HASHTAG

by Eryk Pruitt

“Think of Elmore Leonard’s great stories set in the south, and you will get a sense of Pruitt’s style. This is a great ride.”
—Bookreporter

From one of the freshest voices of Southern noir comes a gritty crime story with plenty of Southern flavor and a world and characters you’ll be clawing for more of.

The repercussions are felt across the American South when a pizza joint in sleepy Lake Castor, Virginia is robbed and the manager, Odie Shanks, is kidnapped. The kidnapping is the talk of the town, but it's what people don't know that threatens to rip asunder societal norms. Odie chases dreams of Hollywood stardom and an explosive social media presence while his partner in crime, Jake Armstrong, pursues his own vengeful agenda.

In the meantime, corrupt and lazy Deputy Roy Rains has a hard-luck time of covering up the crime in order to preserve his way of life.

And college student Melinda Kendall has hit the highway in a stolen ride with nothing but a .22 and limited options, on the run from her drug dealer boyfriend, the Mississippi State Police and the media, trying to escape some bad choices by making even more bad choices.

Genres: Crime

328 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 26, 2015

About the author

Eryk Pruitt is a screenwriter, author and filmmaker living in Durham, NC with his wife Lana and cat Busey. His short films FOODIE and LIYANA, ON COMMAND have won several awards at film festivals across the US. His fiction appears in The Avalon Literary Review, Pulp Modern, Thuglit, and Zymbol, to name a few. In 2013, he was a finalist for Best Short Fiction in Short Story America and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes for 2014. His novel Dirtbags was published in April 2014, and HASHTAG will be published in May, 2015. A full list of credits can be found at erykpruitt.com.

Reviews

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to work with this guy David, who everybody though was dumb as a post. David was in fact the smartest guy in the room, but played dumb so that everybody would leave him alone to work on his multiple successful personal projects. I feel the same way about Eryk Pruitt's fiction that I feel about David. It doesn't introduce itself well sometimes, but it is so much more than meet the eye.

I don't know anyone beside Eryk Pruitt who writes about dumb people with such love and understanding. HASHTAG is an American epic, a love letter to the insanity of the internet era that slowly unfolds itself. Too slowly at times. Pruitt won me over with his previous novel DIRTBAGS, but I would understand people losing patience with HASHTAG as you have to keep up with Pruitt's eccentricities in order get the big picture. Deceptively smart. Deceptively tender. A too ambitious at times, but spectacular nonetheless.

[Rand · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do not buy this book. If you happen upon it without having to pay monies—as I did, through the goodreads giveaways—then it is amusing in a train-wreck kinda way. The book needs a good edit, on both grammar (punctuation— nevermind the piss-poor attempts at certain Southern-isms, fella) and minor plot details. Most of the sentences are uninteresting and utilitarian to a fault, which is perhaps forgivable in a book of this ilk, but still. And I know that some people think that sex is hard to write about, but it's really not. People just aren't comfortable writing about it, for fuck's sake.

As a whole, the plot is an amalgam of the films Pulp Fiction and Spun. If you really enjoy reading bad books about dumb criminals, then this is the book for you.

The concept had the potential to be good but the book as a whole suffers from poor execution. I am still trying to figure out why the book includes the first few pages of a Christian self-help book. Two stars because I did manage to finish the damn thing, despite having skipped a few random pages.

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Eryk Pruitt’s first book Dirtbags, I was intrigued to read more from him and see if he could produce a second novel that matched the greatness of his first book. I was thrilled when I saw I was offered the opportunity to get an ARC of Pruitt’s second book, Hashtag. I am please to say that this book not only lived up to the promise of his first book, but actually gives the impression that Pruitt is gaining steam in his writing career. This novel is even better than the first, and anyone who read his first novel would know that this says a great deal about the greatness of this book.

One of the best things about Pruitt’s books is the amazing cast of characters that he creates. Each character is developed nicely and the fact that the reader gets invested into each character makes each chapter exciting to read. No sooner are you finished with a chapter and you feel disappointed that you are leaving an engaging storyline, you reenter another storyline that you have been waiting to return to and you become excited to reenter this world. The end result is a book that seems to fly along like a bat out of hell, taking the reader on a ride they will remember for a long time.

This book has drugs, guns, crime, grit, and corrupt lawmen. In other words, this book has everything a noir book needs to become the talk of the town. 280 Steps publishing has a winner on their hands and this is the type of book that they can put out as a good indicator of the type of books they will publish; kick ass noir that sucks a reader in and leaves them wanting more. Pruitt is poised to become a must read author and has the noir world on a string. This is a dynamite read.

Highly recommended.

Review originally published at blog: https://dman4227.wordpress.com

[Zakk Madness · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a ride "Hashtag" is. Pulp crime fiction straight from the dirty south. Eryk Pruitt crafts an intricate web of chaotic threads and everywhere these threads meet you'll find violence, deceit, double crosses and maybe if you're lucky, a warm, attractive body. It's a scattergun blast of noir fiction and one hell of a dark corner slow dance with your favorite gal (or guy).

From page one I was hooked, itching to get back to turning pages. Escorted back through the town limits of Lake Castor, Virginia, and it was like I never left. Things here operate on a different frequency, with just as many unwritten rules as actual laws. It can be a dangerous town if you are not attuned, if you don't respect the elder hierarchy.

What propels this read is the fantastic cavalcade of flesh and blood characters. They feel like real people, with tangible problems and authentic desires. And while you are wanting the best outcome for these characters you've become attached to, you are also aching for the messy, disastrous collision.

And it's all delivered in a prose sharp as a homemade shiv while smooth as any casket aged whiskey. Mr. Pruitt really knows how to turn a phrase, and by the last page you'll be intoxicated by his words. There will always be room for a shot of Eryk Pruitt on my kindle.

Hashtag is a novel that'll make you feel a bit dirty while reading it. You'll feel even dirtier when you realize how much you're enjoying it and rooting for the worst.

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[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is broken up into three distinctive parts which intersect at various points.
The first part features Jake, a violent parolee who is hell-bent on getting revenge, and Odie, a pushover that works at a pizza joint who desperately wants to escape his life as an over-looked nobody. These two unlikely misfits pair up and head across the country both seeking to fulfill their far-reaching goals.
In the second part we have the extremely misguided and amoral deputy Roy Raines, who will stop at nothing to get out of an honest day’s work, even if it ends up being twice as much work not to do any work.
In the last section we have Melinda Kendall, who shows us how one poor decision can lead to an avalanche of exceedingly bad decisions.
How much I liked this book actually surprised me. There is no protagonist, no hero, and no good guy. Heck, there is not even one likeable character in the entire book! These characters are the people we seek to avoid in our daily lives. They lead the lives that we read in the headlines of our papers, the ones that leave us wondering how someone could possibly do such insane things. Yet, story teller Eryk Pruitt pulls us in and has us turning the pages in anticipation of what will happen next.
What will happen next? You won’t see it coming, I guarantee that! This book is literally one wild ride and it is a fun and twisted ride at that!

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished Hashtag by Eryk Pruitt, and what a brilliant crime novel it is. Hashtag is the story of three individuals. Their stories are told individually but overlap and interact in time and geography. Odie Shanks works at a pizza joint and dreams of going to Hollywood. The truth is, Odie just wants to be noticed for something, and his story affords him much opportunity--being kidnapped, running with an ex-con as he roams the country settling old scores, and armed robbery. But will he get the attention he craves? Deputy Roy Rains struggles with the intricacies of small-town politics and keeping in the good graces of the citizens of Lake Castor. When Rains sets out to cover up an embarrassing crime--the kidnapping of a young pizza clerk, his course is set on a dark path indeed. And then there is Melinda Kendall. All of these characters were great fun to read about, but suffice it to say that Eryk Pruitt saved the best for last. Melinda's story is gritty, violent, compelling, and just plain fun. As her crime spree spreads, she winds up with something she never wanted--attention. If you love fast-paced crime stories with great characters and that are well-plotted, give Hashtag a look. This one was just a pure joy to read. Can't wait to see what Pruitt has in the works for his next outing.

[Shadira · Rating 5 out of 5]

#GOODREAD

I just completed this book,If you are looking fro a crime story with a twist and humor.
#sweetmelinda is a woman all man shoud fear.The author did a great job swallowing you in to the story and letting it unfold before your eyes.
it was a quik read and the writting is flawless and real!!

and just when you wanted you more, it ends with a cliffhanger.
I enjoyed it and recommended it

you will thank me later

[Mike Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book, read like three short stories that he brought together at the end. Everyday characters thrust into a gritty dark world by the circumstances they find themselves in. Seems like Lake Castor is a cesspool and for some they find their way out of there, one way or another.

[Georg · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars, i reckon

[Hector Acosta · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are some of the most fucked up, unlikable characters I have encountered in a book in quite some time.

And I say that with the highest praise possible.

HASHTAG is a complex book, both to read and review. Going in, I assumed the story of Odie and and Jake, and their cross country trip robbing gas stations, repaying old debts, and chasing the Hollywood dream would make up most of the novel. But instead the book uses that original hook to show us multiple characters, their lives, and the choices (most of them wrong) they end up making.

Pruitt does a great show of layering all the characters so that at first glance they seem one dimensional, but as the pages turn you get to understand them. The sheriff might be crooked, but he also has a crush on the waitress of his usual haunt and dreams of going out on a simple date with her.

I love how the characters, different as they are, end up sharing a common motif, and I definitely kept wondering how they were all going to tie together. I think that might be my only criticism of the book- Pruitt builds the story up so much, that the ending felt a little bit flat. For me, the resolution worked at the end, but I do wished I'd gotten some more time with all the characters before the end.

That said, the book is really something, and the sheer fact that Melinda, Odie, and Roy are still with me days after finishing the book says something about the quality of not only the author, but the book.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange one to review.

Hashtag operated in three different ways:

- A novel
- A collection of interrelated short stories
- An oral history of crime in the South

Novel: Hashtag was a cohesive story divided up primarily by the characters that populated each part and piece. There was the budding actor bound for Hollywood, the police deputy who got deeper into a particular crime than he thought, and a female serial killer. Each somehow stumbled on the other and managed to tie everything in a neat, bloody bow.

Short Stories: The case could be made that the link between each of these tales was tenuous enough to consider these independent stories. And that case would be pretty solid, unlike some described in this book.

Oral History: The entire book - whether you consider this a novel or collection of stories - sounded like the South. Parts of it read like a brilliantly transcribed oral history of various crimes, complete with local dialects and odd turns of phrase.

Regardless, Hashtag was good. It was a bit hit-or-miss in parts. The tenuous ties between the stories were just tenuous enough to make them seem forced together. But the story itself (or stories) was excellent, worthy of a read.

[David Bridges · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent crime novel of three stories that intersect. It's funny, violent, and sad like most good noir novels are. The dialog is on point. Odie Shanks and Melinda are both great characters. I recommend this for any fans of Thuglit or other really good indie crime writers such as Jedediah Ayres, Mike Monson, or J David Osborne. Pruitt is repping well for the Bull City, which is why I picked up his books in the first place. I look forward to more of his work!

[Rory Costello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a Tarantino tale without the self-indulgence. Eryk Pruitt's structure here folds in upon itself very cleverly, and he often flashes a sly sense of humor. Being a Southerner, he comes by that aspect of his funny dialogue naturally. I ate this up in two short sittings and was well pleased. I knew Pruitt's work before from a couple of his short stories, but this got me to put his other novel on my list.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pruitt brings us on a fun ride with the sleazy and the broken. Not a decent human being in the story andi loved it that way. Tells the stories of 3 FUBAR people, a noobie robber with a hunger for fame, a small town cop willing to get dirty to maintain his easy life, and a student turned tweaker turned road bandit. Good times!

[Tony Knighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has#tag is lots of fun.
Three takes on how an ordinary action or occurrence can take on a life of its own, and quickly go beyond control. Good characters, all very human, doing very human things, digging themselves deeper and deeper into trouble.
Pruitt's writing is seamless.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really murderous, often disturbing ThugLit, with a female protagonist on the run, murdering, mutilating and ruining lives along the way. Truly evil, but it is what it is and lives up to its genre roots.

[Sam Belacqua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Fast. Exciting. Though now I sorta want to visit Lake Castor, Virginia

[Thrillers R Us · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honoring a longstanding commitment, SRV finally recorded an album with his older brother in 1990, FAMILY STYLE, that would be posthumously released later in the year. The center of the track listing features the songs Hillbillies from Outerspace, Long Way from Home, Tick Tock, and Telephone Song. Eerily synoptic for the goings-on in HASHTAG, Eryk Pruitt's second novel also mentions a Stevie Ray Vaughan song, albeit one recorded in 1985 and released on the very last studio album by SRV and Double Trouble. Whether crime, violence, humor and the South are compatible to mix and produce an excellent pulp noir novel with redeemable characters is an opinion probably best left to those airing theirs in hoity-toity Sunday paper inserts. For the dedicated reader, a book that mentions a song by SRV can't do nothing wrong.

Like SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, HASHTAG starts out somewhere east of the Mississippi, in the Southern Town of Lake Castor, incidentally the same locale featured in Eryk Pruitt's previous novel, DIRTBAGS. A veritable hellhole of a town, and the people are even worse. The standard advice given to people in a hole is to stop digging. The characters in the three intersecting story lines in HASHTAG not only don't stop, they get a bigger shovel. Odie Shanks and Jake Armstrong, one barely outta the joint, the other barely with the training wheels off. One out to prove he still keeps his word, the other to prove he got what it takes to hang with the big dogs; as long as he can read about it in the paper. Working in a pizza joint is not all that it's cracked up to be, so Odie wants to be an actor, but it runs deeper--he wants to be remembered. When the student is ready, a master shall appear. Thus, this unlikely pair set out, cutting a swatch across the south, robbing, maiming, and hard criming, for there's three things you can count on Jake to do: 2) keep his word, 3) see things through to the end, but he'll be damned if he can remember what 1) is. With all the tomfoolery, there is one person, a student turned tweaker, who's got a more exciting road trip than them two, and she's having a killer time while getting more fame and news coverage.

Getting caught in the web of poor decisions is a workable theme that drives HASHTAG, and is the catch-all that ensnares the other two threads in the braid of misery. The local sheriff playing politics and doing dirty deeds to maintain his ez-peezey lifestyle, and a waitress who can't seem to get on a green branch. Maintaining a good grasp on the interrelated affairs of small towns, HASHTAG captures the region nicely, even going as far as noting the difference between a twang and a drawl. Taking it to the next level, the reader is also treated to the fact that it's a long way between Alabama and California, and a discourse on public opinion and cancel culture. Reflecting a life of crime among different walks of life, HASHTAG stipulates that the only way to be sure that people don't backstab you is to shoot 'em all, leading to the axiom that we're all going into that hole (in the ground), one way or the other. Counterbalancing this harrowing morsel of food for thought is the secret to a happy life, at least in Lawles County (lawless or LOLs?): a good job, a good home, and a good woman. Hell, two outta three ain't bad. Rest assured, a little bit is better than nada--with HASHTAG you get the whole enchilada. A tale of southern crime noir, a gumbo of drawl and polished mumble, with murder, mayhem, mutilation, and miles to go before you sleep. Certainly not destined for the Pulitzer shortlist, HASHTAG is raw, entertaining, and a lot of fun.

[Chris Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This kat can write! Made me want to drink some Lonestar beer and spit, then get me some "real" bbq, some great twisted fucks(characters) in a one way mission that God surely would not approve of. One of the Best current writers in what I like to call Grit lit (I have no idea where I stole that genre label from but whomever you are you get it)

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how I'd categorize this book... Southern noir with a sense of humor,maybe. If you're looking for highbrow literature you'd probably best look elsewhere, but if you're looking for a wild entertaining ride with a bunch no account losers look no further. Fun with a capital F.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rough! Definitely noir.

[Steven]

Has great reviews but I may have to try this one again later as I'm giving up a quarter of the way through. I'm a tolerant reader and will usually speed read through bad books just to learn why they are bad, but I just can't hang in there with this one. Not saying it is bad, just that the way it progresses is pushing me away. Right now I'd rather read a bad book that at least tries to keep me in the pocket than a better book that keeps trying to throw me overboard.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing earth-scatteringly fantastic about this little book, but nothing wrong with it either. Author has a good voice, characters are realistic, plot is well paced--all in all, a good read.

[Marius Rutkevičius · Rating 1 out of 5]

not my type of book. Criminal action and life of a prisoner, bad language made me return the book without finishing it.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny sad crime novel written by a rising star. As with such books, you may love it or you may hate it, but it won't bore you.