Castlebar Book Club
The Book Club meets once a month (usually the second Tuesday of the month) in Castlebar Library at 8.00pm. Check events page for next meeting. (Previous Book Club selections)
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Amos, Mississippi, is a quiet town. Silas Jones is its sole law enforcement officer. The last excitement here was nearly twenty years ago, when a teenage girl disappeared on a date with Larry Ott, Silas's one-time boyhood friend. The law couldn't prove Larry guilty, but the whole town has shunned him ever since.
Then the town's peace is shattered when someone tries to kill the reclusive Ott, another young woman goes missing, and the town's drug dealer is murdered. Woven through the tautly written murder story is the unspoken secret that hangs over the lives of two men - one black, one white.
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a masterful crime novel, sizzling with deep Southern menace, and distinguished by brilliant plotting and unforgettable characters.
Amazon
The incantatory title of Tom Franklin’s terrific new novel comes from the way children in the South are taught to spell Mississippi: "M-I crooked letter crooked letter I crooked letter crooked letter I humpback humpback I." But letters aren't the only thing twisted in the rural town of Chabot, Miss., where this story of long-delayed repercussions and revelations takes place.
The opening chapter introduces us to Larry Ott, a gentle weirdo -- "Scary Larry" to the locals -- who lives his simple, strictly ritualized life in withering isolation. The fact that his house is full of books -- mostly horror novels -- does little to discourage the rumors about him. Every morning, he puts on a clean uniform and goes to his auto repair shop, hoping someone will stop in. But no one ever has, which renders "his shop more a tradition than a business." Not that such economic stagnation is uncommon in this town marked by touches of Gothic decay. The local clothing store, for instance, "had gone so long without customers it'd briefly become a vintage clothing store without changing stock."
Meanwhile, the citizens of Chabot are terrified by what might have happened to the daughter of their richest resident. Missing now for eight days, she seems a cruel echo of another young woman who vanished 25 years ago during the only date Larry Ott ever had. He knows he's a "person of interest" in regard to this new crime -- vandals and policemen have made that clear -- but, still, he doesn't expect to be shot in the chest when he arrives home.
Franklin is a master of subtle withholding, revealing lines of culpability and sympathy in this small town one crooked letter at a time. Franklin first attracted attention as a short story writer, and you can see that skill in this well-crafted tale, which despite all the historical and psychological ground it covers, finishes up in a tight 272 pages. The terror of a quiet oddball is a thread-worn plot, of course, but this is a novel that spells out something else entirely.
The Washington Post
There is no greater joy than when an author whom you've long admired produces his or her best work to date. Already in this column's pages — real or virtual — I've sung the praises of Don Winslow for "Savages," his literary approximation of a narcotic jolt, and of Emily St. John Mandel for training an astute eye on contemporary anxiety among emerging adults with "The Singer's Gun." Now I'm back in that state of wondrous reading pleasure thanks to a new, years-in-the-making novel by Tom Franklin.
The L.A. Times
Franklin has a superb ear for dialogue and a perfect sense of place ... An absolutely brilliant novel.
Reader's Digest
This masterful crime novel is distinguished by its brilliant plotting and unforgettable characters
Northants News
Southern gothic is alive and well. Nothing's happened in Amos, Mississippi, since a teenage girl disappeared after a date with Larry Ott, some 20 years ago. He was never proved guilty. Decades later, it all turns ugly.
The Mirror
The perfect combination of beautiful prose and plot intrigue.
Esquire
The characters jump off the page and into your thoughts.
Prima magazine
Think Cormac McCarthy with some light let in, or Annie Poulx.
Transmitter magazine
Both Larry and Silas are superbly drawn and fully fleshed characters, their personalities and conflict chthonic to rural Mississippi but luminously relevant, in Franklin's hands, to any locale on the planet ... Factor in a mesmerising evocation of rural Mississippi, language of sinuous and shimmering elegance, and a finely tuned ear for the nuances of dialogue, and you have a novel that is an early contender for one of the great novels of the year.
Irish Times
Larry and Silas, white and black, boyhood friends in rural Mississippi 30 years ago, are separated by an apparent crime that changes their lives. This beautifully crafted thriller has a powerful sense of time and place, and explores the nature of friendship and bigotry. One of the year's finest novels.
Financial Times
Reader Resources:
Dedicated to book clubs, ReadersPlace.co.uk (Random House) is a website where reading groups can find inspiration, have their say on books, and connect with other book clubs and authors.
Reader's Review site with active discussion board
- CompletelyNovel.com links readers as well as new writers, offering a one-stop author-reader experience.
- Book Group Links: A selection of sites compiled by the Salt Lake City Library.
- Great Books Foundation: The grandfather of them all
- Reading Group Choices Online: Over 550 guides from publishers. 150 can be printed from the site
- Reading Group Guides: A very useful selection of reading group guides from Random House Publishers
- Writer's Resource site for writers of all abilities
- Reader's Area of this site