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The Dart League King
A dart contest on a Thursday night in Garnet Lake, Idaho brings together five very different characters, whose fates are threaded together more closely than they realize.
An intriguing tale of darts, drugs, and death.
Russell Harmon is the self-proclaimed king of his small-town Idaho dart league, but all is not well in his kingdom. In the midst of the league championship match, the intertwining stories of those gathered at the 411 club reveal Russell’s dangerous debt to a local drug dealer, his teammate Tristan Mackey’s involvement in the disappearance of a college student, and a love triangle with a former classmate.
The characters in Keith Lee Morris’s second novel struggle to find the balance between accepting and controlling their destinies, but their fates are threaded together more closely than they realize.
An intriguing tale of darts, drugs, and death.
Russell Harmon is the self-proclaimed king of his small-town Idaho dart league, but all is not well in his kingdom. In the midst of the league championship match, the intertwining stories of those gathered at the 411 club reveal Russell’s dangerous debt to a local drug dealer, his teammate Tristan Mackey’s involvement in the disappearance of a college student, and a love triangle with a former classmate.
The characters in Keith Lee Morris’s second novel struggle to find the balance between accepting and controlling their destinies, but their fates are threaded together more closely than they realize.
270 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2008
3 people are currently reading
509 people want to read
About the author
Keith Lee Morris
19 books39 followersKeith Lee Morris is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Clemson University. His previous book, THE DART LEAGUE KING, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. His writing has appeared in many publications including Tin House, the Southern Review and the New England Review..
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
December 1, 2008
This book got me into darts. probably not its intended effect.
April 24, 2009
Thursday night is the only night of the week when Russell Harmon, the dart league king, can forget about his worries, snort a few lines of coke off of his framed high school diploma, drink a few pitchers of beer, and throw some fucking darts, man! Well, he probably does that every night of the week, but it’s the only night of the week when he can do it and win some fucking trophies, man! Russell Harmon lives for Thursday night, but this is no ordinary Thursday night because Russell Harmon might not live to see another. You see, Russell Harmon, God bless him, isn’t punctual when it comes to reimbursing his coke dealer, Vince Thompson. And Vince Thompson is at the end of his goddamn motherfucking rope and has decided it’s about goddamn time that he dust off his motherfucking Beretta and waste this fuzzy-brained dickwad before heading out of town and leaving his asshole motherfucking Air Force father and the rest of these stupid goddamn assholes behind. But Vince Thompson has a soft spot for Russell Harmon and after seeing Russell Harmon getting along so well with Kelly Ashton, the hot chick with breasts as big as grapefruits, Vince Thompson doesn’t know what to fucking do. The only reason Kelly Ashton is even out on a Thursday night -- her toddler is at home being watched by her alcoholic mother who often passes out with a burning cigarette in her hand -- is because she needs to find a man to get her out of this place and that man could very well be Tristan Mackey, a college graduate who is destined to leave this town in his wake but who has a dark secret that he wants to reveal tonight. But maybe Kelly Ashton is better off with Russell Harmon, her former boyfriend. Sure, Russell Harmon isn’t the smartest guy in the world but he is genuine. Plus, Kelly Ashton has a secret involving him that she may want to reveal tonight. Now if Brice Habersham, a former professional dart player and Russell Harmon’s only threat to the dart league throne, decides that tonight is the night to reveal his secret, then all hell is going to break loose.
The Dart League King is told from the close third person point of view of five different characters, all of whom seem to be in the midst of an existential crisis. I was a little thrown off by the fact that the five main characters present at the dart league championships at a bar in a small town in Idaho spend the better part of their respective chapters trying to figure out their place in this crazy, mixed up Idaho town. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If this were a novel about five young, literary, Ivy League graduates who end up drinking together in an Irish pub in Manhattan, I would expect each of them to spend their evening grappling with questions about their place in the world and “what does it all mean, Basil?” and on and on until you want them to form a suicide pact just to get the book over with. As this book's plot started to form, it became apparent to me that the inner crises of these small-town folks was a convenient plot device rather than an attempt to explore their humanity through their hopes and fears.
I think this book would have worked for me if I had truly bought any of the characters and if I didn’t feel like everyone’s situation was forced to make the plot work. In my opinion, your enjoyment of this book (as with almost any book) comes down to whether or not you believe in these characters as plausible people.
I did thoroughly enjoy the book’s descriptions of the actual dart matches. They are full of suspense and perfectly describe the rare feeling (for most people) of finding the zone and performing at the highest level. I wish the rest of the book had worked as well for me.
The Dart League King is told from the close third person point of view of five different characters, all of whom seem to be in the midst of an existential crisis. I was a little thrown off by the fact that the five main characters present at the dart league championships at a bar in a small town in Idaho spend the better part of their respective chapters trying to figure out their place in this crazy, mixed up Idaho town. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If this were a novel about five young, literary, Ivy League graduates who end up drinking together in an Irish pub in Manhattan, I would expect each of them to spend their evening grappling with questions about their place in the world and “what does it all mean, Basil?” and on and on until you want them to form a suicide pact just to get the book over with. As this book's plot started to form, it became apparent to me that the inner crises of these small-town folks was a convenient plot device rather than an attempt to explore their humanity through their hopes and fears.
I think this book would have worked for me if I had truly bought any of the characters and if I didn’t feel like everyone’s situation was forced to make the plot work. In my opinion, your enjoyment of this book (as with almost any book) comes down to whether or not you believe in these characters as plausible people.
I did thoroughly enjoy the book’s descriptions of the actual dart matches. They are full of suspense and perfectly describe the rare feeling (for most people) of finding the zone and performing at the highest level. I wish the rest of the book had worked as well for me.
September 13, 2008
This is the kind of book that you give to your redneck brother-in-law when you want him to start reading. That is the highest compliment I know. It shifts points of view ratcheting up the events of one night of darts to an unforeseeable pitch. There's murder and sex and fistfights. It worried me a bit early on with its peon to the "gotta get out of this town" ethic, but that worry is shelved early on. Mr. Morris knows how to write. I will give this book to my redneck brother-in-law should I ever have one. I don't really know if it will work, but it could.
July 10, 2009
Immediately upon finishing this, I felt a tiny bit cheated by all the loose ends left hanging. Now, a few days later, I appreciate having the freedom to think about where the characters ended up without already having an answer.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2008
I knew this would be a punishing book when I read that it was set in Idaho (which drove Hemingway to insert a shotgun into his mouth and pull the trigger amongst other brutalities) and Morris certainly doesn't pull his punches. Once you get past the proverbial shotguns in the mouth, Morris's prose really sparkles. He has a penchant for using small words that make you feel big things. I was particularly fond of his ability to spin split-second decisions into paragraphs of back story. No decision is black and white and he does a great job of capturing the real gritty ambiguity that translate into a character's action.
March 3, 2009
Outstanding. No other writer I know is this brilliant at taking small, ordinary moments in the lives of ordinary people and creating beautiful, dark, fully realized worlds out of them.
October 12, 2009
Three Cheers for Keith Lee Morris for breathing something into his work that modernists (and plenty of today's top literati) tend to have sucked out of true great literature: PLOT! It's not a four-letter word, folks, and it doesn't mean his work is un-literary. Quite the contrary, in fact. It makes this work COMPELLING.
KLM likes to play with point of view, alternating perspectives whenever he switches chapters, ping-ponging the reader among the thoughts and decisions that must be made by what can only be described as a motley crew: a stunning, miss popularity has-been; a DEA dork; a slick-with-the-ladies college grad who has a terrible secret he feels he must spill; a drug-dealing killer; and of course, the past and potential Dart League King. As the reader, one is never confused regarding whose persona KLM is exploring. As he defines their character he twists and turns the reader further and deeper into the plot. And naturally, as circumstances have it, all these folks just happen to be hanging out at the same bar in a small town in Idaho the evening that the main action takes place, most of it during a dart content.
KLM's characters are examined to their core, where they all seem to be searching for acceptance. For the DEA agent, acceptance could come in sexual acceptance from his wife, for Russell, at first, he thinks the only way to peace of mind is by, sadly, winning a championship game of darts. T just wants to tell someone what he has done and not to take any responsibility for it; just get it off his chest. The drug dealer really doesn't want to kill, he just wants a friend. And lastly, x seems to look for acceptance in the form of a lover, and furthermore, a lover that could be father to her son.
By well-crafted cliff hangers that I haven't seen in sometime in a literary work, KLM keeps the reader on his or her seat through the final page. He utilizes techniques typically scoffed at as commercial fiction and plants literary flowers around them. The result is pure beauty, deserved and desired.
KLM likes to play with point of view, alternating perspectives whenever he switches chapters, ping-ponging the reader among the thoughts and decisions that must be made by what can only be described as a motley crew: a stunning, miss popularity has-been; a DEA dork; a slick-with-the-ladies college grad who has a terrible secret he feels he must spill; a drug-dealing killer; and of course, the past and potential Dart League King. As the reader, one is never confused regarding whose persona KLM is exploring. As he defines their character he twists and turns the reader further and deeper into the plot. And naturally, as circumstances have it, all these folks just happen to be hanging out at the same bar in a small town in Idaho the evening that the main action takes place, most of it during a dart content.
KLM's characters are examined to their core, where they all seem to be searching for acceptance. For the DEA agent, acceptance could come in sexual acceptance from his wife, for Russell, at first, he thinks the only way to peace of mind is by, sadly, winning a championship game of darts. T just wants to tell someone what he has done and not to take any responsibility for it; just get it off his chest. The drug dealer really doesn't want to kill, he just wants a friend. And lastly, x seems to look for acceptance in the form of a lover, and furthermore, a lover that could be father to her son.
By well-crafted cliff hangers that I haven't seen in sometime in a literary work, KLM keeps the reader on his or her seat through the final page. He utilizes techniques typically scoffed at as commercial fiction and plants literary flowers around them. The result is pure beauty, deserved and desired.
April 21, 2012
This is one of my favorite books. Keith Lee Morris is paired with Joan Silber as my favorite writers. (I can't get either to show up on my list here.) But Keith Lee Morris and Joan Silber are my favorite writers of all time! I love the classics and studied most of them in college. I've reread my favorites since then.
I like these two writers better!
"The Dart League King" is a psychological novel revolving around a group of people in Lake Garnet, ID. Mostly men who sell and ingest cocaine. They're small-town people who've known one another from one generation to the next their whole lives.
Among the group is one young single mother who factors or has factored or merely attracted most of the men.
Written in an intimate, interior third person, Morris tells the story from one character's point of view and then the other's. He gets the young woman right, I think. She's not radically different from the male characters except that being a mother and even female requires her to care for others, and put them first.
None of the male characters need to do that and so they don't. One of them, who's the Dart League King, has a coke habit, and is sloppy and not at all bright has a decency, kindness, and general love of life that the woman ends up depending on and recognizing as much more valuable than the smart man who managed to go to college.
Lots of bashed heads and bloody faces, continual threat--some of these guys swing from a desire to kill another, the weapons are on hand, to love him (or her.)
I'm not sure exactly why I enjoy this man writing so much or why I honestly "read it cover to cover." (It's not long but that's not a reason.) So although I finished it tonight, I'll start it again tomorrow.
It's a book I'll read every once in a while, for years. That's the way I read these days, which doesn't allow me to recommend many books.
I like these two writers better!
"The Dart League King" is a psychological novel revolving around a group of people in Lake Garnet, ID. Mostly men who sell and ingest cocaine. They're small-town people who've known one another from one generation to the next their whole lives.
Among the group is one young single mother who factors or has factored or merely attracted most of the men.
Written in an intimate, interior third person, Morris tells the story from one character's point of view and then the other's. He gets the young woman right, I think. She's not radically different from the male characters except that being a mother and even female requires her to care for others, and put them first.
None of the male characters need to do that and so they don't. One of them, who's the Dart League King, has a coke habit, and is sloppy and not at all bright has a decency, kindness, and general love of life that the woman ends up depending on and recognizing as much more valuable than the smart man who managed to go to college.
Lots of bashed heads and bloody faces, continual threat--some of these guys swing from a desire to kill another, the weapons are on hand, to love him (or her.)
I'm not sure exactly why I enjoy this man writing so much or why I honestly "read it cover to cover." (It's not long but that's not a reason.) So although I finished it tonight, I'll start it again tomorrow.
It's a book I'll read every once in a while, for years. That's the way I read these days, which doesn't allow me to recommend many books.
June 3, 2010
I had zero expectations when I started reading “The Dart League King” by Keith Lee Morris. It was one of the books that I had bought at the Tin House booth at the LA Times Festival of Books. I love Tin House and totally bought it on a whim, without really reading the synopsis. It was fantastic.
I don’t want to give away any details, but the book primarily takes place on the evening of the Dart Championship in a small town in Idaho. All of the characters lives intersect and some major secrets are revealed. The book has a very big twist ending that I did not anticipate. Morris had a beautiful way of tying up the story with epilogue. It’s a really sad novel, with a lot of harsh realities and a few gruesome moments. I feel like it will stick with me, as I have been really thinking about it a lot in the past twenty-four hours.
One minor thing, the end of the book has the list of Dart League rules, as drafted by the main character. I wish this had been placed at the beginning of the book, as I did not clearly understand some of the rules. If I had realized that it was in the back and in no way compromised the integrity of the story, I would have used it for reference.
I don’t want to give away any details, but the book primarily takes place on the evening of the Dart Championship in a small town in Idaho. All of the characters lives intersect and some major secrets are revealed. The book has a very big twist ending that I did not anticipate. Morris had a beautiful way of tying up the story with epilogue. It’s a really sad novel, with a lot of harsh realities and a few gruesome moments. I feel like it will stick with me, as I have been really thinking about it a lot in the past twenty-four hours.
One minor thing, the end of the book has the list of Dart League rules, as drafted by the main character. I wish this had been placed at the beginning of the book, as I did not clearly understand some of the rules. If I had realized that it was in the back and in no way compromised the integrity of the story, I would have used it for reference.
April 3, 2009
(Four and a half for enjoyment value, but not a 5 because I don't see myself reading this again.)
The Dart League King takes place on a summer night in Idaho during the big Dart League championship. Each chapter takes a different character's perspective on what's going on, leaving the reader the only person with all the information,which lets you yell at the characters over and over again because you can see how badly they could potentially screw up. Overall, the book was creepy, fast-paced, funny and sad, and I was always excited to pick it back up again.
Just a weird side note: The chapters told by Vince Thompson, are expletive filled insanity crammed into as many run-on sentences as possible, and somehow I managed to cast Danny McBride as this character, which totally made the character click, and made him really funny.
The Dart League King takes place on a summer night in Idaho during the big Dart League championship. Each chapter takes a different character's perspective on what's going on, leaving the reader the only person with all the information,which lets you yell at the characters over and over again because you can see how badly they could potentially screw up. Overall, the book was creepy, fast-paced, funny and sad, and I was always excited to pick it back up again.
Just a weird side note: The chapters told by Vince Thompson, are expletive filled insanity crammed into as many run-on sentences as possible, and somehow I managed to cast Danny McBride as this character, which totally made the character click, and made him really funny.
January 30, 2009
hello, I'm every gross dude you ever hung out with in high school. Don't you feel pathetic about sleeping with "older guys" now? It's not so cool now that you're the same age as the creep who gave you a tattoo in your friend's living room because at 16 you were two years too young to get one legally done in a nice sterile shop, is it? Ten years ago you could never have imagined that some guy would write a book all about these jerks, and that you would find yourself in circumstances that necessitated reading it, and that it would bring back all those memories, and that after three chapters you would have to throw down the book in utter disgust--for the guys, for your sixteen-year-old self--and take a shower, with steel wool, because it takes more than a decade to scrub the loser off.
September 17, 2009
This book takes place on one summer night in a small Idaho town--on dart league night. The characters are fleshed out very well from the dart league king Russell to his drug dealer Vince to the single mom who just wants a better life. The story bounces around between characters every chapter giving you the full picture over time. Mr. Morris sets up the tension early and strings you along. The writing style of many run-on sentences of the characters' thoughts took a little to get used to but it works here. Very dark in certain spots (seriously, Tristan?) but a book that I read in two sittings.
January 10, 2009
Stream of consciousness, dive-bar style. Carver brought into the age of meth. A great read, a good yarn, with a wonderful cast of characters, including the Everyman of the Underclass, The Dart League King. How New York City stayed away from this one is beyond me. Are there only five men still reading in America or something? Is that the belief?
July 27, 2016
I happen to see a review of this book that touted the authors characters so I requested it from the library. What a great find! I read it in about a day and half. Morris writes about people I could have known so you feel a very personal connection to the story.
Small town characters, drugs, drinking, lives stagnating, secrets, sex, love, hate, father and sons, mothers and daughters, all coming to a head at the bar on dart night with the League Championship on the line. The lives of characters intersect, intertwine, parallel and run head long into each other. The build up chapter by chapter each around a central character was very effective and built suspense that had me turning pages all night.
Morris used character voice very effectively, especially Vince Thompson, whose rapid fire, explicative, angry missives were unmistakably that of an unstable mind. Hilariously, Vince went on for a few pages without a period in a rant against first his friend, then his father, mother, and the unfairness of it all.
“...Chuck who, when they were in sixth grade, hit Vince with an iceball on the playground after school and scratched the cornea of his left eye, and then his fucking dad, Vince’s fucking dad, the hardcore Vietnam air force colonel asshole, had said Vince was being a baby and didn’t need a doctor, and before he changed his mind the eye was infected and next thing you know Vince is half blind for the rest of his life and it probably caused his fucking hard-ass father about two goddamn seconds of actual fucking sorrow...”
Each character had a speech pattern or words, a way of expressing themselves that stood out as unique. The plot was not complicated, it wasn’t the story itself that was so compelling, I’d figured out the ending well before I should have, but it was the characters behavior and what they were going to say that kept you reading. I’m really glad I read this book. It felt like something I could use, emulate in way. Not specifically but the character driven aspect appealed to me.
Small town characters, drugs, drinking, lives stagnating, secrets, sex, love, hate, father and sons, mothers and daughters, all coming to a head at the bar on dart night with the League Championship on the line. The lives of characters intersect, intertwine, parallel and run head long into each other. The build up chapter by chapter each around a central character was very effective and built suspense that had me turning pages all night.
Morris used character voice very effectively, especially Vince Thompson, whose rapid fire, explicative, angry missives were unmistakably that of an unstable mind. Hilariously, Vince went on for a few pages without a period in a rant against first his friend, then his father, mother, and the unfairness of it all.
“...Chuck who, when they were in sixth grade, hit Vince with an iceball on the playground after school and scratched the cornea of his left eye, and then his fucking dad, Vince’s fucking dad, the hardcore Vietnam air force colonel asshole, had said Vince was being a baby and didn’t need a doctor, and before he changed his mind the eye was infected and next thing you know Vince is half blind for the rest of his life and it probably caused his fucking hard-ass father about two goddamn seconds of actual fucking sorrow...”
Each character had a speech pattern or words, a way of expressing themselves that stood out as unique. The plot was not complicated, it wasn’t the story itself that was so compelling, I’d figured out the ending well before I should have, but it was the characters behavior and what they were going to say that kept you reading. I’m really glad I read this book. It felt like something I could use, emulate in way. Not specifically but the character driven aspect appealed to me.
November 14, 2010
I previously read Keith Lee Morris's excellent short story collection, Call It What You Want, and decided to check out this novel. I seen this book and started to read it many months ago back when I lived in Kansas, but it didn't grab me, so I set it aside. (This was prior to reading CIWYW and realizing I needed to read more Keith Lee Morris.) I am so glad I gave this book another chance. What I liked so much about Morris's short stories are present in this book and what make it so successful--he knows how to make all of the jumbled emotions and thoughts that make us human beings come to life on the page.
Chapters are told from the point of view of several of the main characters. I know this technique is nothing new, but Morris uses it with tremendous skill. So much more life is breathed into the characters and their feelings for and interpolations of those around them produces a much more robust novel than a simple telling from say the central protagonist's POV, or simple third person omniscient. But this technical stuff is getting in the way of me saying, Hot Damn!, this book is phenomenal. It is essentially the story of some guys playing darts one night, but Keith Lee Morris pulls more emotion and genuine nail-biting intrigue into the story than you could imagine. I could hardly believe where the book ended up after such a simple-seeming opening. I can't say enough good things about Keith Lee Morris. I now have to track down some of his older books and anxiously await new works to be published. He is certainly under appreciated and deserves a much larger readership.
Chapters are told from the point of view of several of the main characters. I know this technique is nothing new, but Morris uses it with tremendous skill. So much more life is breathed into the characters and their feelings for and interpolations of those around them produces a much more robust novel than a simple telling from say the central protagonist's POV, or simple third person omniscient. But this technical stuff is getting in the way of me saying, Hot Damn!, this book is phenomenal. It is essentially the story of some guys playing darts one night, but Keith Lee Morris pulls more emotion and genuine nail-biting intrigue into the story than you could imagine. I could hardly believe where the book ended up after such a simple-seeming opening. I can't say enough good things about Keith Lee Morris. I now have to track down some of his older books and anxiously await new works to be published. He is certainly under appreciated and deserves a much larger readership.
January 6, 2009
There were no gorgeous sentences to underline in this book: no specific phrase that rang especially poignant or true. There were a few moments where I really had to suspend my disbelief: "really, this person reacts this way?" "Wait, he's the type to do that?" "That's kind of extreme."
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Fact of the matter is, once I got to page 36 (this number may or may not have something to do with a female perspective finally entering the scene), I wasn't going to stop reading this book until it ended. Love! Mysterious disappearances! Grungy bars! Rage problems! So much cocaine! Who is the father? Car sex! FIGHT! It's like Chuck Palahniuk was scheduled to go on the Jerry Springer Show but midway through, decided to drag his ass to small-town Idaho and ask his characters, honestly, what they were doing, still in those factory jobs and taking care of their alcoholic parents, anyway. It's the best combination of dirt drama and real, relatable introspection: why do we get stuck doing the same things, over and over again? Is this really so bad? And if so, who can save us?
Start this book at bedtime at your own risk.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Fact of the matter is, once I got to page 36 (this number may or may not have something to do with a female perspective finally entering the scene), I wasn't going to stop reading this book until it ended. Love! Mysterious disappearances! Grungy bars! Rage problems! So much cocaine! Who is the father? Car sex! FIGHT! It's like Chuck Palahniuk was scheduled to go on the Jerry Springer Show but midway through, decided to drag his ass to small-town Idaho and ask his characters, honestly, what they were doing, still in those factory jobs and taking care of their alcoholic parents, anyway. It's the best combination of dirt drama and real, relatable introspection: why do we get stuck doing the same things, over and over again? Is this really so bad? And if so, who can save us?
Start this book at bedtime at your own risk.
March 9, 2009
The use of free and indirect style in this novel allows Morris to create a compelling, humorous and moving range of characters from a small town in Idaho. The movement between different points of view (and different voices, though the entire novel is written in third person, a very difficult thing to pull off) is remarkably well done and generates great energy and interest. My only complaint is that the plot is too tightly woven: every character's concerns intersect both emotionally and dramatically with all the others in a way that generates tension and mystery, but which also strains credibility somewhat. Nevertheless, this is a beautifully written novel, published by a great small press and certainly worth reading.
February 9, 2011
Once the clock starts in this novel, it moves ahead relentlessly, chugging towards, maybe not the sadness that you expect, but sadness nonetheless, and after a brief moment of all-is-right, all-is-resolved, it rebounds to punch you in the gut, a punch assisted by brass knuckles or a clenched roll of quarters. Morris is one of the best story craftsmen I know. All of his stories work in a way I can't place my finger on, but if it could in fact be fingered, it would reveal something essential of why we live chronologically, why we mark certain spots on the timeline as memorable, why we stop telling stories at a particular moment. What does it mean to end? It's a decision, and I trust no one more that Morris to make it.
February 24, 2009
Now THIS one was more my speed! Told from the perspective of several different characters (each with their own style and voice, although not to like some sort of crazed Faulknerian extreme), the book tells the stories of several characters brought together one way or the other for a darts match the penultimate week of the season in a small town idaho darts league. It's not really anything I haven't seen before, stylistically, but the author does a good job of making you care about the characters and make them seem like more than just stereotypes. Not sure it deserves four stars - might be more like 3.5 - but I'm feeling generous tonight.
October 22, 2009
I need a 1/2 star option. 4 is probably a little high for this one. I was really impressed by it, but towards the end I felt the suspense leading up to the climax became overdone. (I don't know quite how else to phrase it. Clearly I'd be a horrible book reviewer.) Rather than feel like the events unfolded naturally to a conclusion that seemed inevitable, like in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, for example, I was more aware of the writer's hand pulling the puppet strings. And the ending made me want to slap Morris for reasons I cannot divulge without ruining it for those who have yet to read it. Still, very good.
October 21, 2011
I devoured this book on an international flight desperate to reach the conclusion while at the same time hoping that the story wouldn't end. Morris creates deep, richly drawn characters, who, while flawed have redeeming qualities that force you to root for their unlikely success. The narrative is sharp and the story arc rises and falls perfectly ending at exactly the right place, but leaving you wanting more. The prose is tight and lyrical, it feels like every word is purposefully chosen. The Dart League King was one of the best books I read this year.
July 28, 2010
Thank you, Keith Lee Morris, for sharing these tightly-wrought characters and their finely-wrought world with readers, and thank you, Tin House, for putting Morris' fast-paced, addictive tale into readers' hands. I could scarcely take a break from this narrative, and could scarcely bear to see it end. Like the early work of Richard Russo, whose "Risk Pool" swept me into its small town world with equal measures of humor and anguish, this novel is masterful. Bravo.
March 9, 2009
One night in a small town in Idaho as the loser denizens flock to a local bar to watch the deciding game in a dart tournament. The characters shine, in all their shabby glory, including a thuggish drug dealer, a college teacher with a terrible secret, an undercover DEA agent, and sad Russell Harmon, outclassed but desperate to be the Dart League King.
August 18, 2016
The ending was one of my favorites of any book I've read. It left some details to the reader's imagination, which also became one of the best aspects of the ending. The entire book covered a single night, but I never felt like it was being dragged on. The minor details added to each character's story really kept me coming back for more.
January 11, 2009
Another absorbing read. The author changes the narrative style from chapter to chapter in a way that reflects the inner life of each character. This makes for an immersive experience.
March 4, 2009
Great white-trash read. I'm giving it 4 stars only because I was a little let down by the ending, which didn't live up to the storytelling strength of the rest of the book.
November 13, 2009
My first book by Morris and I'm impressed.
I've got more to say about this later..but I'd advise all fans of good modern writing to take a chance on this novel.
I've got more to say about this later..but I'd advise all fans of good modern writing to take a chance on this novel.
July 12, 2010
Amazing writer. I love his dialogue style and his true grasp of young male minds. Each of his books are similar yet his short stories round more bends than a runaway train.
August 28, 2021
The fates of five characters collide on one "perilous night," Thursday, dart league night. In a dirty bar, the 321 Club, in small-town Garnet Lake, Idaho, the dart league is having their tournament, an event that Russell, the reigning dart league king, has organized. Russell is a bit of a f*up; he's living in his mother's basement, he keeps his logging job only because his friend Matt is his boss, his life is going nowhere. However, the thing he's good at is darts, and he wants to remain the king. However, tonight he is playing Brice Habersham, a new guy in town who used to play darts professionally, and, boy is Habersham good at darts. Russell is keeping one eye on the door, dreading the appearance of Vince Thompson, his drug dealer, whom he owns a bunch of money. Also in attendance are Tristan Mackey, home for the summer from college, who has just done a horrible thing, and Kelly Ashton, a young mother who desperately wants to get out of this town.
This book was an enjoyable read - it's fun, it's why we love to read.
This book was an enjoyable read - it's fun, it's why we love to read.
May 13, 2020
This is a wonderful book to read, especially if you’re trying to bring your own characters to life within your own writing. The juxtaposition of voices from each character, throughout the course of the book, are unique and yet very relatable. Keith Lee Morris’ brings each character to life and the reader will feel like they’re standing right next to each one during the course of the book; smelling the beer, cigarette smoke, and regret, permeating the air of the world he created. I highly recommend this book for creative writers looking for inspiration.
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