Pulp Poem of the Week

The smallness of

the truth

can rub

the mind wrong.

Daniel Woodrell

Tomato Red

1998

Pulp Poem of the Week

Way past nightfall I flicked the TV on

and sat in the squeaky rocker.

Some show played,

kids who drive Porsches to high school

and eat in sit-down restaurants on their own,

but there's this emptiness inside them, apparently,

bigger than the beach.

They were folks you'd like to meet sometime

and leave in a car trunk at the airport.

Daniel Woodrell

Tomato Red

1998

Pulp Poem of the Week

All I could see

was that she was barely there,

like something you almost recall:

the Pledge of Allegiance,

your daddy's real name.

Daniel Woodrell

Tomato Red

1998

Book Review: Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red (1998)

The plots of Daniel Woodrell's "country noirs" have a purposeful aimlessness to them. Woodrell strives not for the tightly plotted crime thriller of some imaginary Noir World but for the meandering reality of the an actual place--the Ozarks--where shit sometimes happens along the way. Thus, the uncomfortable pleasure of a Woodrell novel is simply immersing yourself in his characters and their place and their language. If drama happens, so much the better. In Tomato Red, we see through the eyes of Sammy Barlach, a surprisingly articulate many-time loser with remarkable powers of introspection and self-knowledge. Sammy's voice, in its inexplicable power, reminded me of Huck Finn, though Huck's voice is more consistent and ultimately more believable than Sammy's. Beyond this, Sammy is no Huck. Sammy is older and far more damaged than Huck, and whereas Huck flees civilization, Sammy seeks it--he wants a family, a community that will have him. In the world of noir, though, lighting out for the territory may be a better option. Grade: B-

Book Review: Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone (2006)

The latest country noir from Daniel Woodrell. Less the story of Ree Dolly than a portrait of her inbred Ozark community. This community is horribly memorable, but the novel's plot is ultimately too thin to sustain narrative tension. Grade: C