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Blackwood
For years, Colburn has been haunted by his father's suicide and the rapid disintegration of his childhood home. As a teenager, Colburn fled Red Bluff, Mississippi, eager to escape his trauma and start fresh elsewhere. But when he returns to town as an adult, lured by an unshakable desire , he finds that his demons have only grown larger in his absence.
In Red Bluff resides both a gift and a curse: Colburn meets and falls in love, only to have that love torn from him. The mystery of his lover's disappearance, he learns, is intertwined with that of a strange family living within the kudzu laden undergrowth of the countryside. Pulled back to his father's house, Colburn is forced to finally confront the truth.
Delivered in propulsive and lyrical prose, Blackwood is the haunting story of a tortured young man, desperate for release from the strangle hold around his heart.
In Red Bluff resides both a gift and a curse: Colburn meets and falls in love, only to have that love torn from him. The mystery of his lover's disappearance, he learns, is intertwined with that of a strange family living within the kudzu laden undergrowth of the countryside. Pulled back to his father's house, Colburn is forced to finally confront the truth.
Delivered in propulsive and lyrical prose, Blackwood is the haunting story of a tortured young man, desperate for release from the strangle hold around his heart.
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2020
122 people are currently reading
5855 people want to read
About the author
Michael Farris Smith
23 books890 followersMichael Farris Smith is an award-winning writer whose novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire, NPR, Southern Living, Garden & Gun, Oprah Magazine, Book Riot, and numerous other outlets, and have been named Indie Next, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections. He has also written the feature-film adaptations of his novels Desperation Road and The Fighter, titled for the screen as Rumble Through the Dark. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 370 reviews
February 10, 2020
The talented Michael Farris Smith's latest Southern gothic novel is hard edged, gritty, and uncompromising in its bleak vision and darkness with its anatomy of a dying small town, Red Bluff, at which unnamed drifters, a man, woman and boy arrive after their car breaks down. They have discarded one young boy earlier, unable to afford to keep him, they are ragged, desperate, and starving. Smith asks deep philosophical and religious questions in his narrative, as the drifters settle amidst the lush landscape of kudzu vines, vines that harbour the past, secrets, swallowing homes and any signs of humanity with ease. It's a veritable Garden of Eden, with its original sin, with its serpent of horror, the sinister, bearing the heavy weight of history and past generations. This is a tale of broken people, of despair, physical and mental pain, madness and guilt, of lives forged in hell and tragedy.
As a boy in 1956, Colbert experiences a disturbing trauma, he is now returning to Red Bluff in 1976, responding to the town's offer of free abandoned storefronts for musicians, writers and artists, in return for maintaining the building. He is a junkyard sculptor with an inner need to understand his past, thinking no-one will remember him, in fact it seems as if no-one has forgotten him. Sheriff Myer wanted to help the drifters move on, and seeing they are not going to, feels the town will respond to their needs. He is to be sorely disappointed as the woman and boy scavenge among the garbage, to be judged, rejected and found wanting. Celia, the bar owner tries to feed the boy, but he is like a wild animal and takes a while before taking up her offer. Colbert finds love when he least expected to, but the trauma from the past still has him in its hold. As madness, loss, violence and grief take their toll, we see souls seeking evidence that they exist, some form of connection with others, rather than the neglect and indifference that is their lot.
Smith's harsh realism portrays a town that only acts when twin boys go missing, followed by the disappearance of Celia. What lurks hidden amongst the Kudzu vines is the terror of nightmares, a malignant presence that pulsates with a life and a voice of its own. There is little in the way of light, but there are glimmers of hope, love and redemption in the depiction of a town, broken folk, and splintered families. This is a utterly gripping read, of lost dreams and lives, of never ending pain and misery, a litany of life's horrors that its impossible to look away from, an allegory of the troubled and disturbing world we live in today. A must read that packs a huge punch and which I recommend highly. Many thanks to No Exit Press and Oldcastle Books.
As a boy in 1956, Colbert experiences a disturbing trauma, he is now returning to Red Bluff in 1976, responding to the town's offer of free abandoned storefronts for musicians, writers and artists, in return for maintaining the building. He is a junkyard sculptor with an inner need to understand his past, thinking no-one will remember him, in fact it seems as if no-one has forgotten him. Sheriff Myer wanted to help the drifters move on, and seeing they are not going to, feels the town will respond to their needs. He is to be sorely disappointed as the woman and boy scavenge among the garbage, to be judged, rejected and found wanting. Celia, the bar owner tries to feed the boy, but he is like a wild animal and takes a while before taking up her offer. Colbert finds love when he least expected to, but the trauma from the past still has him in its hold. As madness, loss, violence and grief take their toll, we see souls seeking evidence that they exist, some form of connection with others, rather than the neglect and indifference that is their lot.
Smith's harsh realism portrays a town that only acts when twin boys go missing, followed by the disappearance of Celia. What lurks hidden amongst the Kudzu vines is the terror of nightmares, a malignant presence that pulsates with a life and a voice of its own. There is little in the way of light, but there are glimmers of hope, love and redemption in the depiction of a town, broken folk, and splintered families. This is a utterly gripping read, of lost dreams and lives, of never ending pain and misery, a litany of life's horrors that its impossible to look away from, an allegory of the troubled and disturbing world we live in today. A must read that packs a huge punch and which I recommend highly. Many thanks to No Exit Press and Oldcastle Books.
July 17, 2020
“I do not love you and I do not want you.”
Red Bluff, Mississippi is a small town haunted by ghosts of the past. The town is struggling, the storefronts are empty, and its people are haunted by memories. When outsiders arrive, their presence stirs up the ghosts. The town will never be the same.
A family of drifters rolls into Red Bluff: a man, a woman, and a boy. Homeless, starving, and mentally ill, their presence brings out the voices and the ghosts.
An artist returns to Red Bluff. Many years ago, he witnessed his father’s suicide.
The Kudzu that pervades the land begins to invade people's minds; luring them in, charming them, and, ultimately, ravishing them.
Blackwood has many layers. It’s not about literal ghosts, but about the past invading the present. It’s subtle and quiet, but quite vicious at the same time. This book destroyed me. There is no happiness, no message of hope; there is only defeat. The characters' pain, guilt, and sadness is heavy and afflicting to read. However, there is beauty in the prose and in some of the characters, which makes this an alluring, but difficult read.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company in exchange for an honest review.
Red Bluff, Mississippi is a small town haunted by ghosts of the past. The town is struggling, the storefronts are empty, and its people are haunted by memories. When outsiders arrive, their presence stirs up the ghosts. The town will never be the same.
A family of drifters rolls into Red Bluff: a man, a woman, and a boy. Homeless, starving, and mentally ill, their presence brings out the voices and the ghosts.
An artist returns to Red Bluff. Many years ago, he witnessed his father’s suicide.
The Kudzu that pervades the land begins to invade people's minds; luring them in, charming them, and, ultimately, ravishing them.
Blackwood has many layers. It’s not about literal ghosts, but about the past invading the present. It’s subtle and quiet, but quite vicious at the same time. This book destroyed me. There is no happiness, no message of hope; there is only defeat. The characters' pain, guilt, and sadness is heavy and afflicting to read. However, there is beauty in the prose and in some of the characters, which makes this an alluring, but difficult read.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company in exchange for an honest review.
April 18, 2020
"Somethins out there."
Red Bluff, Mississippi is a town that has known bad times. It's rural and overgrown with Kudzu vines. When Myer, the towns aged lawman, encounters a family of drifters, he wants to help, he tries to help, but how do you help those who don't appear to want it? Myer believes that the town that wears the pain of generations on its shoulders is still good. He believes this even as he, himself, is haunted by a suicide that occurred twenty years ago.
But as the Kudzu vines keep growing, so does the generations of danger, violence, regret, pain, and secrets. The kudzu overtakes everything including cars and homes. But the town remembers, or at least they believe they remember.
"You look broken and you are broken and it's okay to be broken."
They remember a young man who left and has now returned. They remember how his father died. Colburn knows they remember but he has come to town answering an advertisement, free space for artists. He drives throughout the countryside collecting scrapes, metal and other parts to use in his sculpting. He has a sad existence made better when he meets the local bar owner, Celia.
"...he felt solace in the peace that comes from knowing you have a purpose. Knowing you can affect this world."
But there is an evil that lurks here deep down in the Kudzu. Something is there, waiting, lurking, and like the kudzu will it overtake the people of the town? Will the people survive as they always have? What does it mean to be broken, to be unwanted, to feel unloved?
"I'm afraid. That's how I know I am alive."
There is the raw grittiness of hunger, of lust, of violence, of regret, of lost opportunities, of loss and of survival. The people in this town know pain, they know injustice, they know heartache and they know that something whispers in the night.
You know when you read a book and you enjoy it and you think it is good and you put it down happy. But then there are books, like this one, that pack a powerful punch. Beautifully written, full of beauty, full of pain, full of grace and I could literally feel the emotion dripping from the pages. Michael Farris Smith has a gift that he has poured into the pages of this book. No one writes desperation, pain, and about the bleakness of a hard life in such heartbreaking beautiful prose. There are good books and then there are great books. This is the later. A beautifully written, moving and thought-provoking book that raises the bar and doesn't disappoint.
Highly recommend.
Thank you to Little Brown and Company and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
**quotes are taken from an ARC and are subject to change
Red Bluff, Mississippi is a town that has known bad times. It's rural and overgrown with Kudzu vines. When Myer, the towns aged lawman, encounters a family of drifters, he wants to help, he tries to help, but how do you help those who don't appear to want it? Myer believes that the town that wears the pain of generations on its shoulders is still good. He believes this even as he, himself, is haunted by a suicide that occurred twenty years ago.
But as the Kudzu vines keep growing, so does the generations of danger, violence, regret, pain, and secrets. The kudzu overtakes everything including cars and homes. But the town remembers, or at least they believe they remember.
"You look broken and you are broken and it's okay to be broken."
They remember a young man who left and has now returned. They remember how his father died. Colburn knows they remember but he has come to town answering an advertisement, free space for artists. He drives throughout the countryside collecting scrapes, metal and other parts to use in his sculpting. He has a sad existence made better when he meets the local bar owner, Celia.
"...he felt solace in the peace that comes from knowing you have a purpose. Knowing you can affect this world."
But there is an evil that lurks here deep down in the Kudzu. Something is there, waiting, lurking, and like the kudzu will it overtake the people of the town? Will the people survive as they always have? What does it mean to be broken, to be unwanted, to feel unloved?
"I'm afraid. That's how I know I am alive."
There is the raw grittiness of hunger, of lust, of violence, of regret, of lost opportunities, of loss and of survival. The people in this town know pain, they know injustice, they know heartache and they know that something whispers in the night.
You know when you read a book and you enjoy it and you think it is good and you put it down happy. But then there are books, like this one, that pack a powerful punch. Beautifully written, full of beauty, full of pain, full of grace and I could literally feel the emotion dripping from the pages. Michael Farris Smith has a gift that he has poured into the pages of this book. No one writes desperation, pain, and about the bleakness of a hard life in such heartbreaking beautiful prose. There are good books and then there are great books. This is the later. A beautifully written, moving and thought-provoking book that raises the bar and doesn't disappoint.
Highly recommend.
Thank you to Little Brown and Company and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
**quotes are taken from an ARC and are subject to change
July 6, 2020
This is a literary Crime novel. I loved it…I think. The book/story continues to swirl around and around in my imagination. This is my third book by this author, the most recent that he’s published, and I have found he just gets better and better. It’s interesting to me that the setting is a living breathing character and a coconspirator in the crimes; an amazing accomplishment. There are several things I have never seen before, at least not in one novel. At one point the story shifts to the point of view of a house and by the time I got to this section of the book it seemed natural and it worked. This book is “told,” and doesn’t really ever touch ground, not entirely. It’s a half-step back from a close point of view which kept me from dropping deeply into the “Fictive Dream,” something I need most from a book. This story held me in its grasp in another way, though. It’s told in multiple points of view and shifts from one to another to service the story rather than the characters. There are three plotlines that intertwine to create the rope or backbone of the story. The end stunned me. Maybe because I had expected and or hoped for a different outcome. For the briefest of moments, I thought the story had crossed genres and ventured to the edge of horror and then realized it was the natural and obvious outcome. I read and write novels and can usually predict, based on MAR, motivation action, reaction, what is going to happen. This story snuck up on me almost like a slap to the face. Readers read for emotion and this one has a large dose of it at the end. Needless to say, I will be anxiously waiting this author’s next book. I highly recommend this book for those who like literary crime novels.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
October 10, 2020
Coulter arrives in Red Bluff, a declining Mississippi town, in his scrappy flatbed truck - his past is calling.
A family, of sorts, arrive at the same time. Living well below the radar they are poverty stricken and distrustful. The father figure, a wild malevolent force, drags the ‘the woman’ and ‘the boy’ helplessly in his wake.
How the newcomers rub up against the locals and how each individual story collides is at the heart of this tale. A tale that lurches from the everyday to the darkly mystical.
We’re in familiar Michael Farris Smith country - people don’t say much, there’s an air of melancholy, the action is gritty and there’s a jaded realism ......... not too many laughs.
The lonely town is surrounded by forest, and Kudzu (I had to look this up) is used as a constant metaphor. The unstoppable, invasive vine whose heavy green leaf smothers everything in its path, is pressing in from all directions and adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere and feeling of creeping doom.
Coulton is an urban artist, metalworking discarded junk, but this side of his character is never really examined or developed, and this was part of the reason that, for me, Blackwood didn’t quite live up to Desperation Road, my first Michael Farris Smith novel.
Blackwood is a short book and it seemed there was never quite enough time to fully build backstories, relationships, motives etc. So much happens in each strand of the dramatic narrative that parts inevitably felt a bit rushed.
However, I love MFS’s tough, poetic writing and as usual there are some fine character studies and a plot that is pitch black and haunting.
Not his best maybe but still very good.
A family, of sorts, arrive at the same time. Living well below the radar they are poverty stricken and distrustful. The father figure, a wild malevolent force, drags the ‘the woman’ and ‘the boy’ helplessly in his wake.
How the newcomers rub up against the locals and how each individual story collides is at the heart of this tale. A tale that lurches from the everyday to the darkly mystical.
We’re in familiar Michael Farris Smith country - people don’t say much, there’s an air of melancholy, the action is gritty and there’s a jaded realism ......... not too many laughs.
The lonely town is surrounded by forest, and Kudzu (I had to look this up) is used as a constant metaphor. The unstoppable, invasive vine whose heavy green leaf smothers everything in its path, is pressing in from all directions and adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere and feeling of creeping doom.
Coulton is an urban artist, metalworking discarded junk, but this side of his character is never really examined or developed, and this was part of the reason that, for me, Blackwood didn’t quite live up to Desperation Road, my first Michael Farris Smith novel.
Blackwood is a short book and it seemed there was never quite enough time to fully build backstories, relationships, motives etc. So much happens in each strand of the dramatic narrative that parts inevitably felt a bit rushed.
However, I love MFS’s tough, poetic writing and as usual there are some fine character studies and a plot that is pitch black and haunting.
Not his best maybe but still very good.
February 29, 2020
NO SPOILERS... 🍃
Lock your doors and watch your children....
....this book is batty-bonkers meshuggah- FANTASTIC!
...MICHAEL FARRIS SMITH
is a writer-rock-star!!!
I’ve read everyone of his books - loved each one - and “Blackwood” tops them all!!
It’s tempting to share details - but the less you know the better.
“Blackwood” starts with two gripping beginning scenes: 1956....
Then jumps to 1975: with another gripping scene.
Both scenes never leave the readers thoughts —
Then....
.....the action kept moving and moving— giving us an extraordinary-emotional ending.
“Red Bluff had gone from being nowhere to being somewhere in only hours.
The fear and heartbreak had awaken the sleepy town with gut punches of emotion and the television crews that came and the reporters who asked questions to whoever they could get to talk on the sidewalk and the police and the detectives who moved in and out of the café and the post office and the gas stations in their white shirts and black ties were all symbolic and clear in their message— we would not be here unless tragedy has befallen”.
Michael Farris Smith - Mississippi guy - is SUCH A PHENOMENAL writer!!!
His books are a treat - and ‘Blackwood’ is the icing on the cake!!!
A 2020 book-FAVORITE!!! 🍃
Thank you Little Brown and Company, Netgalley, and Michael Farris Smith
Lock your doors and watch your children....
....this book is batty-bonkers meshuggah- FANTASTIC!
...MICHAEL FARRIS SMITH
is a writer-rock-star!!!
I’ve read everyone of his books - loved each one - and “Blackwood” tops them all!!
It’s tempting to share details - but the less you know the better.
“Blackwood” starts with two gripping beginning scenes: 1956....
Then jumps to 1975: with another gripping scene.
Both scenes never leave the readers thoughts —
Then....
.....the action kept moving and moving— giving us an extraordinary-emotional ending.
“Red Bluff had gone from being nowhere to being somewhere in only hours.
The fear and heartbreak had awaken the sleepy town with gut punches of emotion and the television crews that came and the reporters who asked questions to whoever they could get to talk on the sidewalk and the police and the detectives who moved in and out of the café and the post office and the gas stations in their white shirts and black ties were all symbolic and clear in their message— we would not be here unless tragedy has befallen”.
Michael Farris Smith - Mississippi guy - is SUCH A PHENOMENAL writer!!!
His books are a treat - and ‘Blackwood’ is the icing on the cake!!!
A 2020 book-FAVORITE!!! 🍃
Thank you Little Brown and Company, Netgalley, and Michael Farris Smith
March 3, 2020
Sweet goodness, gracious!! Blackwood is one remarkable story that surprised me!
What a unique talent Michael Farris Smith has here with setting the powerful and distinctive tone and mood to Blackwood. I have not experienced anything like it before. It provoked a quiet feeling of bleakness, darkness and hope that whispered to me through the imagery used to the story.
The bleak, dark and sinister evil that hovers over the edges of Red Bluff, Mississippi and the story quietly started to consume me when the man, the women and the boy drift into town and awaken the evil lurking in the Kudzu. There are some dark secrets buried under a blanket of leaves that create a landscape of fear and regret that consumes these characters.
The words are written with grace and are haunting beautifully quiet. As I was reading, all I could hear was the creepy vines whispering the secrets of the past, keeping the darkness alive. There is some hope that quietly creeps in the end, leaving me with some quiet thoughts after reading this one. I highly recommend!
I received a copy from NetGalley
What a unique talent Michael Farris Smith has here with setting the powerful and distinctive tone and mood to Blackwood. I have not experienced anything like it before. It provoked a quiet feeling of bleakness, darkness and hope that whispered to me through the imagery used to the story.
The bleak, dark and sinister evil that hovers over the edges of Red Bluff, Mississippi and the story quietly started to consume me when the man, the women and the boy drift into town and awaken the evil lurking in the Kudzu. There are some dark secrets buried under a blanket of leaves that create a landscape of fear and regret that consumes these characters.
The words are written with grace and are haunting beautifully quiet. As I was reading, all I could hear was the creepy vines whispering the secrets of the past, keeping the darkness alive. There is some hope that quietly creeps in the end, leaving me with some quiet thoughts after reading this one. I highly recommend!
I received a copy from NetGalley
February 29, 2020
In a small southern town that has seen better days, with more people leaving – one way, or another – than staying, a car with a young boy and his parents end up in Red Bluff, their car breaking down as they were trying to make their way anywhere but where they’d come from. As this journey began, there was a second boy, but the man, not believing himself to be that boy’s father, and not really wanting either boy, anyway, left him along the way, sending him into a store and leaving before he had a chance to return. They are poor, and there is a hopelessness that surrounds this family. The man tries, unsuccessfully, to rationalize it to the mother, but she is also desperate in her own way.
In Red Bluff, the Sheriff tries to help this family, but the man rebuffs his offer, and they end up, with great effort, living in their car outside the outskirts of the town. Their car now hidden among the kudzu vines, not far from the many other things it has ingested in its need to cover everything, hiding everything, especially the past.
Among the people of this town is a man, Colbert, who has returned to Red Bluff after twenty years to face an event that has shaped his life, and which he needs to come to terms with. He works as a sculptor, turning trash into art, in a town that seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Celia, who owns the bar, seems to be the only one willing to give Colbert a gesture of friendship, or to feed a homeless young boy. It is a town filled with the lost and forlorn, and a seemingly endless string of heartbreaking and disturbing surprises are unearthed as the days pass.
And that’s just the beginning.
I have read, and loved, every one of Michael Farris Smith’s books, and this was no exception. This has some of the dark, Southern gothic tones I found in Rivers, and the prequel to Rivers, In the Beginning, the desire for a kinder, gentler life - against the odds - that I found in Desperation Road the brutality of life in The Fighter, and the anguish that comes with the waning of hope in The Hands of Strangers. It is, in short, brilliant, a work of genius. Unsettling, without being overly graphic, touching and affecting, with incredibly beautiful prose. Michael Farris Smith has crafted his best yet.
Pub Date: 03 Mar 2020
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Little, Brown and Company
In Red Bluff, the Sheriff tries to help this family, but the man rebuffs his offer, and they end up, with great effort, living in their car outside the outskirts of the town. Their car now hidden among the kudzu vines, not far from the many other things it has ingested in its need to cover everything, hiding everything, especially the past.
Among the people of this town is a man, Colbert, who has returned to Red Bluff after twenty years to face an event that has shaped his life, and which he needs to come to terms with. He works as a sculptor, turning trash into art, in a town that seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Celia, who owns the bar, seems to be the only one willing to give Colbert a gesture of friendship, or to feed a homeless young boy. It is a town filled with the lost and forlorn, and a seemingly endless string of heartbreaking and disturbing surprises are unearthed as the days pass.
And that’s just the beginning.
I have read, and loved, every one of Michael Farris Smith’s books, and this was no exception. This has some of the dark, Southern gothic tones I found in Rivers, and the prequel to Rivers, In the Beginning, the desire for a kinder, gentler life - against the odds - that I found in Desperation Road the brutality of life in The Fighter, and the anguish that comes with the waning of hope in The Hands of Strangers. It is, in short, brilliant, a work of genius. Unsettling, without being overly graphic, touching and affecting, with incredibly beautiful prose. Michael Farris Smith has crafted his best yet.
Pub Date: 03 Mar 2020
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Little, Brown and Company
May 8, 2023
This is a story with an ominous sense of foreboding, one in which chilly fingers of dread will accompany you to sleep at night. Smith builds unbearable suspense in his setting of Red Bluffs, Mississippi, where kudzu is almost a character in the story. The tone of the story is of a creeping evil, of which the kudzu is symbolic. The evil is slowly coming in and wanting to take over. It made me think of every dark and incomprehensible wickedness I’ve ever known about. Like a heavy presence that was just out of my line of vision, the jimjams crawling on my skin signaled awareness. Dank moisture, a stagnant foul smell, furtive sounds underneath the vines, the taste of fear; Smith’s narrative stimulates all the senses.
Something bad happened in Colburn’s life when he was eleven years old. Even before that, he never felt accepted, and afterward, the cloak of alienation draped him, body and soul. He left the town of Red Bluff with his mother and didn’t come back until twenty years later. In a flatbed truck loaded down with scrap metal, rebar, and the various elements that make up the art of an industrial sculptor, Colburn rides back into Red Bluff. He’s there in answer to an ad in a newspaper giving free downtown space to artists and the like. People would stop by the windows and watch him bending and welding the pipes and metal like some demon in a fiery furnace. One day Celia shows up and invites him to join her at her bar. It’s a chance at another way of life.
Before Colburn arrived, a family of three on their way to Tennessee, break down in their Cadillac. They are as broke down as their car. Without funds, unfortunately for this little town, they’re going nowhere anytime soon. They are not really a family, but they seem to be father, mother, and son. Smith calls them, man, woman, and boy throughout the novel. Seemingly running on basic needs, all the finer things that create a family are missing. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they haven’t made it up the first rung. Smith’s descriptions of this family had my hair standing on end. It is the boy who earns my sympathy. What a horrible plight for him to be attached to this makeshift family where love is as foreign as house, backyard, school, friends.
There is a guy with a white hat in this story. It is Myer, the town’s sheriff. He warns the family that their car has to be moved, and offers to get it to a mechanic. The next day the car is gone, but the family is still there; the woman and the boy picking up cans and pilfering garbage. Myer is a stabilizing force and I was mighty happy to meet him, the first, what seemed to me, psychologically healthy individual in the story. However, Myer is not observant enough and serves somewhat as a cautionary figure.
This is the second book I’ve read by this author and I am won over by his storytelling skills. I like his sometimes incomplete sentences as well as his use of creative compound words, like cherryred, woodframe, halfmoon, and my favorite, sunkeyed. I like the way he ends his short chapters with a sentence that is somewhere between profound and magnificent, and how he plumbs the depths of his character’s psychological innards. The ending was a little strange for me, but it’s one I can sit with, which may have been Smith’s objective. The main theme is don’t turn your back on kudzu.
Something bad happened in Colburn’s life when he was eleven years old. Even before that, he never felt accepted, and afterward, the cloak of alienation draped him, body and soul. He left the town of Red Bluff with his mother and didn’t come back until twenty years later. In a flatbed truck loaded down with scrap metal, rebar, and the various elements that make up the art of an industrial sculptor, Colburn rides back into Red Bluff. He’s there in answer to an ad in a newspaper giving free downtown space to artists and the like. People would stop by the windows and watch him bending and welding the pipes and metal like some demon in a fiery furnace. One day Celia shows up and invites him to join her at her bar. It’s a chance at another way of life.
Before Colburn arrived, a family of three on their way to Tennessee, break down in their Cadillac. They are as broke down as their car. Without funds, unfortunately for this little town, they’re going nowhere anytime soon. They are not really a family, but they seem to be father, mother, and son. Smith calls them, man, woman, and boy throughout the novel. Seemingly running on basic needs, all the finer things that create a family are missing. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they haven’t made it up the first rung. Smith’s descriptions of this family had my hair standing on end. It is the boy who earns my sympathy. What a horrible plight for him to be attached to this makeshift family where love is as foreign as house, backyard, school, friends.
There is a guy with a white hat in this story. It is Myer, the town’s sheriff. He warns the family that their car has to be moved, and offers to get it to a mechanic. The next day the car is gone, but the family is still there; the woman and the boy picking up cans and pilfering garbage. Myer is a stabilizing force and I was mighty happy to meet him, the first, what seemed to me, psychologically healthy individual in the story. However, Myer is not observant enough and serves somewhat as a cautionary figure.
This is the second book I’ve read by this author and I am won over by his storytelling skills. I like his sometimes incomplete sentences as well as his use of creative compound words, like cherryred, woodframe, halfmoon, and my favorite, sunkeyed. I like the way he ends his short chapters with a sentence that is somewhere between profound and magnificent, and how he plumbs the depths of his character’s psychological innards. The ending was a little strange for me, but it’s one I can sit with, which may have been Smith’s objective. The main theme is don’t turn your back on kudzu.
March 3, 2020
Readers like myself who have followed this author from the beginning, know what to expect from his novels. Southern, gothic grit, with a dark, dark tone. This book is no exception and it starts out with a bang, well, not a bang exactly, let's just say a shocking event. From there it takes off, and the events build from there. A young man returning for answers, another man, woman and buy who are looking for some kind of life, a place to stop. A young woman, whose mother may have had answers but us now gone, and a sheriff who is clearly over his head.
There is clearly something wrong in the town of Red Bluffs, Mississippi, but where does it originate?
"This place is one big ghost story. Stories about the valley. Stories about the man who killer himself. It's what we do."
Kudzu covers everything left alone, even Colton's old house, but what else lives there. Things will get much worse, before answers are found. What and who will be left?
As usual I couldn't stop reading this darn book, but either I missed something or some questions remain unanswered. Even so, this was an exciting ride.
ARC from Netgalley.
There is clearly something wrong in the town of Red Bluffs, Mississippi, but where does it originate?
"This place is one big ghost story. Stories about the valley. Stories about the man who killer himself. It's what we do."
Kudzu covers everything left alone, even Colton's old house, but what else lives there. Things will get much worse, before answers are found. What and who will be left?
As usual I couldn't stop reading this darn book, but either I missed something or some questions remain unanswered. Even so, this was an exciting ride.
ARC from Netgalley.
June 14, 2020
4.5
Something is very wrong in Red Bluff, Mississippi.
Colburn, returns there 20 years after a tragic family event took place that has haunted him ever since.
Following his return, there is also the arrival in town of a nameless, homeless family in a broken down Cadillac and after this, strange things really start happening.
People begin to disappear without being found and without clues, and people become suspicious of each other.
Very atmospheric, much takes place in the kudzu vined land in the area.
This has the usual grit I love from this author, this is the 5th book of his I’ve read. Three of those were five star reads for me. A little something was missing for me here, but still good! I eager await what’s next from him!
Something is very wrong in Red Bluff, Mississippi.
Colburn, returns there 20 years after a tragic family event took place that has haunted him ever since.
Following his return, there is also the arrival in town of a nameless, homeless family in a broken down Cadillac and after this, strange things really start happening.
People begin to disappear without being found and without clues, and people become suspicious of each other.
Very atmospheric, much takes place in the kudzu vined land in the area.
This has the usual grit I love from this author, this is the 5th book of his I’ve read. Three of those were five star reads for me. A little something was missing for me here, but still good! I eager await what’s next from him!
July 5, 2023
Early on we are introduced to:
- A young boy who witnesses a family tragedy
- A man, a woman and a boy: people with virtually nothing who become stranded in a small town
- A sculptor who collects scrap metal which he intends to turn into strange forms
- A girl who owns a run-down bar and and lives with memories of her fortune teller mother
Who are these people and how are they connected? We are to learn the answers, but slowly as this often harrowing but completely engrossing tale plays out.
The action is centred in and around the town of Red Bluff, Mississippi. It’s a tired place, with stores that are boarded up and where Kudzu has overtaken a valley on the edge of town. Within the valley a now uninhabited house has all but disappeared, swallowed up by the writhing knots of the invasive vine. There are other things hidden in this valley too, it’s a creepy and mysterious place.
The sheriff is a man called Meyer. He’s held the badge for twenty uneventful years, but he’s about to be confronted by the most significant challenge of his career. In this gothic tale we’re swallowed up by the claustrophobic atmosphere of the piece, whilst hard facts are hard to come by. Information and answers are withheld and then eked out until at last we are able to see the whole picture, or at least most of it. As the story nears its conclusion it’s with a sense of pain and dread that pages are turned.
The writing, as always with this author, is hauntingly beautiful. It’s a book to keep you up late, reluctant as you are to put it down, and then to keep you up all night as you dream of the events you’ve just witnessed. It’s a wonderful piece of storytelling with characters you’ll love and hate and a setting that’ll most likely stick in your mind for years to come. You’ve done it again MFS, this is another masterpiece.
- A young boy who witnesses a family tragedy
- A man, a woman and a boy: people with virtually nothing who become stranded in a small town
- A sculptor who collects scrap metal which he intends to turn into strange forms
- A girl who owns a run-down bar and and lives with memories of her fortune teller mother
Who are these people and how are they connected? We are to learn the answers, but slowly as this often harrowing but completely engrossing tale plays out.
The action is centred in and around the town of Red Bluff, Mississippi. It’s a tired place, with stores that are boarded up and where Kudzu has overtaken a valley on the edge of town. Within the valley a now uninhabited house has all but disappeared, swallowed up by the writhing knots of the invasive vine. There are other things hidden in this valley too, it’s a creepy and mysterious place.
The sheriff is a man called Meyer. He’s held the badge for twenty uneventful years, but he’s about to be confronted by the most significant challenge of his career. In this gothic tale we’re swallowed up by the claustrophobic atmosphere of the piece, whilst hard facts are hard to come by. Information and answers are withheld and then eked out until at last we are able to see the whole picture, or at least most of it. As the story nears its conclusion it’s with a sense of pain and dread that pages are turned.
The writing, as always with this author, is hauntingly beautiful. It’s a book to keep you up late, reluctant as you are to put it down, and then to keep you up all night as you dream of the events you’ve just witnessed. It’s a wonderful piece of storytelling with characters you’ll love and hate and a setting that’ll most likely stick in your mind for years to come. You’ve done it again MFS, this is another masterpiece.
March 14, 2020
Red Bluff, Mississippi. A small town dying on the vine, inch by inch. A homeless family almost makes it into town, but eschews help when it is offered. A man who lived here as a boy returns after 20 years, deeply scarred on the inside. Under the cover of darkness, a raggedy ass man shambles his way through town, lips smacking, touching other people's things, moving them around. There is something the matter with all of them, and there is something very wrong with the place they are in. Through the woods and down in the valley, the creep of the kudzu is relentless, covering and smothering, snaking out its tendrils, beckoning.
Never one to shy away from noir and gritty, this author has crept even deeper into the fold of the dark side with this novel.
Never one to shy away from noir and gritty, this author has crept even deeper into the fold of the dark side with this novel.
June 21, 2020
Ominous. Foreboding. Other Worldly.
Red Bluff, Mississippi has a dark feel to it. It is a place where few truly feel safe or welcome.
Could be the kudzu vines growing all over or the apprehension and anxiety everyone feels as soon as they step foot in town.
Though Colburn had planned to stay away from Red Bluff, since the loss of his father years ago, the town has been calling to him. As soon as he arrives, he knows that it is a bad place and yet he stays. When he meets Celia, the owner of the local bar, he feels a pull. A pull he wishes he could escape as he has escaped everything else in life and yet for the first time he cannot.
When the Grifters arrive in town, they of course, feel right at home. The child begins fending for the man and the woman, gathering food and other goods just as he was taught. The child however recognizes something. Feels it and yet he can do nothing.
There is terror, there is pain and there is a bleakness to “Blackwood” that is familiar to Michael Farris Smith’s novels. Then there is a mystical quality to this novel that surprised me. Surprised and admittedly felt esoteric, for lack of a better word. It had me questioning everything that I know to be true and for that I must give Michael Farris Smith kudos. While I didn’t love this novel quite as much as his other books, I quite enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing what else he has in store.
A buddy read with Kaceey.
Thank you to NetGalley, Little Brown and Company and Michael Farris Smith for the arc.
Published on Goodreads on 6.21.20.
Red Bluff, Mississippi has a dark feel to it. It is a place where few truly feel safe or welcome.
Could be the kudzu vines growing all over or the apprehension and anxiety everyone feels as soon as they step foot in town.
Though Colburn had planned to stay away from Red Bluff, since the loss of his father years ago, the town has been calling to him. As soon as he arrives, he knows that it is a bad place and yet he stays. When he meets Celia, the owner of the local bar, he feels a pull. A pull he wishes he could escape as he has escaped everything else in life and yet for the first time he cannot.
When the Grifters arrive in town, they of course, feel right at home. The child begins fending for the man and the woman, gathering food and other goods just as he was taught. The child however recognizes something. Feels it and yet he can do nothing.
There is terror, there is pain and there is a bleakness to “Blackwood” that is familiar to Michael Farris Smith’s novels. Then there is a mystical quality to this novel that surprised me. Surprised and admittedly felt esoteric, for lack of a better word. It had me questioning everything that I know to be true and for that I must give Michael Farris Smith kudos. While I didn’t love this novel quite as much as his other books, I quite enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing what else he has in store.
A buddy read with Kaceey.
Thank you to NetGalley, Little Brown and Company and Michael Farris Smith for the arc.
Published on Goodreads on 6.21.20.
August 18, 2020
Kudzu- “Introduced from Asia in the late 19th century as a garden novelty, but not widely planted until the 1930's, kudzu is now America's most infamous weed” - The Smithsonian
Magazine.
Dark, gritty and a little mystical.
Colburn grew up in Red Bluff Mississippi. He was one of the fortunate few able to get out. So why return now? What Siren song is powerful enough to draw him back to a place he swore never to return?
Michael Farris Smith writes a gripping tale of the struggles and hardship of life in a tiny dot on the map town in rural Mississippi.
My second read from this author and while his previous work, Desperation Road was one of my favorites, this book had a bit of a different feel to it.
A buddy read with Susanne🌿🍃
Magazine.
Dark, gritty and a little mystical.
Colburn grew up in Red Bluff Mississippi. He was one of the fortunate few able to get out. So why return now? What Siren song is powerful enough to draw him back to a place he swore never to return?
Michael Farris Smith writes a gripping tale of the struggles and hardship of life in a tiny dot on the map town in rural Mississippi.
My second read from this author and while his previous work, Desperation Road was one of my favorites, this book had a bit of a different feel to it.
A buddy read with Susanne🌿🍃
January 2, 2023
Well, I think someone needs a Happy Meal...
This was one of the most unpleasant, feel-bad books I've ever read. Desperation Road was like a Famous Five book compared to this.
Jeez.
This was one of the most unpleasant, feel-bad books I've ever read. Desperation Road was like a Famous Five book compared to this.
Jeez.
May 11, 2020
Dark, Bleak And Sinister!
Welcome to Red Bluff Mississippi an aged small town that has seen better days and the hills that have been taken up by the ever present and fast growing
kudzu vines swallowing some houses and cars and anything that had been left in their pathway. Sheriff Myers, a fair and honest man has lived in Red Bluff for a long time and is used to the slow pace and proud that he keeps his little town safe from the big city crimes until the day three drifters wandered into his haven and slowly but surely people are starting to disappear and there is a presence of evil in the atmosphere near the hills and coming closer to what used to be a safe place to live.
This was a gloomy and very bleak story with hints of the supernatural looming in the background allowing your imagination to take over and create unseen possible creatures or ghostly beings hovering just where you are searching and then leaving you wondering what is real and what was the character really seeing and hearing.
The timeless storytelling is wonderfully written with a southern gothic style. I enjoyed all the characters and many of the moral challenges that had been brought in to play showing the vulnerability of some of their hearts.
This was my first Michael Farris Smith book but certainly not my last and I highly recommend this story to any horror reader or anyone who enjoys dark gothic styles of writing.
I want to thank the publisher "Little Brown Company" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this marvelously written book!
I have given a rating of 4 Sinister 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stars!!
Welcome to Red Bluff Mississippi an aged small town that has seen better days and the hills that have been taken up by the ever present and fast growing
kudzu vines swallowing some houses and cars and anything that had been left in their pathway. Sheriff Myers, a fair and honest man has lived in Red Bluff for a long time and is used to the slow pace and proud that he keeps his little town safe from the big city crimes until the day three drifters wandered into his haven and slowly but surely people are starting to disappear and there is a presence of evil in the atmosphere near the hills and coming closer to what used to be a safe place to live.
This was a gloomy and very bleak story with hints of the supernatural looming in the background allowing your imagination to take over and create unseen possible creatures or ghostly beings hovering just where you are searching and then leaving you wondering what is real and what was the character really seeing and hearing.
The timeless storytelling is wonderfully written with a southern gothic style. I enjoyed all the characters and many of the moral challenges that had been brought in to play showing the vulnerability of some of their hearts.
This was my first Michael Farris Smith book but certainly not my last and I highly recommend this story to any horror reader or anyone who enjoys dark gothic styles of writing.
I want to thank the publisher "Little Brown Company" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this marvelously written book!
I have given a rating of 4 Sinister 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stars!!
March 28, 2020
This book is so well written, but it still took me a while to get invested in the story and the characters. A strange family comes to a small Mississippi town. Their car has broken down and they don’t have the money to repair it. So, they take to living on the outskirts of town. Meanwhile, a man returns to the town where he spent his youth. These new individuals manage to stir things up - fights break out, children go missing.
Smith gives you a total sense of place and time. “This place is one big ghost story.” The landscape is a character in its own right, kudzu covering everything. It’s a dark book, a sad and bleak one. The characters all have troubles, there are no happy souls here.
The writing reminds me of Faulkner, true southern literature. Sparse and lush at the same time. This is a book that starts slow but picks up the pace as it goes on. I wanted to flip pages as fast as I could but also wanted to savor the experience and the writing.
I was left shaking my head at the horror of it all. This isn’t a book with nice tidy answers.
My thanks to netgalley and Little, Browns and Company for an advance copy of this book.
Smith gives you a total sense of place and time. “This place is one big ghost story.” The landscape is a character in its own right, kudzu covering everything. It’s a dark book, a sad and bleak one. The characters all have troubles, there are no happy souls here.
The writing reminds me of Faulkner, true southern literature. Sparse and lush at the same time. This is a book that starts slow but picks up the pace as it goes on. I wanted to flip pages as fast as I could but also wanted to savor the experience and the writing.
I was left shaking my head at the horror of it all. This isn’t a book with nice tidy answers.
My thanks to netgalley and Little, Browns and Company for an advance copy of this book.
January 18, 2021
I waited a year to read this one. The publisher contacted me last
March and was sending me a copy. Then covid happened and I never got it.
Was it worth the wait? Farris smith doesn’t fail to deliver another southern gritty one. A man returns to the town where his dad committed suicide and people begin to disappear into the deep kudzu valley. It was a page turner but it really left me wanting more. More character development, less abstract mysticism.
3.5⭐️ and like all good things, my roll of 5⭐️ has come to a hard stop.
March and was sending me a copy. Then covid happened and I never got it.
Was it worth the wait? Farris smith doesn’t fail to deliver another southern gritty one. A man returns to the town where his dad committed suicide and people begin to disappear into the deep kudzu valley. It was a page turner but it really left me wanting more. More character development, less abstract mysticism.
3.5⭐️ and like all good things, my roll of 5⭐️ has come to a hard stop.
May 1, 2020
Michael Farris Smith is such a phenomenal author. I loved Desperation Road. I listened to Blackwood on audiobook which I prefer as the narrator’s typically give you a real good feel for Southern Lit. I preferred Desperation Road compared to Blackwood, but it was still well done.
4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5 stars
March 2, 2020
When song writers take pen to paper, they may create lilting lullabies that waft like smoke drifting in your direction. When Michael Farris Smith strums words to page, he sets off a superb Aria encircling your soul initially with its subtle timbre. As the storyline plays out, the mind of the reader is filled bountifully while veering towards the quake of a final crashing crescendo.
Smith reaches back into something fearful. Something fearful that bears no name. It reared its ugly head in the summer of 1956 in the Mississippi Hill Country nestled among the intrusive kudzu vines. Vines that slowly take over everything in its path......the good, the bad, and the evil disguised as the humdrum of every day. It's when young Colburn, hardly twelve years old, came to call his father from the garage for supper. He paused with his hand on the doorknob.....and then he went in. Life changed forever.
But birds come home to roost, once again, as Colburn returns to that town of Red Bluff in 1975. His past is his past or could it ever be? Colburn is now a sculptor who uses common items to create his works. There's no hubcap, wire, or slice of metal that he can't re-purpose into his art form. Red Bluff has advertised for free rent on abandoned storefronts in town to artists for their studios. The price is right. Or will "free" cost him more than what he bargained for?
Dust rises in heavy clouds from the backend of a battered old Cadillac. It sputters its last breath upon reaching the parking lot of Red Bluff's post office and dies. Three of its occupants, man, woman, and boy, look at each other in dismay. This was not planned as they sit amongst the remains of old food cans, filthy blankets, and remnants of torn clothes.
Enter Myer, the over-weight past-his-prime sheriff with a bad back. Myer tries to get information from this trio with no success. Passing through is not happening here. Man, woman, and boy with no names eventually push the Cadillac to a shady spot on the edge of town near those choking kudzu vines. They'll wait it out until their luck changes. The likelihood of that happening doesn't seem too likely about now. But keep an eye on these three, more is yet to come.
Back to Colburn, our artist, who has settled into that storefront. He eventually finds the local watering hole of a bar owned by a red-haired attractive woman by the name of Celia. She and Colburn will be swappin' secrets and will find themselves at the receiving end of just that. Colburn can't escape his past and neither can Celia. The dark stuff always rises to the surface.
Michael Farris Smith is a brilliant wordsmith. I've savored everything that he has written. My absolute favorite is Desperation Road in which he has artfully placed a finger on the pulse of downtrodden humanity. He does this again in Blackwood wrapping this one in a distinct darkness that resides on the periphery of real and unreal. A truly gifted writer, Smith's novels pull up a chair and remain with you forever.
I received a copy of Blackwood through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to the talented Michael Farris Smith and to Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity.
Smith reaches back into something fearful. Something fearful that bears no name. It reared its ugly head in the summer of 1956 in the Mississippi Hill Country nestled among the intrusive kudzu vines. Vines that slowly take over everything in its path......the good, the bad, and the evil disguised as the humdrum of every day. It's when young Colburn, hardly twelve years old, came to call his father from the garage for supper. He paused with his hand on the doorknob.....and then he went in. Life changed forever.
But birds come home to roost, once again, as Colburn returns to that town of Red Bluff in 1975. His past is his past or could it ever be? Colburn is now a sculptor who uses common items to create his works. There's no hubcap, wire, or slice of metal that he can't re-purpose into his art form. Red Bluff has advertised for free rent on abandoned storefronts in town to artists for their studios. The price is right. Or will "free" cost him more than what he bargained for?
Dust rises in heavy clouds from the backend of a battered old Cadillac. It sputters its last breath upon reaching the parking lot of Red Bluff's post office and dies. Three of its occupants, man, woman, and boy, look at each other in dismay. This was not planned as they sit amongst the remains of old food cans, filthy blankets, and remnants of torn clothes.
Enter Myer, the over-weight past-his-prime sheriff with a bad back. Myer tries to get information from this trio with no success. Passing through is not happening here. Man, woman, and boy with no names eventually push the Cadillac to a shady spot on the edge of town near those choking kudzu vines. They'll wait it out until their luck changes. The likelihood of that happening doesn't seem too likely about now. But keep an eye on these three, more is yet to come.
Back to Colburn, our artist, who has settled into that storefront. He eventually finds the local watering hole of a bar owned by a red-haired attractive woman by the name of Celia. She and Colburn will be swappin' secrets and will find themselves at the receiving end of just that. Colburn can't escape his past and neither can Celia. The dark stuff always rises to the surface.
Michael Farris Smith is a brilliant wordsmith. I've savored everything that he has written. My absolute favorite is Desperation Road in which he has artfully placed a finger on the pulse of downtrodden humanity. He does this again in Blackwood wrapping this one in a distinct darkness that resides on the periphery of real and unreal. A truly gifted writer, Smith's novels pull up a chair and remain with you forever.
I received a copy of Blackwood through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to the talented Michael Farris Smith and to Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity.
May 26, 2020
I have read all of Smith's books since Rivers, and have loved them all, but this surpasses everything else. My Lord! I'm not sure how far into himself the author had to reach to pull out this story, but no one is better at showing us lost and damned characters just trying to survive their own demons on a daily basis.
"A damned child born into a damned world where there was nothing to do but accept the rejection waiting for him."
"Thinking of his own life as a boy. What if someone had said that to me. It's not your fault."
I fully intended to read this a bit slower, but the last 100 pages would not let me go. That's the way it is with his books; a slow build up getting to know the characters, then rooting for their redemption in the end. This is his best book yet, and I can never look at a kudzu covered area again without wondering what it's hiding.
"A damned child born into a damned world where there was nothing to do but accept the rejection waiting for him."
"Thinking of his own life as a boy. What if someone had said that to me. It's not your fault."
I fully intended to read this a bit slower, but the last 100 pages would not let me go. That's the way it is with his books; a slow build up getting to know the characters, then rooting for their redemption in the end. This is his best book yet, and I can never look at a kudzu covered area again without wondering what it's hiding.
June 23, 2020
Michael Farris Smith put my heart in my throat in the first chapter of this book and it stayed there even after I had closed the last page. It is difficult to describe the atmosphere of threat and foreboding this book carries, the way you feel the lurking evil in your bones, the way the kudzu takes on a life of its own and sucks the air out of your lungs. It recalled for me a twilight when I entered an old deserted house on a dare, and the goosebumps I felt travel down my spine when the wind made a sound in the rafters that mimicked footsteps overhead. There is no wind at all here, and the footsteps are real. As with most things that are truly frightening to me, this fright arises from the absolute feeling that it could happen, that the characters are flesh and blood and that they are much scarier than anything you might conjure up from the supernatural world of imagination.
Underneath all that dark, oppressive frightfulness, however, is a story of loneliness, alienation and desperation; lost souls that you wish could be saved, that you fear for. Each of the characters is a person just a little outside the norm or living on the edge of society, either ignored or harassed because of their differences and strangers to everyone, even themselves. Even the sheriff, who is a good and diligent man, is at odds to understand what is really going on beneath the dirty surfaces and strained minds that surround him. The town of Red Bluff, Mississippi is itself a dying place, and seems to invite the kinds of derelict souls who wander in and cannot resolve to leave. The kudzu that engulfs the town physically echoes the evil that invades its spirit. Life itself is being strangled.
I fell in love with Michael Farris Smith when I read Rivers. He has a raw, unflinching eye. He is Southern Gothic at its best. This book is a dangerous joy ride; but don’t be too afraid, just make sure you buckle up before the journey begins.
Underneath all that dark, oppressive frightfulness, however, is a story of loneliness, alienation and desperation; lost souls that you wish could be saved, that you fear for. Each of the characters is a person just a little outside the norm or living on the edge of society, either ignored or harassed because of their differences and strangers to everyone, even themselves. Even the sheriff, who is a good and diligent man, is at odds to understand what is really going on beneath the dirty surfaces and strained minds that surround him. The town of Red Bluff, Mississippi is itself a dying place, and seems to invite the kinds of derelict souls who wander in and cannot resolve to leave. The kudzu that engulfs the town physically echoes the evil that invades its spirit. Life itself is being strangled.
I fell in love with Michael Farris Smith when I read Rivers. He has a raw, unflinching eye. He is Southern Gothic at its best. This book is a dangerous joy ride; but don’t be too afraid, just make sure you buckle up before the journey begins.
March 4, 2020
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
In theory Blackwood should have been a slam dunk for me. I mean the damn thing starts with a kid walking in on his dad attempting to hang himself. Now if that ain’t bleak, I don’t know what is and y’all know I love bleak. Add in some questionable drifters and a small Southern town with a creepy vibe and this sucker should have been everything I was looking for. So what went wrong???? At first I thought . . . . .
Because this is the third Michael Farris Smith book I have attempted that I just couldn’t seem to connect with on a deeper level. Please note 3 Stars is a dang fine rating for someone as judgey as myself, and I will absolutely continue reading him because there’s nothing at all wrong with his storytelling. Not to mention the fact that I blew through this sucker in a few hours since he’s also not an author who wastes time with a bunch of filler. I simply can’t help but compare Farris Smith to other grit lit authors who blow my socks off time after time in order to give him more stars. Bottom line? I think my experience can once again be chalked up to the quote one of my trolls made infamous. Now . . . . .
ARC provided by Little Brown in exchange for an honest review.
In theory Blackwood should have been a slam dunk for me. I mean the damn thing starts with a kid walking in on his dad attempting to hang himself. Now if that ain’t bleak, I don’t know what is and y’all know I love bleak. Add in some questionable drifters and a small Southern town with a creepy vibe and this sucker should have been everything I was looking for. So what went wrong???? At first I thought . . . . .
Because this is the third Michael Farris Smith book I have attempted that I just couldn’t seem to connect with on a deeper level. Please note 3 Stars is a dang fine rating for someone as judgey as myself, and I will absolutely continue reading him because there’s nothing at all wrong with his storytelling. Not to mention the fact that I blew through this sucker in a few hours since he’s also not an author who wastes time with a bunch of filler. I simply can’t help but compare Farris Smith to other grit lit authors who blow my socks off time after time in order to give him more stars. Bottom line? I think my experience can once again be chalked up to the quote one of my trolls made infamous. Now . . . . .
ARC provided by Little Brown in exchange for an honest review.
March 14, 2020
3.5 Stars.
Ok, I'm in a reading slump, I admit it. I just can't seem to get moving this year and feel like one big nasty grump who doesn't like anything. So after my last two week long 3 star read, a book almost everyone loved (but me) I decided to go to one of my favorite authors....Michael Farris Smith.
BLACKWOOD is his newest and my sixth MFS novel, with four solid 5 Star and one 4 Star previously, and I almost gave BLACKWOOD 4 Stars just for the super freaking fantastic skull book cover, but 3 Stars is it (for me).
I liked the small dying town setting with the creepy creeping kudzu vines, not knowing what lurks beneath, and the eerie beginning with what happened in the shed. I liked the characters, the writing (as is usual) and knowing evil was out there, but something was missing (for me) to bring it all together.
Glad so many of my Goodread's friends loved it. As for me, will still eagerly await more from this author.
June 3, 2020
It’s his best yet! I loved them all. If you can read the last chapter without a lump in your throat, you’re made of harder stuff than me. This whole book MFS stretches you to breaking points over and over. There’s no redemption given until the final chapter. So, when do the days get longer? Probably some correlation with the book release day. You won’t want to read this one in the cover of night. I thought William Gay was macabre, well Michael Farris Smith, took some notes and then kicked butt in the sinister realm. Just Wow!!! “And the multitude of hands held him between the light and the dark and then they let him go.” This will be a book that won’t let me go for a long time. I’m ready to go back to the first page and see what all I missed. This one is deep.
I got carried away and almost forgot, thank you Little, Brown and Company for an ARC. I’m grateful for the opportunity to read this one before release.
Note:Larry Brown’s short story The Crying mentions Black Woods. MFS is a huge Brown fan....verified, no tie. But still a good correlation.
Third reading june 2020: doing audio and physical book for The Trail. MFS Q&A for June reading.
“He said it to the boy and then he said it to himself. It’s not your fault. Thinking of his own life as a boy. What if someone had said that to me. It’s not your fault.” “It’s not your fault and I looked at you the same way the world looked at you and I should have known better.”
I got carried away and almost forgot, thank you Little, Brown and Company for an ARC. I’m grateful for the opportunity to read this one before release.
Note:Larry Brown’s short story The Crying mentions Black Woods. MFS is a huge Brown fan....verified, no tie. But still a good correlation.
Third reading june 2020: doing audio and physical book for The Trail. MFS Q&A for June reading.
“He said it to the boy and then he said it to himself. It’s not your fault. Thinking of his own life as a boy. What if someone had said that to me. It’s not your fault.” “It’s not your fault and I looked at you the same way the world looked at you and I should have known better.”
February 11, 2021
Michael Farris Smith can churn out a good story. I'm not a fan of Southern noir, but this is the third novel by him that reeled me in. The way he sets the scene and the way he describes the characters.... you feel like you're there and you feel like you know these people.
Some of them you like -- and some you hope you never see walking down the streets of your town.
"Blackwood" is dark. It's gritty. It's kinda a ghost story, but not really. It's about normal people who are flawed and broken. Whose past demons invade their present and color their surroundings. (Hey, Jan 👋🏼- intentional incomplete sentence here!)
Smith takes us into the small town of Red Bluff, Mississippi where the kudzu is overgrown and downtown storefronts are shuttered.
To bring more life to the area, the townspeople offer free rent to any artists who would like to set up shop in one of the deserted storefronts. This draws Colburn, along with the ghosts of his past.
Also new to town are an unnamed man, woman, and boy, each dragging along their personal demons.
The town's residents aren't without their own ghosts and demons and the reader can just feel the gloom. The atmosphere is truly creepy, deliciously so.
Tragedy strikes and fingers are pointed. Which of the strangers is to blame? Is there an underlying evil in this place?
I did not want to put this novel down. You can't help but be sucked in and held down by all that kudzu and by the ruined lives of these characters.
If you enjoy a good ol' dark Southern ghost-story-that's-maybe-not-really-a-ghost-story, you want to read this book!
Some of them you like -- and some you hope you never see walking down the streets of your town.
"Blackwood" is dark. It's gritty. It's kinda a ghost story, but not really. It's about normal people who are flawed and broken. Whose past demons invade their present and color their surroundings. (Hey, Jan 👋🏼- intentional incomplete sentence here!)
Smith takes us into the small town of Red Bluff, Mississippi where the kudzu is overgrown and downtown storefronts are shuttered.
To bring more life to the area, the townspeople offer free rent to any artists who would like to set up shop in one of the deserted storefronts. This draws Colburn, along with the ghosts of his past.
Also new to town are an unnamed man, woman, and boy, each dragging along their personal demons.
The town's residents aren't without their own ghosts and demons and the reader can just feel the gloom. The atmosphere is truly creepy, deliciously so.
Tragedy strikes and fingers are pointed. Which of the strangers is to blame? Is there an underlying evil in this place?
I did not want to put this novel down. You can't help but be sucked in and held down by all that kudzu and by the ruined lives of these characters.
If you enjoy a good ol' dark Southern ghost-story-that's-maybe-not-really-a-ghost-story, you want to read this book!
July 11, 2020
Smith presents a twisty Southern Gothic: a languid and meandering tale of drifters clashing with set-in-their ways townsfolk that ends in kudzu-covered tragedy. Though a decent enough page-turner, the characters never really became living, breathing people; they seemed to exist mainly to move the plot forward. Oh, but they all loved to talk about themselves though, and were quite fond of delivering long, introspective monologues, which is fine . . . the only problem is they all spoke in the same voice, a voice that sounded exactly like the author's narrative voice. I listened to this on audio, and I frequently had trouble remembering which character was pouring out his or her tale of woe.
I see that most people seemed to love this book, so you probably will, too. For me it was an interesting, yet dissatisfying experience.
I see that most people seemed to love this book, so you probably will, too. For me it was an interesting, yet dissatisfying experience.
June 2, 2020
Smith is known for his Southern Grit style of writing, but his latest novel is truly dark! It takes place in decrepit Red Bluffs, Mississippi where kudzu vines blanket the countryside. Many houses are either abandoned or in dire need of repair. Smith introduces a number of characters that are also scarred with rot. The worst is a drifter and his family. When they drive into town, evil takes hold—literally beckoning the man with its mournful cry for him to venture deep within the kudzu. Prepare yourself for a creepy, Southern Gothic tale.
April 5, 2021
Reading Blackwood cured my reading ennui -in a dark way. Farris Smith populates this novel with characters even more damaged than his usual. Colburn returns to scene of his traumatic childhood and finds a troubled, suffocating town. And the images of the invading kudzu forest are as creepy as anything I've read. Black woods, indeed.
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