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Kentucky Bestiary
It has been quite a long time since Officer Peter Silone has been back to Tipple Hollow, the small Appalachian town where he spent many childhood summers with his uncle and his now-deceased younger brother. So when a job opens up in neighboring Gilchrist, Kentucky, Pete naturally jumps at the chance to escape big city police work, and spend some time taking it easy in the country.
Nothing in rural Appalachia is as it seems, however. A meth amphetamine epidemic is sweeping the land, and Pete hears pray tell that monsters roam the hillsides and coalmines where no man has ventured in quite a long time. That all changes, however, when a reclusive and mysterious billionaire named Rufus Petulengro sets up camp in Tipple Hollow, and begins to conduct research in the long-dormant mines. He claims he wants only to help the environment, and to undo the damage he wreaked as a commodities trader exploiting the world for its natural resources. As Pete’s curiosity leads him on, deeper into the country and finally into the mine, he discovers a dark secret, hiding within the black bowels of the coalmine.
Nothing in rural Appalachia is as it seems, however. A meth amphetamine epidemic is sweeping the land, and Pete hears pray tell that monsters roam the hillsides and coalmines where no man has ventured in quite a long time. That all changes, however, when a reclusive and mysterious billionaire named Rufus Petulengro sets up camp in Tipple Hollow, and begins to conduct research in the long-dormant mines. He claims he wants only to help the environment, and to undo the damage he wreaked as a commodities trader exploiting the world for its natural resources. As Pete’s curiosity leads him on, deeper into the country and finally into the mine, he discovers a dark secret, hiding within the black bowels of the coalmine.
- GenresEbooks
404 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 24, 2014
11 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Hirsch
50 books133 followersJoseph Hirsch’s work has appeared in many publications, including “3 AM Magazine,” “Film International,” and “Retreats from Oblivion: A Journal of NoirCon.” Several of his novels and novellas have also been published. He previously served four years in the U.S. Army, in which his travels took him to locales as disparate as El Paso, Texas, Darmstadt, Germany, and Bagdad, Iraq. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, is online @ www.joeyhirsch.com, and has dreams of one day finding a box filled with money.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 11, 2014
Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Try the devil, though I didn’t double cross him. I pledged allegiance. – Billy Wilkes, Kentucky Bestiary
“Hero” is such an odd word. Is a hero only that person who makes the grand and often fatal gesture? Or can a hero be a simple cop, tired, worn by the pain, the depression, the idiocy of humanity? And when do the horrors of life lead to the horrors of madness?
Corporal Pietro Silone was so very tired of Cincinnati. High crime, danger, drugs.
But the change he expected when he moves back to the ‘hollers’ of Eastern Kentucky – calm, peace, a speeding ticket now and again, is not what he finds. Instead, meth-heads and murder are the acts of the day, and reality takes a curve to the depths of despair and revulsion, of mystifying dreams and horrors of the mind and soul.
“Do you know where the cave led before it got blown?” Pete imagined it leading to the adyta where saurian-headed lizard men sacrificed virgins on an alter with bas relief carvings of some Sumerian forebear of Beelzebub sculpted into its stone, the monsters salivating for blood. It had been a long night.
Kentucky Bestiary is an oddity. Beginning as a quite well written police procedural, it blends and flows into a story of horror and myth, of Appalachian life. The horrors of monsters blend seamlessly with the horrors of the history of the mountains, the coal mines and the monstrous men who ran them, who worked children till their fingers bled, their lungs collapsed, their lives lived in the chthonic darkness of the miles and miles of tunnels, filled with not only darkness, but the terrors of cave-ins; of haints and hoodoos, and things that go bump in the night.
In the mines you had to keep your friends alive. In ‘Nam you had to keep your friends alive.
The threads of history flow through the book – Vietnam plays a role in the story of Pete’s uncle, the Veteran. But the history of the superstitions of the immigrants who populate the area is a stronger thread. Cryptozoology to snake handling, Pentecostals to Native American legend. The horrors of modern day meth heads, excruciating poverty and the hand-to-mouth lives of people with no hope living amongst rich tourists and a mysterious billionaire with a mysterious past, and an even more mysterious present.
The carrion’s gray coat stretched above them and gave off a faint animal musk, the beak of the preserved vulture’s head shadowing them like the canopy shrouding a massive dark Yggdrasil tree.
This is a very different sort of book. If you are looking for straight police procedural, you aren’t going to find it here. But if you are looking for something unusual, odd, and very deeply scary, a mind trip far from the usual, this is one to check out. Just don’t do it right before bed . . .
I received this book from the publisher in return for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own.
Try the devil, though I didn’t double cross him. I pledged allegiance. – Billy Wilkes, Kentucky Bestiary
“Hero” is such an odd word. Is a hero only that person who makes the grand and often fatal gesture? Or can a hero be a simple cop, tired, worn by the pain, the depression, the idiocy of humanity? And when do the horrors of life lead to the horrors of madness?
Corporal Pietro Silone was so very tired of Cincinnati. High crime, danger, drugs.
But the change he expected when he moves back to the ‘hollers’ of Eastern Kentucky – calm, peace, a speeding ticket now and again, is not what he finds. Instead, meth-heads and murder are the acts of the day, and reality takes a curve to the depths of despair and revulsion, of mystifying dreams and horrors of the mind and soul.
“Do you know where the cave led before it got blown?” Pete imagined it leading to the adyta where saurian-headed lizard men sacrificed virgins on an alter with bas relief carvings of some Sumerian forebear of Beelzebub sculpted into its stone, the monsters salivating for blood. It had been a long night.
Kentucky Bestiary is an oddity. Beginning as a quite well written police procedural, it blends and flows into a story of horror and myth, of Appalachian life. The horrors of monsters blend seamlessly with the horrors of the history of the mountains, the coal mines and the monstrous men who ran them, who worked children till their fingers bled, their lungs collapsed, their lives lived in the chthonic darkness of the miles and miles of tunnels, filled with not only darkness, but the terrors of cave-ins; of haints and hoodoos, and things that go bump in the night.
In the mines you had to keep your friends alive. In ‘Nam you had to keep your friends alive.
The threads of history flow through the book – Vietnam plays a role in the story of Pete’s uncle, the Veteran. But the history of the superstitions of the immigrants who populate the area is a stronger thread. Cryptozoology to snake handling, Pentecostals to Native American legend. The horrors of modern day meth heads, excruciating poverty and the hand-to-mouth lives of people with no hope living amongst rich tourists and a mysterious billionaire with a mysterious past, and an even more mysterious present.
The carrion’s gray coat stretched above them and gave off a faint animal musk, the beak of the preserved vulture’s head shadowing them like the canopy shrouding a massive dark Yggdrasil tree.
This is a very different sort of book. If you are looking for straight police procedural, you aren’t going to find it here. But if you are looking for something unusual, odd, and very deeply scary, a mind trip far from the usual, this is one to check out. Just don’t do it right before bed . . .
I received this book from the publisher in return for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own.
October 7, 2014
This book is pegged as a ‘Supernatural Mystery’, but the only thing mysterious that happens in it, really only happens in the last 30-40 pages. It’s closer to a police procedural/crime-fiction with a couple of weird things thrown in. Meth is everywhere, explaining pretty much everything.
The book is written well, if not especially horrifying or mysterious. The first 2/3rds of the book bring you into the area, get you knowing the people involved, the history of the town. But there are still parts of the story I don’t understand their connection (or maybe I’m just dense), like the storey of Joe C. and his mother, or the history of Jerry Silone and his friends in the mine.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the thrill of watching Pete fumble his way through the small-town beat, only to end up facing hell, in the worst possible way. Can say I wasn’t really expecting the ending. I mean, he went to the Inn? Really??
Ugh, so annoyed at that.
Anyway, I look forward to the next Hirsch installment.
4.5/5
The book is written well, if not especially horrifying or mysterious. The first 2/3rds of the book bring you into the area, get you knowing the people involved, the history of the town. But there are still parts of the story I don’t understand their connection (or maybe I’m just dense), like the storey of Joe C. and his mother, or the history of Jerry Silone and his friends in the mine.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the thrill of watching Pete fumble his way through the small-town beat, only to end up facing hell, in the worst possible way. Can say I wasn’t really expecting the ending. I mean, he went to the Inn? Really??
Ugh, so annoyed at that.
Anyway, I look forward to the next Hirsch installment.
4.5/5
July 30, 2014
I have to give this book five stars at least for how well it blends crime and supernatural novels. I've seen others try to do it, but one or the other sides almost always falls flat. It seems like a natural combination, but it difficult to pull off. Hirsch has no trouble however, each aspect is done well in this book and he actually manages to unify them into a single whole. It starts out all crime and though things don't turn completely other for a while, the hints are still early. I love the description and the vividness of the rural Appalachian setting. I can't fault the suspense or the pacing either; Hirsch kept me on the edge of my seat. It's an A+ work all the way.
August 27, 2014
I received a free download of this book from Story Cartel, thank you!
This book was an entertaining read. I went into it expecting a supernatural story, and I was not disappointed. It did get a little bit weird and hard to follow towards the end, but it did not detract much from the overall story
I would read more by this author.
This book was an entertaining read. I went into it expecting a supernatural story, and I was not disappointed. It did get a little bit weird and hard to follow towards the end, but it did not detract much from the overall story
I would read more by this author.
September 30, 2014
A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum, is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson.
Our principle character is a cop - Corporal Peter Silone, who had tired of the stress and grind of his Cincinnati police department job, and has taken a job in little Gilchrist, Kentucky, in the eastern Kentucky Appalachians. It's a far different gig from the big city police department, and the beastiary is quickly filling up with the local fauna: a reclusive billionaire, doing something secret and mysterious in the played out mines of the area; a female ghost in black bombazine, his Uncle Jerry, survivor of both the mines and Viet Nam, the head cop, Chief Eddie Keith, his partner, Officer Stolz, and a fine assortment of meth cookers, dealers and tweakers and their family members.
We also have the Pentecostal snake handlers, the strange old pastor and his beautiful very young wife, the waitresses at the local eatery who all seem to be pregnant, and of course, Hal Lindsay, local kook and diehard adherent of cryptozoology.
It is a kind of crime novel, no real mystery, just the daily but very strange work of the police in small town Kentucky, where 'if it isn't King James, it isn't bible!', and the closed mines still haunt the lives of the local citizenry.
That is, it is a good police story right up to about three-quarters through, when it suddenly dove face first into some wild paranormal/horror plot line that seemed to belong to another book. So my cavil is not so much with the heavy and dark paranormal turn of the book in general, but with the abrupt descent into it. I would have appreciated it more had the shift been a lot more gradual and subtle.
We now can add the otherwordly creatures to our bestiary, along with the snakes, the bats and the mine mules,where we can now see that they each have their subtle or not so subtle moral meaning.
All in all, in spite of the heavy handling of the paranormal horror aspect,(the reason for the four stars and not five), I have to say I enjoyed it. I especially liked the ending. Which I am not telling you.
Our principle character is a cop - Corporal Peter Silone, who had tired of the stress and grind of his Cincinnati police department job, and has taken a job in little Gilchrist, Kentucky, in the eastern Kentucky Appalachians. It's a far different gig from the big city police department, and the beastiary is quickly filling up with the local fauna: a reclusive billionaire, doing something secret and mysterious in the played out mines of the area; a female ghost in black bombazine, his Uncle Jerry, survivor of both the mines and Viet Nam, the head cop, Chief Eddie Keith, his partner, Officer Stolz, and a fine assortment of meth cookers, dealers and tweakers and their family members.
We also have the Pentecostal snake handlers, the strange old pastor and his beautiful very young wife, the waitresses at the local eatery who all seem to be pregnant, and of course, Hal Lindsay, local kook and diehard adherent of cryptozoology.
It is a kind of crime novel, no real mystery, just the daily but very strange work of the police in small town Kentucky, where 'if it isn't King James, it isn't bible!', and the closed mines still haunt the lives of the local citizenry.
That is, it is a good police story right up to about three-quarters through, when it suddenly dove face first into some wild paranormal/horror plot line that seemed to belong to another book. So my cavil is not so much with the heavy and dark paranormal turn of the book in general, but with the abrupt descent into it. I would have appreciated it more had the shift been a lot more gradual and subtle.
We now can add the otherwordly creatures to our bestiary, along with the snakes, the bats and the mine mules,where we can now see that they each have their subtle or not so subtle moral meaning.
All in all, in spite of the heavy handling of the paranormal horror aspect,(the reason for the four stars and not five), I have to say I enjoyed it. I especially liked the ending. Which I am not telling you.
September 7, 2014
Corporal Peter (Pietro, Pete, Silone (Gilchrist PD) came from Cincinnati OH & moved to Tipple Hollow in Gilchrist (Appalachians), KY. Pete lives at Goose Trace apartments. His boss is Chief Eddie Keith (Gilchrist PD). Other Gilchrist PD officers are: Private Eddie Stolz, Private Blake, McCormack, Gloria (dispatcher) & Sergeant Paulson.
A change of scenery & Pete sets out to meet his Uncle Jerry Silone (Gaetano, Vietnam veteran, 101st Airborne) & his buddy Rufus Petulengro. The 2 played chess to pass the time. Jerry has never lost a match.
Rufus Petulengro has other alternatives in mind.
WTF is a cryptozoologist?
Will William Walter Wilkes ever be apprehended?
Where will Corporal Peter (Pietro, Pete, Silone (Gilchrist PD) future take him?
I must say you must have a warped sense of humor or be on LSD to read this book. It kept me laughing. Car 54 (Officer Gunther Toody; Officer Francis Muldoon…) where are you, or Andy of Mayberry (Barney Fife).
I’m also a Vietnam Army Veteran (Company A, Ft. Dix, NJ). Hoo’ ah’ to you also.
A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. A very well written mystery/crime + fantasy horror & historical fact book all rolled into 1. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great huge set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make great comedy caper movie, animated cartoon, or mini TV series. There is no doubt in my mind this is a very easy rating of 5 stars.
Thank you for the free book (Story Cartel)
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)
A change of scenery & Pete sets out to meet his Uncle Jerry Silone (Gaetano, Vietnam veteran, 101st Airborne) & his buddy Rufus Petulengro. The 2 played chess to pass the time. Jerry has never lost a match.
Rufus Petulengro has other alternatives in mind.
WTF is a cryptozoologist?
Will William Walter Wilkes ever be apprehended?
Where will Corporal Peter (Pietro, Pete, Silone (Gilchrist PD) future take him?
I must say you must have a warped sense of humor or be on LSD to read this book. It kept me laughing. Car 54 (Officer Gunther Toody; Officer Francis Muldoon…) where are you, or Andy of Mayberry (Barney Fife).
I’m also a Vietnam Army Veteran (Company A, Ft. Dix, NJ). Hoo’ ah’ to you also.
A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. A very well written mystery/crime + fantasy horror & historical fact book all rolled into 1. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great huge set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make great comedy caper movie, animated cartoon, or mini TV series. There is no doubt in my mind this is a very easy rating of 5 stars.
Thank you for the free book (Story Cartel)
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)
September 22, 2014
A short story is just that, a story that’s short. And the majority of films fall into the same category, in terms of the narrative arc. A novel, done well, is of course far more complex and demanding; it can be thought of us as a vessel, perhaps, or an engine, or a holding tank for multiple stories and ideas and impressions. Indeed, there’s a central story in a good novel, but sometimes that story matters less than the aggregate of everything else in the holding tank. And that’s how I viewed this novel. Yes, there’s a story—and a good one, a surprising one. But what I enjoyed most was the rest of what the book was about. Largely, it’s about the homogenization and therefore destruction of rural American culture through the twin evils of meth and an endless procession of chain-store stripmalls that have supplanted all that made our towns unique, quirky, interesting, and worth getting to know. So while you’ll find a good cop story with some mysterious otherworldly intrigue thrown in for good measure, it seems that other reviews have hit upon and stressed the story’s basic outline, so I thought it worth stressing that it’s also a sad and poignant swan song for a moribund aspect of American life.
August 13, 2016
I got this book from Story Cartel for an honest review.
I thought it was going to be a different kind of book so was somewhat disappointed when I got halfway through it and found it turned into a paranormal kind of story. That is not my usual kind of book. Although it was very well written and I did finish it, it was just not what I thought it was going to be. The author does have a very good imagination and did a good job of writing this book. I would have read it much faster if it had not changed so much. I love a good thriller/suspense book but am just not into the paranormal books.
It's not that it was not a book that others would not love to read. I know of several that will love it from start to finnish. It just was not my kind of story. If it had hinted of the change coming maybe I would have liked it better, or choose another book. I'm not saying it was a bad book though. It just was hard for me to keep reading as fast once I got around the halfway point where it took off in a different direction.
I love books set in the Appalachians but this was just too far out there for my personal taste. I gave it 3 stars because of the change in the genre. But again I know others will really love it much more than I did.
I thought it was going to be a different kind of book so was somewhat disappointed when I got halfway through it and found it turned into a paranormal kind of story. That is not my usual kind of book. Although it was very well written and I did finish it, it was just not what I thought it was going to be. The author does have a very good imagination and did a good job of writing this book. I would have read it much faster if it had not changed so much. I love a good thriller/suspense book but am just not into the paranormal books.
It's not that it was not a book that others would not love to read. I know of several that will love it from start to finnish. It just was not my kind of story. If it had hinted of the change coming maybe I would have liked it better, or choose another book. I'm not saying it was a bad book though. It just was hard for me to keep reading as fast once I got around the halfway point where it took off in a different direction.
I love books set in the Appalachians but this was just too far out there for my personal taste. I gave it 3 stars because of the change in the genre. But again I know others will really love it much more than I did.
September 3, 2014
My friend and author Jon Konrath recommended this on Facebook. I kinda trust his tastes, so I decided to read it. That was a good decision, because I really, super liked this book.
It took me a chapter or two to really get into it. It starts as a story about Pete Silone, a cop moving back to his Appalachian style hometown. He goes from a city style precinct, to a down-home one horse town precinct. It's not quite a fish out of water tale. It's more like fish comes back to his pond.
It seems like it's just going to be about meth busts, and various small crimes that happen in small town. Then it all gets weirder. What is reclusive billionaire Rufus Petulenegro up to? What is his interest with the closed down mines? How does he know Pete's poor, trailer living Uncle Jerry?
Pete meets a whole bunch of the town's more colorful characters. There is an unconvincing transvestite living in a meth afflicted trailer park, some rather interesting meth addicts, and a crypto-zoologist who loves to look at geriatric porn and eat at the local Denny's.
There are various supernatural and hallucinatory type scenes. Even if that's not your thing, you'll enjoy the story.
It took me a chapter or two to really get into it. It starts as a story about Pete Silone, a cop moving back to his Appalachian style hometown. He goes from a city style precinct, to a down-home one horse town precinct. It's not quite a fish out of water tale. It's more like fish comes back to his pond.
It seems like it's just going to be about meth busts, and various small crimes that happen in small town. Then it all gets weirder. What is reclusive billionaire Rufus Petulenegro up to? What is his interest with the closed down mines? How does he know Pete's poor, trailer living Uncle Jerry?
Pete meets a whole bunch of the town's more colorful characters. There is an unconvincing transvestite living in a meth afflicted trailer park, some rather interesting meth addicts, and a crypto-zoologist who loves to look at geriatric porn and eat at the local Denny's.
There are various supernatural and hallucinatory type scenes. Even if that's not your thing, you'll enjoy the story.
October 24, 2014
I got this book from Story Cartel, after a recommendation from Jon Konrath. What I thought I would end up reading did not happen.
A return to Tipple Hollow for a relaxing police work. But the secrets uncovered is far from what Officer Silone thought. As meth addicts try to take over the streets Silone goes out to the old coalmines where things get ugly.
The overall read of this book has a nice writing style but drags, I had a lot of trouble staying interested.
A return to Tipple Hollow for a relaxing police work. But the secrets uncovered is far from what Officer Silone thought. As meth addicts try to take over the streets Silone goes out to the old coalmines where things get ugly.
The overall read of this book has a nice writing style but drags, I had a lot of trouble staying interested.
August 22, 2017
Good Story
Peter has now taken a job as a police officer back were he grew up. But things arent as cut and dry as they seem. He has to deal with meth labs and the odd Billionaire that seems to have the town in his pocket. The mine that has been closed has been opened and it seems to be a gateway to Hell....
I could only give this 3 stars because the 1st 60% of the book reads like an episode of Cops and then it slowly builds to the main plot. Plus the character Pete seems like a level headed guy but around the end u kinda wonder. Very slow build to a very strange climax.
Peter has now taken a job as a police officer back were he grew up. But things arent as cut and dry as they seem. He has to deal with meth labs and the odd Billionaire that seems to have the town in his pocket. The mine that has been closed has been opened and it seems to be a gateway to Hell....
I could only give this 3 stars because the 1st 60% of the book reads like an episode of Cops and then it slowly builds to the main plot. Plus the character Pete seems like a level headed guy but around the end u kinda wonder. Very slow build to a very strange climax.
June 25, 2020
Initially I got this book because it was a Paragraph Line book, and I’ve liked every PL book I’ve ever read. I’m not big on cop stories, so I was annoyed with myself for not reading the synopsis before choosing it. It got real weird real fast, though, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better. . . snake handling preacher. It’s a great book to take your time with and savor.
Paragraph Line Books comes though again.
Paragraph Line Books comes though again.
September 18, 2017
It's sometimes hard to separate the conditions under which something is made from the end result. I remember reading an interview with George A. Romero (R.I.P.) in which he was asked which of the "Dead" movies was his favorite. "Day" was his response, because he had the most fun making it. And yet the consensus among his fans is that "Day" was probably the worst of the three films in the trilogy up to that point (though it has gotten some retrospective love).
I'm going the long way around the barn to say that "Kentucky Bestiary" presents a similar quandary for me. I like the book not so much for the content as for the memories its creation evokes for me. The book was put out by Paragraph Line, a micro-press run by a couple of good writers and good friends, and the process, from editing to revising to publication, was so painless that I was in disbelief at the time.
The book itself is (to quote John Fante's alter-ego Arturo Bandini) neither fish nor fowl. It's part police procedural, part supernatural horror novel. People who liked crime novels said the crime stuff was good, but the horror portions sucked. Horror fans complained of having to slog through what for them was about as compelling as an episode of "Cops" in order to get to the monster(s). I like the book's hybrid nature though, and I have a general soft spot for the work. I give myself a B+ for this outing.
I'm going the long way around the barn to say that "Kentucky Bestiary" presents a similar quandary for me. I like the book not so much for the content as for the memories its creation evokes for me. The book was put out by Paragraph Line, a micro-press run by a couple of good writers and good friends, and the process, from editing to revising to publication, was so painless that I was in disbelief at the time.
The book itself is (to quote John Fante's alter-ego Arturo Bandini) neither fish nor fowl. It's part police procedural, part supernatural horror novel. People who liked crime novels said the crime stuff was good, but the horror portions sucked. Horror fans complained of having to slog through what for them was about as compelling as an episode of "Cops" in order to get to the monster(s). I like the book's hybrid nature though, and I have a general soft spot for the work. I give myself a B+ for this outing.
August 20, 2014
Hirsch is a talented writer, there is no question about that. His protagonist, Pete Silone, is well-developed, his writing is strong and his descriptive narrative and dialogue is well executed. Set in Gilchrist, Kentucky the scenes are vividly described and the topical research is good. Many aspects of Kentucky Bestiary are reminiscent of James Lee Burke.
My issue lies in the structure of this novel. A little more than half way through, Hirsch shifts from mystery/crime genre to fantasy horror. Although his foreshadowing tried to set the stage for this transformation, it was too sudden and disjointed. At the end of this bizarre horror chapter, Hirsch abruptly returns to the mystery/crime aspect of the story. Having enjoyed the beginning of the novel and, the situations surrounding meth distribution, I found the voyage into horror absurd. That is not to say that Hirsch’s writing wasn’t imaginative. It simply did not fit with the plot line.
My issue lies in the structure of this novel. A little more than half way through, Hirsch shifts from mystery/crime genre to fantasy horror. Although his foreshadowing tried to set the stage for this transformation, it was too sudden and disjointed. At the end of this bizarre horror chapter, Hirsch abruptly returns to the mystery/crime aspect of the story. Having enjoyed the beginning of the novel and, the situations surrounding meth distribution, I found the voyage into horror absurd. That is not to say that Hirsch’s writing wasn’t imaginative. It simply did not fit with the plot line.
October 17, 2014
Joseph Hirsch has a lot of flair as a writer...plus, he's ambitious and daring enough to blend wildly different genres. He stays on the tightrope with "Kentucky Bestiary" -- but if I have any critique to offer, it's that perhaps the blending could have taken place earlier in the story. There are hints of things to come, but the big departure takes place late in the plot. Still, this is a good one. It moves fast and portrays a distinctive slice of America, which is always something I enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews