The Death of Sweet Mister: Amazon.co.uk: Daniel Woodrell: Books

Review

'With The Death of Sweet Mister, Danial Woodrell has written his masterpiece - spare, dark, and incandescently beautiful. It broke my heart." - Dennis Lehane; "A dark, disturbing beauty of a story...Woodrell throws down sentences that will leave you amazed." - Charles Frazier; "I can't remember coming across a more precise evocation of innocence lost since Golding's The Lord of the Flies. With The Death of Sweet Mister, Daniel Woodrell has written his masterpiece - spare, dark, and incandescently beautiful. It broke my heart." - Dennis Lehane; "Daniel Woodrell's The Death of Sweet Mister is nakedly honest, unsettling, pitch perfect, and uniquely American. Put it on the shelf alongside Faulkner, Jim Thompson, and Cormac McCarthy. With this one, Mr. Woodrell has earned himself a piece of immortality." - George P. Pelecanos; "Woodrell is one of the most intense and accomplished practitioners since Jim Thompson. He has achieved a near mastery of style as language, plot, characterization and theme mesh with a seamless power" - NY Times Book Review; "Woodrell's five books to date have had writers as diverse as James Ellroy, Barry Gifford, James Crumley, Carl Hiaasen and E Annie Proulx clearing their throats to sing his praises. Despite its often unspeakably bleak outlook, Tomato Red is a beautiful and often very funny book, full of raw poetry, the small mean lives of people living on the bloody rim of things described in prose that is brilliant and original, Woodrell being better than anyone at the vernacular of desperation, revenge and redemption, with dialogue as good as anything in Elmore Leonard and a skewed unpredictability reminiscent of Harry Crews. Read it and weep." - Uncut; "At a time when the two dominant strands of male American fiction to emerge in the last couple of decades - contemporary noir and dirty realism - have largely lapsed into self-parody, a writer from the Ozark mountains of Missouri has come along to resuscitate them both. From its farcical beginning to the awful, stupid tragedy of its denouement, this is a flat-out marvellous book. Rooted in the purest noir tradition of the Fifties, it is nevertheless great literary fiction. Like a murder ballad or a prison-yard blues, Tomato Red is written in the kind of vernacular poetry you want to read and learn by heart." - The Independent; "Tomato Red is one of the great American noir novels of the decade... a wonderfully funny and tragic tale of blighted white trash dreams, a country noir every bit as sharp and twisted as the best of Jim Thompson or Charles Williams...what Daniel Woodrell's come back with are some of the finest, toughest books in American fiction today." - Time Out

Product Description

Set in the Missouri hill country, Death of Sweet Mister presents one eventful summer in the life of Shug, a friendless, overweight 13-year-old living with his mother, Glenda in the caretaker's cottage at the local cemetery. Glenda flirts incessantly, even with her son, who is becoming increasingly aware of her charms. Glenda's husband, Red (who may or may not be Shug's father), comes and goes, bringing money occasionally and strife a lot more often. This summer Red is training Shug in the family business, using the juvenile without a record to perform the burglaries that are getting too risky for Red himself. Shug's efforts to protect his mother from Red, from other admirers, and from her own rash decisions come to a head one hot summer night

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

Heartbreaker 14 Mar 2007

By Forester

Format:Paperback

Another great Woodrell novel with more weight to it than "Give Us a Kiss". You follow the life of Shug an overweight kid living a hard teenage existence with his damaged mum and "crime spree" Dad. Woodrell creates empathy with ease and as Shug's mum lurches from one crisis to another, with Shug following into a world of danger and risk, you stay glued for the ending. Woodrell has written more exciting stories, and more dramatic ones, but this book has an Ozark "Roddy Doyle" about it that is greatly enjoyable.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Another great read 6 Feb 2011

By David Toresen

Format:Hardcover

Daniel Woodrell is a tremendous writer. I came to his books via "Winter's Bone" - I bought a dodgy DVD in the pub...didn't work...so: bought the book, while I waited for official DVD release.
"Winter's Bone" took me to "Tomato Red", then "Muscle For The Wing". Each book helped convince me of his talent.Not a wasted word; dialogue that is so real; tragedy around the corner.
"The Death of Sweet Mister" continues these threads. It is not unlike knowing a car crash is coming; but, still you have to look. No good, or redemption, can come from the tale - but still the pages are turned. The reader is in a vise-like grip.
No Exit Press have done a magnificent job, publishing his work. The large font; superb cover illustration; and heavy paper, all combine to make reading his books an almost visceral experience.
Read him - you won't be disappointed!

sweet 3 May 2012

By AndrewW

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

this guy woodrell gets better and better, really good story and possibly one of the most devastating and shocking of last chapters. didnt see that coming despite the close mother/son relationship throughout. now off to purchase more daniel woodrell. god bless and damn the ozarks.