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The Vine That Ate the South
In a forgotten corner of western Kentucky lies a haunted forest referred to locally as "The Deadening," where vampire cults roam wild and time is immaterial. Our protagonist and his accomplice--the one and only, Carver Canute--set out down the Old Spur Line in search of the legendary Kudzu House, where an old couple is purported to have been swallowed whole by a hungry vine. Their quest leads them face to face with albino panthers, Great Dane-riding girls, protective property owners, and just about every American folk-demon ever, while forcing the protagonist to finally take stock of his relationship with his father and the man's mysterious disappearance.
The Vine That Ate the South is a mesmerizing fantasia where Wilkes ambitiously grapples with the contradictions of the contemporary American South while subversively considering how well we know our own family and friends.
The Vine That Ate the South is a mesmerizing fantasia where Wilkes ambitiously grapples with the contradictions of the contemporary American South while subversively considering how well we know our own family and friends.
218 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 14, 2017
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March 8, 2020
The Vine That Ate the South Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
J. D. Wilkes (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator), Recorded Books (Publisher)
• Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
• Release date: 06-01-17
• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books
Good storytelling, it has all the intricate plot, nuanced character development, and meticulous research that you’d expect in an urban legend. The adventure is more about the journey than the destination.
The Narrator:
His buddy:
The place:
Reviews:
https://www.npr.org/2017/03/14/515439...
http://www.full-stop.net/2017/05/31/r...
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Generously provided by
J. D. Wilkes (Author), T. Ryder Smith (Narrator), Recorded Books (Publisher)
• Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
• Release date: 06-01-17
• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books
Good storytelling, it has all the intricate plot, nuanced character development, and meticulous research that you’d expect in an urban legend. The adventure is more about the journey than the destination.
The Narrator:
Mama told me over and over, “Hush, honey. Never you mind all that. The meek will inherit the earth.”
Well, Charles Darwin would disagree. The lord-of-the-flies culture at my high school had only made matters worse for me. They called me “Crap Knife”…I’ll tell you about that late, as you’ll need time to prepare for such a lovely story.
His buddy:
Carver Canute is more ape than man, God love him. He’s part hick, part “full-blooded Cherokee.” Thunderbolt tribe, specifically. He stands only five-foot-nine but he has all the top-heavy girth of a Minotaur. His shoulders look like football pads, but down at his little hooves he comes to a point like an ice cream cone. And that wild, ruddy head is just the cherry on top.
He’s a cocky Elvis-haired hell-raiser who keeps his pompadour aloft with pork drippin’s, sweat, and a wafting circle of lies. He’s constantly telling whoppers, and he doesn’t give a crap what people think about him. In fact, he just left his truck dumped in someone’s ditch down the road. It’s what he calls his “Holler Mobile,” a vehicle that’s won MARSHALL COUNTY’S UGLIEST TRUCK CONTEST three years in a row. It’s enough to make him display his usual quirk of pride: adjusting the crotch of his pants, as if no pair of jeans Earth could possibly contain his girth
The place:
The “Old Spur Line” is the name of the abandoned railroad bed that cuts a path directly toward this mortal coil of legend. Both the railroad and the House —plus the sea of trees that swallows them both —can be found in the western swamplands of Kentucky. Our eight little counties have little to no violent crime to speak of, transfixed as we are on our lazy rivers. It is a place utterly cut off from the rest of the commonwealth. Almost an island unto itself.
It is called the “Jackson Purchase.” That’s because President Andres Jackson Old Hickory himself, huckstered it away from the Chickasaw. Local native Chief Paduke, who may or may not have really existed, was swindled out of his land too, done in by George Rogers Clark, kin to those “Lewis and Clark” guys. This area shares borders with other local castoffs: the “Bootheel” of Missouri and a sad section of Southern Illinois known as “Little Egypt.”
Reviews:
https://www.npr.org/2017/03/14/515439...
http://www.full-stop.net/2017/05/31/r...
https://twodollarradio.com/products/t...
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
Generously provided by
May 19, 2019
It's good to know that punk is not dead. It just retired and moved to a farm in Kentucky where it now writes folklore for a living in the form of JD Wilkes.
Another great from Two Dollar Radio.
Another great from Two Dollar Radio.
March 15, 2017
review to come
December 20, 2017
Got an advance copy of this from a friend of mine--I hadn't known anything about it before, but the synopsis had me interested, and I was curious if the book could live up to it. And turns out it could. Probably my best comparison for this book, though I think comparisons to Pynchon are tough, would be Mason and Dixon if that book was much tighter and rowdier, with two characters who make a journey through a frenetic American folktale landscape. It started out strong and was a lot of fun, with a lot of really funny bits, though in the end I was hoping the character and narrative arcs would cohere more than they did, and from moment to moment, especially near the end, it tended to be painfully episodic. Still, though, this is another really cool book from Two Dollar Radio, and suddenly it has me wondering why crazy, surreal southern adventure novels aren't more of a thing.
November 1, 2017
Hillbilly hi-jinks with exhaustive use of all available bromides and aphorisms, and more.
I found the lack of a plausible motive on the narrator's part to be a nagging weakness in the plot.
But the ending and climax made it nearly worthwhile.
J.D. Wilkes is a talented wordsmith who surely knows the dark underside of Kentucky, but I like
his music more than his fiction.
I found the lack of a plausible motive on the narrator's part to be a nagging weakness in the plot.
But the ending and climax made it nearly worthwhile.
J.D. Wilkes is a talented wordsmith who surely knows the dark underside of Kentucky, but I like
his music more than his fiction.
September 28, 2017
Musicians need to stop thinking they can write fiction books.
February 2, 2017
A Surreal, Mythic, Funny and Touching, Southern Gothic Quest
This vastly entertaining book mixes together dozens of different stories and an uncounted variety of story-telling styles into a surreal, and yet somehow grounded, Southern fantasy. I guess you could call it experimental or avant-garde or meta-fiction, but however you labor to classify this basically unclassifiable work, it is most assuredly well and carefully crafted and wildly entertaining. In no particular order, here are some of the more important ingredients in this stew:
Our unnamed narrator is quick-witted, observant, rueful and deadpan funny. He is conflicted in his love life, his family life, his childhood memories, his friendships, and, especially, his attachment to the part of Western Kentucky where all of the action is set. He's Alice-in-Southern-Gothic Wonderland, if Alice had been smarter, funnier, and more into irony.
The book is episodic in the extreme. It's supposed to be just about a bike ride through the woods to find the Kudzu House, where local legend says a couple was entombed by rapidly growing Kudzu vines. Well, maybe if the bike ride were being led by Dante. We swing from realistic and rather edgy descriptions of the area to the telling of tall tales and then to all manner of tangential shaggy dog stories. Interspersed are frenzied or funny or sweet or wistful or creepy of even frightening interactions with a madly varied cast of local woods characters. Every few pages the tale skids from one of these episodes to another, and the only organizing theme seems to be that we're always getting a little closer to the Kudzu House.
And, better than Dante, our guide is Carver Canute, a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, tale-spinning, ingratiating man who may have killed one or two people, (unless maybe they was already dead), and is the living, exact personification of the kid your Mom didn't want you to play with.
On top of all this we get a catalogue, (either as straight exposition or as a fever dream or as a tall tale or as unreliable narrative), of pretty much every real, imaginary, mythical or rumored creature, witch, devil's apprentice, shaman, demon or strange apparition that has ever appeared in Southern folk tales.
I could go on, but you get the idea. This is antic and bravura stuff, and a wonderful find. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
This vastly entertaining book mixes together dozens of different stories and an uncounted variety of story-telling styles into a surreal, and yet somehow grounded, Southern fantasy. I guess you could call it experimental or avant-garde or meta-fiction, but however you labor to classify this basically unclassifiable work, it is most assuredly well and carefully crafted and wildly entertaining. In no particular order, here are some of the more important ingredients in this stew:
Our unnamed narrator is quick-witted, observant, rueful and deadpan funny. He is conflicted in his love life, his family life, his childhood memories, his friendships, and, especially, his attachment to the part of Western Kentucky where all of the action is set. He's Alice-in-Southern-Gothic Wonderland, if Alice had been smarter, funnier, and more into irony.
The book is episodic in the extreme. It's supposed to be just about a bike ride through the woods to find the Kudzu House, where local legend says a couple was entombed by rapidly growing Kudzu vines. Well, maybe if the bike ride were being led by Dante. We swing from realistic and rather edgy descriptions of the area to the telling of tall tales and then to all manner of tangential shaggy dog stories. Interspersed are frenzied or funny or sweet or wistful or creepy of even frightening interactions with a madly varied cast of local woods characters. Every few pages the tale skids from one of these episodes to another, and the only organizing theme seems to be that we're always getting a little closer to the Kudzu House.
And, better than Dante, our guide is Carver Canute, a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, tale-spinning, ingratiating man who may have killed one or two people, (unless maybe they was already dead), and is the living, exact personification of the kid your Mom didn't want you to play with.
On top of all this we get a catalogue, (either as straight exposition or as a fever dream or as a tall tale or as unreliable narrative), of pretty much every real, imaginary, mythical or rumored creature, witch, devil's apprentice, shaman, demon or strange apparition that has ever appeared in Southern folk tales.
I could go on, but you get the idea. This is antic and bravura stuff, and a wonderful find. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
abandoned
March 4, 2022This should have been something I would have liked. And I did, kind-of. But it's too choppy, too episodic, too all-over-the-place. While there are a few intriguing pieces, it's not enough to make me want to go on the entire journey with this book. It felt too much like being stuck in the backseat of a car on a cross-country trip with a manic five-year-old, windows up & no pit stops.
July 13, 2017
I have a soft spot for this kind of Southern myth-making. Each pitstop along your journey reading The Vine That Ate the South is wicked and larger than life and a little sickening. These people do not feel real, but they do feel like the twisted astral projections of of real people in the South. They're ugly. Their default is to search for the mystical explanation. It's just such an interesting read and so specifically pointed at a pretty narrow subculture I grew up in. It's pretty thrilling to have found a book this wild and interesting and lived-in and beautifully written. Good shit.
August 17, 2021
One of my all time favorite books. A southern noir Alice In Wonderland
July 10, 2020
i want to give the benefit of the doubt that the anti-Native racism was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but when the antagonist is ultimately an "oogey boogey evil native american" it's, uh, hard to do that... protagonist felt like an unlikable self insert of the author, who seems to think himself the only educated person in the state, and tries to prove it by intermittently disgorging a thesaurus. and of course, his partner in crime is the constantly lying, sexist and utterly uneducated "tribal savage" basically. the prose itself was decent, but constant jabs of "technology bad" and the aforementioned racism really overrode any redeeming qualities from the narrative.
July 15, 2017
Too much rambling on as if to fill enough pages to suit the publisher. Started out alright but became tedious toward the end.
July 26, 2025
3.5 stars
really beautifully written, but a little too scattershot and the ending was over the top for me
really beautifully written, but a little too scattershot and the ending was over the top for me
March 1, 2018
LOVED IT! A collection of whiskey ramblings about the mystical south... I love his band Th' Legendary Shack Shakers too! JD Wilkes is a total wordsmith and visionary not of this world. In terms of plot, don't go looking for it in this book necessarily, it's mostly short stories and vignettes that eventually all come together. A really good read! Gritty. Folky. Cynical. Perfect!
July 18, 2024
as heartbreaking and horrific as it is beautiful and hilarious. i don’t really know what else to say. a difficult read for me because it hits super close to home. literally. but also i couldn’t put it down! not for the faint of heart but maybe those are the ones that need to read it.
July 5, 2025
Loved this. A horror comedy about the natural world and oral tradition.
May 4, 2017
A perfect slice of imperfection... (aka What the hell did I just read?)
If dark, wooded areas and spooky, abandoned houses fill you with deep yearning for exploration... and if you wish to experience all this while on hallucinogenic drugs... this is the one you're looking for. This book is for you.
The Vine that Ate the South scratches that hard-to-reach place in all of us—the need for adventure. We follow the narrator and his redneck companion as they trek deep into a haunted Kentucky forest in search of a local legend—a man-eating vine. Along the way, we're exposed to a menagerie of southern haints and delights.
The first page alone had me hooked. The author wastes no time, and immediately launches into a 200-page illustration of the fantastical tales that result from the unique combination of kudzu, heat, and humidity.
The book isn't without its flaws. In fact, I'd call it deeply flawed. The narrator's voice is inconsistent, as if he'd been penned by different authors. Half the time, he sounds like a timid young man, well read, and often pretentious about his perceived inferiority of southern culture (or certain aspects of it). Other times, he sounds like a 70-year-old hillbilly telling stories to his grandchildren. These two contrasting personalities can certainly be embodied by a single person, but I felt the book required additional editing to blend them more consistently.
Now, I'm going to get nitpicky as a native of the South:
I can't believe I'm saying this, but this story needed more cussing. The frequent PG replacements made the book just a little less immersive. The result is an abrupt whitewashing of climatic moments that could've been terrifying otherwise. I would've almost preferred the author avoid the need for them entirely if he wasn't going to use the real deal. Secondly, I found it just a little hard to believe that any born-and-raised southern man with a CCP license would trek miles into a dangerous wood without a firearm. But I digress...
The chapter about his experience in a Southern Pentecostal church seemed out of place, ended on a preachy tone, and was largely irrelevant to the rest of the story. It left me wondering why the author chose to include this chapter at all. It felt like he dropped it in retroactively to seize an opportunity to soapbox. (And I say this as someone who was raised in similar circumstances and later left the church.) It just didn't add anything to the story, and probably could've been reduced to a paragraph or two.
All that said, and... this is hard to explain, but the imperfections of this book are part of what make it intriguing. They create an unnerving dream-like effect a la Twin Peaks. Wilkes could've taken us head-first into a tale of horrors, but instead softened it with flaky narration, pseudo-expletives, and side stories that derail the plot. That sounds like a disaster, but the result is an eerie stream-of-consciousness, like a TV changing its own channel. A creepy, drug-trip surrealism where you don't know if you're sleeping or awake. And it's oddly fantastic.
In closing, if you're looking for a book that drops you down a rabbit hole, spits you out the other end, and leaves you asking "what the hell just happened?"... this is the tale you're looking for.
3.5 stars
If dark, wooded areas and spooky, abandoned houses fill you with deep yearning for exploration... and if you wish to experience all this while on hallucinogenic drugs... this is the one you're looking for. This book is for you.
The Vine that Ate the South scratches that hard-to-reach place in all of us—the need for adventure. We follow the narrator and his redneck companion as they trek deep into a haunted Kentucky forest in search of a local legend—a man-eating vine. Along the way, we're exposed to a menagerie of southern haints and delights.
The first page alone had me hooked. The author wastes no time, and immediately launches into a 200-page illustration of the fantastical tales that result from the unique combination of kudzu, heat, and humidity.
The book isn't without its flaws. In fact, I'd call it deeply flawed. The narrator's voice is inconsistent, as if he'd been penned by different authors. Half the time, he sounds like a timid young man, well read, and often pretentious about his perceived inferiority of southern culture (or certain aspects of it). Other times, he sounds like a 70-year-old hillbilly telling stories to his grandchildren. These two contrasting personalities can certainly be embodied by a single person, but I felt the book required additional editing to blend them more consistently.
Now, I'm going to get nitpicky as a native of the South:
I can't believe I'm saying this, but this story needed more cussing. The frequent PG replacements made the book just a little less immersive. The result is an abrupt whitewashing of climatic moments that could've been terrifying otherwise. I would've almost preferred the author avoid the need for them entirely if he wasn't going to use the real deal. Secondly, I found it just a little hard to believe that any born-and-raised southern man with a CCP license would trek miles into a dangerous wood without a firearm. But I digress...
The chapter about his experience in a Southern Pentecostal church seemed out of place, ended on a preachy tone, and was largely irrelevant to the rest of the story. It left me wondering why the author chose to include this chapter at all. It felt like he dropped it in retroactively to seize an opportunity to soapbox. (And I say this as someone who was raised in similar circumstances and later left the church.) It just didn't add anything to the story, and probably could've been reduced to a paragraph or two.
All that said, and... this is hard to explain, but the imperfections of this book are part of what make it intriguing. They create an unnerving dream-like effect a la Twin Peaks. Wilkes could've taken us head-first into a tale of horrors, but instead softened it with flaky narration, pseudo-expletives, and side stories that derail the plot. That sounds like a disaster, but the result is an eerie stream-of-consciousness, like a TV changing its own channel. A creepy, drug-trip surrealism where you don't know if you're sleeping or awake. And it's oddly fantastic.
In closing, if you're looking for a book that drops you down a rabbit hole, spits you out the other end, and leaves you asking "what the hell just happened?"... this is the tale you're looking for.
3.5 stars
April 16, 2017
One long, surreal tall-tale. J.D. Wilkes' first novel is an off-the-wall travelogue through wild Kentucky. The narrator tells story after story and myth and myth during his bike ride through The Deadening (a quasi-magical (but real!) forest) with his companion and guide, Carver Canute. After a while, I thought the stories would get annoying, but they never did; the narrator's voice was just so fun and flowing, you don't have time to get bored.
It is also a work of poetry! J.D. Wilkes, being the lyricist and lead singer for The Legendary Shack Shakers, has always been one of my favourite artists, so I expected nothing less than wonderful from his prose. His descriptions are bonkers and mucky, but also beautiful. He slyly uses a lot of Shack Shaker lyrics in this story, but I'll forgive that (they're so good, it doesn't matter).
To top it all off, the illustrations further solidify this novel as a work of art. They're cartoony and folksy, but also dark and brooding.
This is definitely one of my favourite books of all time. Unlike the tales told in The Vine That Ate the South, I'm not exaggerating.
It is also a work of poetry! J.D. Wilkes, being the lyricist and lead singer for The Legendary Shack Shakers, has always been one of my favourite artists, so I expected nothing less than wonderful from his prose. His descriptions are bonkers and mucky, but also beautiful. He slyly uses a lot of Shack Shaker lyrics in this story, but I'll forgive that (they're so good, it doesn't matter).
To top it all off, the illustrations further solidify this novel as a work of art. They're cartoony and folksy, but also dark and brooding.
This is definitely one of my favourite books of all time. Unlike the tales told in The Vine That Ate the South, I'm not exaggerating.
March 11, 2019
I don't know, if this was the wrong book at the wrong time or if my expectations just were completely off? I could not connect with any of the characters, narratives or the story in any way. I found myself having to backtrack constantly, because sometime while reading my brain just started shutting down. Sadly this didn't work at all for me...and I was so looking forward to it. :(
December 11, 2019
A hallucinatory southern mythology quest adventure. I kept thinking of the Drive By Truckers and their storytelling. So interesting, not a simple read. But full of cabinets of curiosity. I won’t be remembering the story but I think I will remember this for how packed it was with southern folklore.
July 14, 2017
Picked it up because I really enjoy southern gothic stories and southern legends. I liked the ending but good grief did it take a lot of verbose meandering to get there. Not my favorite, but it had some funny and entertaining parts.
July 7, 2017
The first half was kind of cool, but it felt like the author was trying to shove a lot of story in at the end and just couldn't figure out how to do it.
April 27, 2020
Character limit for updates was too short for paragraph quotes, which makes sense I guess but hard to capture all of the writing here. The adjective I keep thinking of is, 'lyrical' in that mellifluous way with ten dollar words but also the way people tawk, and confluences of mythology with the modern, and you're not really sure if the heat and humidity are getting to you or if there really is something *strange* about these woods. I really need to read more Southern Gothic.
In a patch of western Kentucky's Jackson Purchase, the unnamed (aside from a childhood nickname) protagonist and his colorful guide go on a bike ride off the beaten path to find the Kudzu House, a site where the vines supposedly absorbed the deceased occupants and lifted their skeletons high in the air. As they get closer to their destination, local history, almost truths, personal memories, and the supernatural weave together in a heck of a yarn.
In a patch of western Kentucky's Jackson Purchase, the unnamed (aside from a childhood nickname) protagonist and his colorful guide go on a bike ride off the beaten path to find the Kudzu House, a site where the vines supposedly absorbed the deceased occupants and lifted their skeletons high in the air. As they get closer to their destination, local history, almost truths, personal memories, and the supernatural weave together in a heck of a yarn.
December 20, 2025
The Vine That Ate the South by J.D. Wilkes is a wildly imaginative Southern Gothic road trip (imagine you snored some ''powder'' and went for a ''trip/fever dream'' sort of vibe).
Author turns Kentucky's backwoods into a surreal adventure, where we, alongside the unnamed narrator, experience blend of urban legend folklore, absurd humor, vampire cults, folk demons, philosophical musings and so on. I will be honest, it took me few tries to start and continue this story, because it's not for everyone. It's kind of specific for people who enjoy the strange, constant word vomit, horror-ish comedy and hallucinatory storytelling feel. The ending felt unsatisfying and there were some ''jabs'' that did not land with me. Also, something regarding the pacing was off from me. Anyways, there will be a portion of people who will enjoy such wild story.
Thank you Edelweiss and Two Dollar Radio for the arc copy.
Author turns Kentucky's backwoods into a surreal adventure, where we, alongside the unnamed narrator, experience blend of urban legend folklore, absurd humor, vampire cults, folk demons, philosophical musings and so on. I will be honest, it took me few tries to start and continue this story, because it's not for everyone. It's kind of specific for people who enjoy the strange, constant word vomit, horror-ish comedy and hallucinatory storytelling feel. The ending felt unsatisfying and there were some ''jabs'' that did not land with me. Also, something regarding the pacing was off from me. Anyways, there will be a portion of people who will enjoy such wild story.
Thank you Edelweiss and Two Dollar Radio for the arc copy.
May 11, 2020
It’s difficult to even describe this book, but it seems that other reviewers have had trouble characterizing it as well. It is primarily a tale of adventure, full of southern ghost stories and legends. It contains surreal elements along with crossing into total fantasy, and you can’t be sure whether something was real or not until the narrator circles back. It is episodic, which makes for very quick reading. My favorite part of the book may be the fact that is does not pull punches on cultural references and vocabulary. It does not try to explain itself - if you don’t pick up on something, the author is not going to explain it to you, and you probably will need to google a fair number of words while reading. I enjoy that. This book defies easy classification and is worth a read.
June 10, 2021
Low 4. This was a somewhat iffy book with a pretty great climax.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit biased as a Southerner with no fondness for Southern culture, to which this book is an effusive love letter. But even I was occasionally swayed by its sly cadence to look a bit deeper and see merit where none first occurred to me.
That said, I often felt its winks and nods were worth less than one might think from the way the author lays them out. It all seems a bit too unrestrained at times, and at others it seems entirely tedious.
It’s a consistently idiosyncratic read with a satisfying conclusion, even if it is a bit difficult to tell how important the author thinks its words are.
If the entire book were as good as the last forty pages or so, it would probably be worth five stars.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit biased as a Southerner with no fondness for Southern culture, to which this book is an effusive love letter. But even I was occasionally swayed by its sly cadence to look a bit deeper and see merit where none first occurred to me.
That said, I often felt its winks and nods were worth less than one might think from the way the author lays them out. It all seems a bit too unrestrained at times, and at others it seems entirely tedious.
It’s a consistently idiosyncratic read with a satisfying conclusion, even if it is a bit difficult to tell how important the author thinks its words are.
If the entire book were as good as the last forty pages or so, it would probably be worth five stars.
October 13, 2021
don’t get me wrong! I love a supernatural fiction with spooky events and retellings of legends… and this is what this book offered, but it was a bit all over the place for me as well.
A guy goes on a hunt or road trip for a house with a partner, and encounters spooky things along the way. Sounds good? There were just a bit too many spooky events and too much description that suddenly jumped into another event, that I didn’t know where I was! So I just felt as lost in the story as the characters did lol.
Overall, it was a nice story to read and I would read it again - but mainly to check if it was my concentration that was lacking or if it was the story itself. Cos an encounter with the bell witch should have been right up my street but lacked depth and happened in a flash.
A guy goes on a hunt or road trip for a house with a partner, and encounters spooky things along the way. Sounds good? There were just a bit too many spooky events and too much description that suddenly jumped into another event, that I didn’t know where I was! So I just felt as lost in the story as the characters did lol.
Overall, it was a nice story to read and I would read it again - but mainly to check if it was my concentration that was lacking or if it was the story itself. Cos an encounter with the bell witch should have been right up my street but lacked depth and happened in a flash.
May 31, 2019
In structure, this novel is essentially a picaresque. A Southern Gothic picaresque, that renders Kentucky into a fever dream of cannibalistic kudzu, witches, upon which one character's familial anxieties play out. Strange, hilarious, sad, and lovely, all at the same time. Bizarre, but unforgettable.
October 6, 2018
What a hoot!
Funny. Chock full of Southern storytelling language and lore. Surprisingly wise insight into what it means to live in the New South. Don't read this one aloud around a campfire unless you just plain like nightmares.
Funny. Chock full of Southern storytelling language and lore. Surprisingly wise insight into what it means to live in the New South. Don't read this one aloud around a campfire unless you just plain like nightmares.
April 12, 2017
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer probably couldn't survive J. D. Wilkes's Kentucky Surreal, as he seamlessly blends authentic Americana with rural folklore and sin.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews