even approach legends like Flannery O'Connor and Erskine Caldwell.
April 14, 2021
Inhalt:
Gary Jones schätzt sein eigenes Alter auf etwa fünfzehn. Zusammen mit seinem gewalttätigen Vater, einer apathischen Mutter und seinen beiden Schwestern zieht er obdachlos und ohne Chance auf ein anständiges Leben durch den Süden der USA. Bis er auf den Ex-Häftling Joe Ransom trifft, der sein eigenes Leben auf die Reihe zu bekommen versucht. Joe gibt dem eifrigen Jungen einen Aushilfsjob und nimmt ihn unter seine Fittiche. Doch Garys Vater ist damit alles andere als einverstanden. Bald kommt es zur Konfrontation.
Meine Meinung:
Die Geschichte um den jungen Gary und seine Familie war für mich nicht leicht zu verdauen. Der leider bereits verstorbene Autor Larry Brown hat ab der ersten Seite eine bedrückende Atmosphäre geschaffen, die in mir bis zum Ende konstant ein ungutes Gefühl während des Lesens hervorrief. Aber nicht unbedingt im negativen Sinn, falls das irgendwie Sinn macht… Denn genau dieses Gefühl trug mich nur so durch die Seiten und obwohl ich das Buch 1-2 mal zur Seite legen musste, weil mich die Schicksale der Protagonisten so rührten, hielt mich genau dieser Umstand und die schonungslose Authentizität dieses Buches bei der Stange.
Joe ist für mich der (Anti-)Held dieser Geschichte, der trotz vieler Fehler (aber mal ehrlich: Wer hat denn keine?) das Herz am rechten Fleck hat. Sein Bemühen um den verwahrlosten Gary gab mir ein wenig den Glauben an die Menschheit wieder.
Browns ehrlicher Schreibstil hat es mir angetan und deshalb werde ich sicher bald zu einem weiteren Buch von ihm, nämlich „Fay“, greifen, welches Kritikern zufolge „Joe“ sogar noch toppen soll. Ich muss aber auf jeden Fall für diese Art von Buch in der Stimmung sein.
Fazit:
Ein bedrückender Roman, der mich mit vielen Gedanken zurückgelassen hat.
Meine Bewertung:
4/5 Sterne
Gary Jones schätzt sein eigenes Alter auf etwa fünfzehn. Zusammen mit seinem gewalttätigen Vater, einer apathischen Mutter und seinen beiden Schwestern zieht er obdachlos und ohne Chance auf ein anständiges Leben durch den Süden der USA. Bis er auf den Ex-Häftling Joe Ransom trifft, der sein eigenes Leben auf die Reihe zu bekommen versucht. Joe gibt dem eifrigen Jungen einen Aushilfsjob und nimmt ihn unter seine Fittiche. Doch Garys Vater ist damit alles andere als einverstanden. Bald kommt es zur Konfrontation.
Meine Meinung:
Die Geschichte um den jungen Gary und seine Familie war für mich nicht leicht zu verdauen. Der leider bereits verstorbene Autor Larry Brown hat ab der ersten Seite eine bedrückende Atmosphäre geschaffen, die in mir bis zum Ende konstant ein ungutes Gefühl während des Lesens hervorrief. Aber nicht unbedingt im negativen Sinn, falls das irgendwie Sinn macht… Denn genau dieses Gefühl trug mich nur so durch die Seiten und obwohl ich das Buch 1-2 mal zur Seite legen musste, weil mich die Schicksale der Protagonisten so rührten, hielt mich genau dieser Umstand und die schonungslose Authentizität dieses Buches bei der Stange.
Joe ist für mich der (Anti-)Held dieser Geschichte, der trotz vieler Fehler (aber mal ehrlich: Wer hat denn keine?) das Herz am rechten Fleck hat. Sein Bemühen um den verwahrlosten Gary gab mir ein wenig den Glauben an die Menschheit wieder.
Browns ehrlicher Schreibstil hat es mir angetan und deshalb werde ich sicher bald zu einem weiteren Buch von ihm, nämlich „Fay“, greifen, welches Kritikern zufolge „Joe“ sogar noch toppen soll. Ich muss aber auf jeden Fall für diese Art von Buch in der Stimmung sein.
Fazit:
Ein bedrückender Roman, der mich mit vielen Gedanken zurückgelassen hat.
Meine Bewertung:
4/5 Sterne
September 1, 2016
This is a book of Southern literature. I have seen many comparisons between this author and William Faulkner. I have read but a short story of Faulkner's, so I am not that aware of his writing. This book is a gritty, character-driven story of an alcoholic ex-con and the 15-year old boy he somewhat takes under his wing. The boy is living with a total bastard of a father, also an alcoholic, along with his mother and two sisters in a decrepit, abandoned shack in the woods of Mississippi. He meets Joe by convincing him to give him a job, showing himself to be a hard worker and responsible individual, amazing considering where he came from.
What makes this book so fascinating to me is the central character Joe. He is both a unapologetic drunk, somewhat violent with very little tolerance for the law. And yet, there is a side to him that is about as good as a person can be. His concern for the boy and his family, as well as the rest of his workers, is beyond reproach. And he has a basic moral code that he sticks very closely to, even if it involves murder and assault. The author clearly distinguishes between a good murder and a bad one. To sum him up, his ex-wife has a deep seated love and respect for him, but she surely cannot live with him.
There's not a compelling plot, though there are some exciting moments. It is more of a character study, most of them being crusty, rural southerners. There's a lot of drinking, gambling, uncommitted sexual encounters. And yet there is a real sense of right and wrong and distinguishing between the two.
What makes this book so fascinating to me is the central character Joe. He is both a unapologetic drunk, somewhat violent with very little tolerance for the law. And yet, there is a side to him that is about as good as a person can be. His concern for the boy and his family, as well as the rest of his workers, is beyond reproach. And he has a basic moral code that he sticks very closely to, even if it involves murder and assault. The author clearly distinguishes between a good murder and a bad one. To sum him up, his ex-wife has a deep seated love and respect for him, but she surely cannot live with him.
There's not a compelling plot, though there are some exciting moments. It is more of a character study, most of them being crusty, rural southerners. There's a lot of drinking, gambling, uncommitted sexual encounters. And yet there is a real sense of right and wrong and distinguishing between the two.
June 3, 2020
Sour whiskey, flat beer, stale breath, rank sweat, musty clothing, and the reek of urine and unbathed bodies. The stench coming out of the pages of this novel will most certainly linger in your mind for a while. You can almost smell the foulness within this book. Makes you want to take a shower or wash your hands just thinking about it.
The characters in Joe are hard, redneck and, for the most part, heartless with few exceptions. Joe, the main character, is a horrible husband and an alcoholic with a heart who is bound to keep repeating the same mistakes to his own detriment. Gary, who is illiterate and piss poor, looks up to Joe who becomes his one and only savior. Joe and Gary, along with all the of the countless, deplorable, and sad characters in this book allowed Larry Brown to create one raw work of desperation.
I spent a good part of the book thinking I was surely not going to give Joe more than a likable rating, but the further I went, the deeper and grittier the story became. The dialog perfectly paced and raw. While I can honestly say Joe is not going on my “must read again list”, I highly doubt I’ll forget it. It’s that impactful.
I listened to Joe on Audible and the narrator gets a solid five stars for bringing these hard characters to life. For Larry Brown I give a solid 4 stars for writing a book I’m glad I read for it’s raw and gritty look at Southern Grit Lit’s underbelly of sad, desperate, characters.
The characters in Joe are hard, redneck and, for the most part, heartless with few exceptions. Joe, the main character, is a horrible husband and an alcoholic with a heart who is bound to keep repeating the same mistakes to his own detriment. Gary, who is illiterate and piss poor, looks up to Joe who becomes his one and only savior. Joe and Gary, along with all the of the countless, deplorable, and sad characters in this book allowed Larry Brown to create one raw work of desperation.
I spent a good part of the book thinking I was surely not going to give Joe more than a likable rating, but the further I went, the deeper and grittier the story became. The dialog perfectly paced and raw. While I can honestly say Joe is not going on my “must read again list”, I highly doubt I’ll forget it. It’s that impactful.
I listened to Joe on Audible and the narrator gets a solid five stars for bringing these hard characters to life. For Larry Brown I give a solid 4 stars for writing a book I’m glad I read for it’s raw and gritty look at Southern Grit Lit’s underbelly of sad, desperate, characters.
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