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Cry Me a River
A murder and its consequences in a small Southern town are the backdrop to Pearson's investigations of a fictional world where laugh-out-loud humor is interwoven with some of mankind's darkest impulses.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
T.R. Pearson
34 books274 followersThomas Reid Pearson is an American novelist born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is the author of seventeen novels and four works of non-fiction under his own name, including A Short History of a Small Place, Cry Me A River, Jerusalem Gap, and Seaworthy, and has written three additional novels -- Ranchero, Beluga, and Nowhere Nice -- under the pseudonym Rick Gavin. Pearson has also ghostwritten several other books, both fiction and nonfiction, and has written or co-written various feature film and TV scripts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
October 7, 2014
"Cry Me a River" was the first and is still my favorite of T.R. Pearson's southern Gothic "crime" novels with his laid-back yet amusingly insightful narrator Ray Tatum.
"Cry Me a River" is one of the few books that I've laughed out loud while reading -- and the fascinating thing about the book is that the humor is tied up in the twists and turns of Pearson's masterful control of language, scene, setting, and character.
The plot of the story -- while complicated enough for most writers to be able to execute -- is just the starting point for Pearson's wonderfully intricate descriptions and language play that turns a relatively simple moment into a complex mess of layered intentions, contradictory impulses and metaphorical asides.
It is not as strange as "Polar," and the narrator's voice is not as off-kilter and amusing as "Short History of a Small Place"; yet it's not as straightforward as his masterfully tight nearly-straight crime novel "Blue Ridge."
This novel is incredibly funny, but only to adult readers, who understand the deeper existential points being made underneath the cover of the wry observations made by Tatum.
Still remains one of my favorite novels, although I read this nearly two decades ago.
"Cry Me a River" is a book I've long admired, and recently had a chance to re-read. In this story, Pearson demonstrates that he is the master at the top of his form: it contains subtle humor, broad jokes, scatalogical situations, powerfully sympathetic characters and an interesting plot -- all of which is built on the foundation of Pearson's incredibly versatile skill with language and the tricks he plays with language in a way that echoes Faulkner (and presages Cormac McCarthy).
And what's interesting about this review is that I'm not really even touching on the pure talent that Pearson shows in the way he moves a scene from a bit of word play into broad humor and strange situations, and manages to end on a poignant note that is all the more rich for the deep humanity displayed in the back and forth of the scene.
Pearson's work is Bachanalian in all the best ways, and echoes Chaucer's ability to play rough, play dirty and write great literature at the same time -- all while seeming to have an amazingly good time doing it.
In short, T.R. Pearson is a master of the fiction form, and his inspiration and amazing gift with prose has been a lodestar for me in my writing work for many years. I admire the hell out of him, and frankly, I try to introduce every reader I admire to Pearson, so they too can admire the jaw-dropping tricks that he pulls off in this book.
I don't think Pearson is for everyone... but for writers who are trying to learn how to write humor, and make it work within a scene, Pearson is an amazing teacher -- and he's a very enjoyable read!
"Cry Me a River" is one of the few books that I've laughed out loud while reading -- and the fascinating thing about the book is that the humor is tied up in the twists and turns of Pearson's masterful control of language, scene, setting, and character.
The plot of the story -- while complicated enough for most writers to be able to execute -- is just the starting point for Pearson's wonderfully intricate descriptions and language play that turns a relatively simple moment into a complex mess of layered intentions, contradictory impulses and metaphorical asides.
It is not as strange as "Polar," and the narrator's voice is not as off-kilter and amusing as "Short History of a Small Place"; yet it's not as straightforward as his masterfully tight nearly-straight crime novel "Blue Ridge."
This novel is incredibly funny, but only to adult readers, who understand the deeper existential points being made underneath the cover of the wry observations made by Tatum.
Still remains one of my favorite novels, although I read this nearly two decades ago.
"Cry Me a River" is a book I've long admired, and recently had a chance to re-read. In this story, Pearson demonstrates that he is the master at the top of his form: it contains subtle humor, broad jokes, scatalogical situations, powerfully sympathetic characters and an interesting plot -- all of which is built on the foundation of Pearson's incredibly versatile skill with language and the tricks he plays with language in a way that echoes Faulkner (and presages Cormac McCarthy).
And what's interesting about this review is that I'm not really even touching on the pure talent that Pearson shows in the way he moves a scene from a bit of word play into broad humor and strange situations, and manages to end on a poignant note that is all the more rich for the deep humanity displayed in the back and forth of the scene.
Pearson's work is Bachanalian in all the best ways, and echoes Chaucer's ability to play rough, play dirty and write great literature at the same time -- all while seeming to have an amazingly good time doing it.
In short, T.R. Pearson is a master of the fiction form, and his inspiration and amazing gift with prose has been a lodestar for me in my writing work for many years. I admire the hell out of him, and frankly, I try to introduce every reader I admire to Pearson, so they too can admire the jaw-dropping tricks that he pulls off in this book.
I don't think Pearson is for everyone... but for writers who are trying to learn how to write humor, and make it work within a scene, Pearson is an amazing teacher -- and he's a very enjoyable read!
April 1, 2008
I really loved this book! It is a little bit of a slow read because the author writes the way people speak (and his characters are 'small town Southern' - therefore the sentences ramble a bit and you have to think a little. However I loved the language and laughed out loud at places in this story. He's a great writer and this is good story. I'm going to put some of this other books on my "to read" list and see if they are equally enjoyable.
May 12, 2025
I love this book. I love Pearson's complicated prose and his wry view of life and the people living it. But this book breaks my heart as well. I've read it five or six times now, and I always forget how strangely sad it is, how the hero has damaged himself with a single act he can never forgive. Trust me, it is beautiful.
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November 23, 2023“We were after all, under the surface of things, a community of passionate people who sometimes slaughtered each other for love.”
Pearson explores the darkest depths of human depravity through both the comedic and the macabre. By the end of the novel, the reader can step back and think, “this is what people can do”—a realization that becomes unsettling to say the least. The setting, combined with the diverse cast of colorful characters, provides the perfect backdrop for a classic in crime fiction.
The pacing was a little slow, but I think that’s part of the novel’s charm and its appeal to the southern gothic genre. Another delightful detail I enjoyed is how the novel is written the way southerners typically speak; hence, the writing itself was a little odd to accustom myself to initially, but it certainly adds a greater richness to the novel’s atmosphere.
Cry Me a River was my foray into TR Pearson’s illustration of a south dominated by Faulkner and Capote. What he brings to the southern gothic genre—his depictions of the grotesque and his development of a tangible alienation through the eyes of his narrator—contributes a great deal to the genre and will reel me back in soon enough.
Pearson explores the darkest depths of human depravity through both the comedic and the macabre. By the end of the novel, the reader can step back and think, “this is what people can do”—a realization that becomes unsettling to say the least. The setting, combined with the diverse cast of colorful characters, provides the perfect backdrop for a classic in crime fiction.
The pacing was a little slow, but I think that’s part of the novel’s charm and its appeal to the southern gothic genre. Another delightful detail I enjoyed is how the novel is written the way southerners typically speak; hence, the writing itself was a little odd to accustom myself to initially, but it certainly adds a greater richness to the novel’s atmosphere.
Cry Me a River was my foray into TR Pearson’s illustration of a south dominated by Faulkner and Capote. What he brings to the southern gothic genre—his depictions of the grotesque and his development of a tangible alienation through the eyes of his narrator—contributes a great deal to the genre and will reel me back in soon enough.
August 19, 2015
Pearson's lawman narrator never uses five words when 57 will do. He rambles and circles and repeats himself and he's a bit charming, but mostly you want to smack him.
Themes: murder mystery, farting dogs, Polaroids.
Themes: murder mystery, farting dogs, Polaroids.
January 5, 2013
It took me a while to catch the rhythm of the narrator's speech (imagining Andy Griffith telling the story helped immensely!), but once I had it, it was a hoot to read.
December 24, 2014
There isn’t really all that much of a story here and the reader has to hack his/her way through the dense foliage of words to get at it.
Pearson does make mountains out of molehills at times which can get quite tedious, i.e. spreading over many, many pages a description of the looks and unsavoury habits of a stray dog or the conversion from rhyme to free verse of a local man who fancies himself a poet.
But even though he will never use two words when five will do the job (or because of it), the narrator's voice made this book stand out for me. I loved his weirdly old-fashioned, convoluted style, „fanciful turns of phrase“ and erratic word order :
Some examples :
„Pretty directly Mr. Shumate determined to eschew rhyme and declaimed as much to anybody who was convenient to hear it. He was hoping to go unfettered by the assorted constrictions of traditional poetical form and made his position plain to most especially the local versifiers otherwise who were partial themselves to doggerel outright and the strictest manner of meter and grew of a sudden uninclined to consort with a fellow who would openly promote free verse. »
« That Crouse grew ever so agreeable and attentive to my wishes and desires, let on to be inclined himself to entertain my views, and failed to make to be so much as even the least contrary as I shared with him my notion that he might best hurry home. »
« Him and that girl together shifted to look upon me and as much as invited me if I might to name my favorite flabless part which I mustered pretty directly my jolly grin about, managed in fact my jolly grin alone until I succeeded at wondering of Ellis if wouldn’t he maybe retire for the moment as me and that girl had been ourselves just in the middle of something. »
Despite the fact that what there was of a story was moving at a snail’s pace and got bogged down fairly often, I enjoyed the book.
Pearson does make mountains out of molehills at times which can get quite tedious, i.e. spreading over many, many pages a description of the looks and unsavoury habits of a stray dog or the conversion from rhyme to free verse of a local man who fancies himself a poet.
But even though he will never use two words when five will do the job (or because of it), the narrator's voice made this book stand out for me. I loved his weirdly old-fashioned, convoluted style, „fanciful turns of phrase“ and erratic word order :
Some examples :
„Pretty directly Mr. Shumate determined to eschew rhyme and declaimed as much to anybody who was convenient to hear it. He was hoping to go unfettered by the assorted constrictions of traditional poetical form and made his position plain to most especially the local versifiers otherwise who were partial themselves to doggerel outright and the strictest manner of meter and grew of a sudden uninclined to consort with a fellow who would openly promote free verse. »
« That Crouse grew ever so agreeable and attentive to my wishes and desires, let on to be inclined himself to entertain my views, and failed to make to be so much as even the least contrary as I shared with him my notion that he might best hurry home. »
« Him and that girl together shifted to look upon me and as much as invited me if I might to name my favorite flabless part which I mustered pretty directly my jolly grin about, managed in fact my jolly grin alone until I succeeded at wondering of Ellis if wouldn’t he maybe retire for the moment as me and that girl had been ourselves just in the middle of something. »
Despite the fact that what there was of a story was moving at a snail’s pace and got bogged down fairly often, I enjoyed the book.
May 21, 2022
"Cry Me a River", like much of the author's work that I've read so far, is not so much about plot as it is about characterization; story after story gets told and overlaid on the plot to the extent that sometimes you forget that there is a plot (or in a way, there are very many very short plots); all the characters have their silly foibles; and the narrator, Ray Tatum, seems to be a good-hearted soul with a keen eye who is able to render whatever plot there is and whatever foibles there are in a hilarious dead-pan manner. This is a very funny book! At the same time, it's not a comedy; there are existential questions lurking under the humor and there are tragic characters fueling the plot.
Art is a collection of choices. For example, in a jazz improvisation, (which is surely the quintessential art), the musician makes choices about the next note to play, how loud to play it, how long to hold it, how much to bend it.
A writer, of course, makes choices about words, names, phrases. Mr. Pearson seems to have chosen every word, every phrase, every name with the same artfulness that is evident when you hear a really good jazz musician play.
Very highly recommended.
Art is a collection of choices. For example, in a jazz improvisation, (which is surely the quintessential art), the musician makes choices about the next note to play, how loud to play it, how long to hold it, how much to bend it.
A writer, of course, makes choices about words, names, phrases. Mr. Pearson seems to have chosen every word, every phrase, every name with the same artfulness that is evident when you hear a really good jazz musician play.
Very highly recommended.
July 29, 2023
A Bit of Wit...along with an overwhelming Word Salad.
I never thought to be stuffed when enjoying a salad. I do like Pearson's style and wit. Sometimes "laugh out loud" (yes, I spell that out)...this book was too much verbosity to enjoy. I tried. I really tried. What kept me going was the nuggets of hilarious sarcasm & black satire. But, you have to wade through a bushel basket of overly descriptive semantic puzzle pieces to get a nugget. I ate 75%...and then shuffled it off. Even with dressing, this word salad stuffs you with inane & superfluous etcetera. Maybe it's the character? If so, I will make sure that I read no more Ray Tatum.
I never thought to be stuffed when enjoying a salad. I do like Pearson's style and wit. Sometimes "laugh out loud" (yes, I spell that out)...this book was too much verbosity to enjoy. I tried. I really tried. What kept me going was the nuggets of hilarious sarcasm & black satire. But, you have to wade through a bushel basket of overly descriptive semantic puzzle pieces to get a nugget. I ate 75%...and then shuffled it off. Even with dressing, this word salad stuffs you with inane & superfluous etcetera. Maybe it's the character? If so, I will make sure that I read no more Ray Tatum.
January 30, 2022
I don't know if I liked it.
Ok. Its fascinating. Interesting. Convoluted. Has a really good mystery and amusing way of telling the story. But he skips around so much you just get frustrated. I really think the main character is not a good man. This book would be a good book club project to discuss the issues brought up. I enjoyed reading it!
Ok. Its fascinating. Interesting. Convoluted. Has a really good mystery and amusing way of telling the story. But he skips around so much you just get frustrated. I really think the main character is not a good man. This book would be a good book club project to discuss the issues brought up. I enjoyed reading it!
August 10, 2018
A haunting, funny and tragic novel by one of my favorite writers. Also enjoyed the fact that the setting is in the area where I live and it's fun to see references to places that I know. Absolutely recommend.
February 8, 2022
It's a good one!
Once you learn the lingo, the speak, it's a laugh or at least a giggle on every page. The cast of characters can surely be one of a kind. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a little mystery and a really good laugh.
Once you learn the lingo, the speak, it's a laugh or at least a giggle on every page. The cast of characters can surely be one of a kind. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a little mystery and a really good laugh.
July 14, 2022
Very different from your normal crime novel. It is more about the characters than the plot. An excellent read, funny and poignant in places but not a book you could read in short bursts as the amazing prose takes time and concentration to get into.
April 28, 2024
I guess I just don’t appreciate regional literature. It was funny. But it took too long to tell the story. I finally skipped ahead until I could find out what happened. It wasn’t a DNF but it came very close.
March 2, 2020
Hb, new condition.
December 24, 2020
(no 53 of 2020)
April 10, 2022
wordy
I’m not sure this was time well spent. I enjoyed the writing style, becoming interested in the plot. It drug be me along for no reason.
I’m not sure this was time well spent. I enjoyed the writing style, becoming interested in the plot. It drug be me along for no reason.
September 21, 2022
Struggled with this book. To much rambling and stream of conscience chatter. Gave up 31% of the way through.....
March 19, 2017
Wonderful...TR Pearson is an acquired taste but I acquired it with A Short History of a Small Place years ago and was delighted to visit his picaresque,droll, poignant, laugh-out -loud population again. Small town /southern life never had a better raconteur.
July 16, 2013
My initial reaction that I might not enjoy this read when I first encountered the writing style, prose, and grammatical structure made use of throughout this work by author T.R. Pearson and as narrated by southern small town lawman Ray Tatum thankfully and surprisingly was erroneous and prematurely concluded. Upon taking the time to laboriously read more slowly than I typically might do and to chew, swallow, and digest each sentence and phrase thus encountered before proceeding to the next, I in short time discovered a hidden beauty in the language employed in this novel.
(When I first started this book I didn't think I was going to enjoy it, but I was very wrong!)
This story of murder in a southern town has multiple layers: it is insightful, funny, entertaining, and ultimately tragic. I will most likely re-read this one in a few years I think...
(When I first started this book I didn't think I was going to enjoy it, but I was very wrong!)
This story of murder in a southern town has multiple layers: it is insightful, funny, entertaining, and ultimately tragic. I will most likely re-read this one in a few years I think...
August 23, 2013
This was a difficult book to read, I know the author was writing it to the tone of the south but it read odd. I would have to re-read it several times to figure out what he meant. If the story itself had not been so good, I would have given up reading it at all. I feel bad at not being able to give a higher rating but just can not warrant doing so. Once you get past the writing style the story is really good giving humor in a joking way but also from everyday living. Remembering, yeah that's the way it was or yeah, I remember doing that. But it also includes some very emotional sections. What it's like having to deal with the fact this is the way people really are. Maybe for someone else the style won't bother you and I know you'll enjoy the story line, it will take you a step or two to figure the ending so be prepared. I recommend the author and the book for a real good story.
December 14, 2014
Novel - A police officer is found brutally murdered in a small southern town, his head so disfigured by bullet wounds that he can only be identified by the distinctive smell of his hair tonic. A fellow officer vows to find the killer. Accompanied by a whisky-addled sidekick who functions as a backwoods Dr. Watson, the investigator assembles clues, interviews suspects, proposes and discards theories, and in the process paints the portrait of an entire community. Laid back, rambling narration by a nameless, rural deputy of his quest to find the killer of a fellow officer. The serio-comic novel paints brilliant word pictures of the townspeople and their institutions.
February 13, 2014
T.R. Pearson's writing style is unique and I guess somewhat Mark Twainish. The story is of a murder in a small town and the detective that sets out to solve it. Along the way you meet the unusual and very colorful characters in the police dept. as well as the town folk. The act happens in the first few pages of the book, but the narrator trails off into many non related tales along the way. I'll definitely read another Pearson novel, but the next time maybe I'll find an audio version because it begs to be read aloud!
March 10, 2010
I like T.R. Pearson. He's a good writer. His characters are interesting, his stories are interseting, but this one was over-the-top with the languid Southern thought patterns and language. There were two many flashback scenes that were drawn out and irrelevant to the story and served only to kick you out of the present and find yourself having difficulties wading back in through the weeds of too much descriptive narration.
May 2, 2010
this author had a unique style of writing in this book and at first i was unused to it, of course, and i was a bit . . . . . confused, off-put, something like that, but i quickly became used to it and grew to REALLY LIKE this book. i gave it just three stars because i save FOUR and FIVE stars for books of real profundity. this book was just a GOOD novel, not a PROFOUND book.
February 27, 2019
A superb book written in a wonderfully laconic style and just asking to be made into a film.
And on the fourth read since I bought the book in 1994 - still a brilliant and very funny book. Pearson manages to inflect accent into his prose amazingly. But its not just the particularity to area of the prose, its also a cracking good story.
And on the fourth read since I bought the book in 1994 - still a brilliant and very funny book. Pearson manages to inflect accent into his prose amazingly. But its not just the particularity to area of the prose, its also a cracking good story.
May 24, 2013
The back of the book jacket says Pearson is a writer of sentences, long, ornate, baroque and colloquial and they are definitely long and twisty. The narrator is a bumbling, mostly inept, lawman exposing the comedic value of life which I didn't find all that funny. The voice the book is written in is definitely unique.
June 25, 2009
I really liked the style and language used in this book. Great use of humor. The plot itself was a bit of a let down. And the narrator reaches his turning point so late in the story that we don't have much opportunity to explore the effects of the changes he has undergone.
April 8, 2011
A murder mystery not quite up to par for Pearson. Some of the characterizations are strong, like the narrator and the narrator's gay upstairs neghbor, but the humor in the prose is a little bit off this time. The "tragic" ending is nicely done.
August 16, 2012
It took awhile to get used to the narrator's voice, but the character descriptions were so good I stuck it with it. So glad I did as I later found myself howling with delight over his descriptive details. I could see David Lynch making this into an awesome film.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews