Rating: 
Summary: Book and Story ...
Review: Ah, the title of this review says a lot.The South. Speed. Double-crosses. Trouble. Big time. Read Woodrell and do yourself a big favor. That is all.
Rating: 
Summary: A Way With Words!!!
Review: Daniel Woodrell has been called a "writer's writer," and Tomato Red is a good reason why. He doesn't cheat the reader with lazy or sensationalized tripe. He develops interesting characters, places them in vivid, engaging and humorous circumstances and writes lines you will repeat to your friends or to yourself to make you laugh. Like his prior novel "Give Us A Kiss," this book features well developed characters whose quirkiness and white trash bloodlines mix to make them full of life and not a little sexual tension. The subhead of "Kiss" was "A Country Noir." That hits the nail on the head. There's even a message to "Tomato Red" thrown in almost as a bonus because the book is so entertaining you hardly need it. But the message is as timely as it is poignant. Now I'm not going to tell you what the message is. Believe me, it's worth the time to read it yourself. If I had to recommend one thing to take on a flight from New York to LA "Tomato Red" would be it. You could easily down it during the flight and have some time left to turn on others to it. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: This dawg'll hunt...but maybe you don't like hunting dawgs
Review: If you read all the reviews listed, you'll see a pattern develop. Great reviews raving about the author's way with words, his ear for dialect, his ability to paint a stunning, if bleak, portrait of the 'great unwashed' that inhabit these hills that I call home. I grew up within 50 miles of Woodrell's current home, and I'm here to tell you, this is the real thing. That boy's hitting the nail on the head. But if you read further you'll find other reviews. In them, someone will say 'I wasted my money on a book about white trash. I forced myself to finish it'. I'm sorry to see reviews like that about any of Woodrell's books. I could be wrong, but I don't think he's writing books for folks who have to force themselves to finish 'em. He's writing for those of us who relish tales about no-account hillbilly 2-time losers making bad decisions and living to regret it. Consider this a warning, if you're not happy reading about small town yokels who're tired of their boring lives, disgusted with poverty yet unable to escape it, losers plotting revenge on the local gentry for stomping on their dreams, just building up steam and ready to smash the next bossman who looks at them the wrong way...stay away. Do us all a favor and just stick with something you'll enjoy. This stuff's not for you. Spend your money on something sweeter, or with more car chases or whatever you enjoy. Those among you who think you'd like to read well crafted novel's that happen to be about some of life's castaway citizens, books where every word has been considered and all the flab slashed away, c'mon in, the water's fine. Be careful, you want to watch out where you put your feet. Some yokel's been breaking bottles around here. If I catch him at it, I'm gonna skin him alive and roll him in salt. Open up that cooler and hand me one of them there liquid bread bottles, hear?
Rating:
Summary: WOODRELL IS A MASTER OF CADENCE
Review: In this novel, the second I have read by this author, Daniel Woodrell shows once again how adept he is at capturing not only the rhythms of his characters' speech, but of their very lives. Involved, as they are, in petty crime, prostitution, drug use and gut-wrenching poverty, they are nonetheless shown to be human beings -- capable of love and devotion, even feats of heroism. The main character, Sammy Barlach, is someone you'd probably cross the street to avoid if you saw him coming. The trouble for a few of the folks in this dark novel -- both poignant and comic, by turns -- is that they DON'T see Sammy coming, or at least they don't recognize the brooding power that lies within him, built up over years and years of clinging by his fingernails to the bottom rung of the social ladder. Sammy finds himself involved with -- and subsequently taken in by -- two siblings and their mother. Jamalee and her brother Jason are poor but engaging -- they have dreams of getting out of the Venus Holler section of West Table, MO. They have a plan, and now it involves Sammy. Their mother, Bev, described aptly on the inside jacket, 'can turn a trick as easily as she can roll a joint'. Jamalee and Jason abhor (no homonymic pun intended) her prostituional lifestyle -- but at the same time that they resent her for this, they love her, and ache for what she has become. Jason is a handsome young man -- the female customers at the hair salon where he is apprenticed swoon over him. His sister tells Sammy that 'grown women in the grocery store throw their panties at him with their numbers written on them in lipstick'. Jason's major difficulty in fitting in with his small community is that he happens to be gay -- a lifestyle not embraced by small-town Southerners, to say the least. At seventeen, it is a fact of his life with which he is still wrestling -- and it is painful to watch, as it must be for those who go through it in life. How can he be true to himself and somehow manage to suffer the slings and arrows hurled at him by an intolerant society? The novel's action builds well to an almost unbearable pitch -- the other Woodrell novel I've read, THE DEATH OF SWEET MISTER, is equally gripping. Sammy narrates the story very effectively -- his phrasing and turns of speech are jewel-like -- and for an uneducated petty criminal with few social graces, he's a pretty amazing philosopher. The book's finale is as heartbreaking as it is inevitable -- but this is definitely a journey I can recommend. Woodrell is a master -- I'm going to read everything by him I can find.
Rating:
Summary: WOODRELL IS A MASTER OF CADENCE
Review: In this novel, the second I have read by this author, Daniel Woodrell shows once again how adept he is at capturing not only the rhythms of his characters' speech, but of their very lives. Involved, as they are, in petty crime, prostitution, drug use and gut-wrenching poverty, they are nonetheless shown to be human beings -- capable of love and devotion, even feats of heroism. The main character, Sammy Barlach, is someone you'd probably cross the street to avoid if you saw him coming. The trouble for a few of the folks in this dark novel -- both poignant and comic, by turns -- is that they DON'T see Sammy coming, or at least they don't recognize the brooding power that lies within him, built up over years and years of clinging by his fingernails to the bottom rung of the social ladder. Sammy finds himself involved with -- and subsequently taken in by -- two siblings and their mother. Jamalee and her brother Jason are poor but engaging -- they have dreams of getting out of the Venus Holler section of West Table, MO. They have a plan, and now it involves Sammy. Their mother, Bev, described aptly on the inside jacket, 'can turn a trick as easily as she can roll a joint'. Jamalee and Jason abhor (no homonymic pun intended) her prostituional lifestyle -- but at the same time that they resent her for this, they love her, and ache for what she has become. Jason is a handsome young man -- the female customers at the hair salon where he is apprenticed swoon over him. His sister tells Sammy that 'grown women in the grocery store throw their panties at him with their numbers written on them in lipstick'. Jason's major difficulty in fitting in with his small community is that he happens to be gay -- a lifestyle not embraced by small-town Southerners, to say the least. At seventeen, it is a fact of his life with which he is still wrestling -- and it is painful to watch, as it must be for those who go through it in life. How can he be true to himself and somehow manage to suffer the slings and arrows hurled at him by an intolerant society? The novel's action builds well to an almost unbearable pitch -- the other Woodrell novel I've read, THE DEATH OF SWEET MISTER, is equally gripping. Sammy narrates the story very effectively -- his phrasing and turns of speech are jewel-like -- and for an uneducated petty criminal with few social graces, he's a pretty amazing philosopher. The book's finale is as heartbreaking as it is inevitable -- but this is definitely a journey I can recommend. Woodrell is a master -- I'm going to read everything by him I can find.
Rating:
Summary: Great but has plausibility problems
Review: It's a crime story set in the same country (the Ozarks) and amongst the same people (very poor whites) as "Give Us a Kiss." It is a great story and the first 47 pages are stupendous.
Two problems for me. In first place it's written in the voice of a violent drifter "grown down in Arkansas" with apostrophes instead of g's at the ends of words. This dialect stuff works for me when describing a raft trip down the Missisipi and I think Portis succeeded with a similar narrative voice in "True Grit" but Twain and Portis stuck to describing action and Woodrell makes his narrator describe sunsets and reflect on the nature of society.
I had a second problem in the middle of the book with the murder mystery element which hinges on the fact that the venial town cop refuses to investigate the killing and the victim's family have to investigate themselves and burglarize the office of the corrupt incompetent coroner. Some of this might have been plausible in the fifties but many elements in the story set it in the eighties or nineties (Bev, the mother of 19 year old Jamalee is child of the 60's).
"The Ones You Do" remains my favorite Woodrell. I thought "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept" was set during, not after, the Second World War.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional!
Review: Sammy Barlach, wild and lyrical, crazy and philosophical, is automatically stopped by cops, followed around in a retail store by suspicious managers and someone you would probably cross the street to avoid. He is our narrator in this sharply satirical trailer park trash slice of life. Sammy meets Jamalee and Jason Merridew while very unsuccessfully robbing a mansion. So far, the only thing he's managed to pilfer is a half-gallon of vodka, which he decides to drink then and there. Jamalee is a half-pint girl with hair the color "only a vegetable should have" and brother Jason is "the most beautiful boy in the Ozarks." Jamalee wants to get out of West Table, MO, and just maybe Sammy can help her. Sammy wants love or "any bunch that will have me." In Venus Holler they meet mother Sandra, a laid back, easy going, southern-to-her-fingertips whore. Their antics are so funny, their energies and coping mechanisms so off the wall wild, I just gave in to helpless laughter. And yet, there is a sense of something preordained, sad and tragic about their existence. In ways both large and small, they are stripped of their dignity over and over again by the way they are perceived by society. "Society" ain't much in West Table, but it knows for a fact it's a world away from the likes of Sammy, Jamalee and Jason. As the author shapes the rhythmic cadence of Sammy's story, the future is glimpsed and it's bad. It's been a long time since I have grown so fond of a character in a book. He has all the fascination of a train wreck waiting to happen. And then you shed a tear and knew it had to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The novel offers some interesting possibilities, but they go unexplored through Sammy's very limited point of view. He isn't curious about things unless there is a payoff of sex or booze, thus the reader gains little from his lack of insight. The novel would have been far more interesting if it had been narrated by both Jamalee and her mother, whose points of view conflict and overlap in some interesting ways. While the novel may "tell it like it is" in an impoverished town in the Ozarks, I'm left wondering the significance of the stark naturalism. For example, Jason is found dead, and nobody but his loved ones care about investigating his death. I appreciate that the situation reflects real life, but what does the author want us to do with his observations? However, I did enjoy some of the writing, in terms of style; I can certainly understand why Woodrell has so many fans. I plan to read some of his other books to see if I'm missing something.
Rating:
Summary: Colorful, crude, philosophical
Review: Those who think they would have no interest in the poor white trash genre would be well advised to reconsider and put this on their reading lists. Despite being gritty Woodrell writes a convincing and sympathetic description of the other side of the tracks: the lumpen proletariat and aimless, and the roles to which they are relegated in society, and specifically small towns. The characters of "Tomato Red" are a small town whore, her eccentric grown children who seek to escape both her and the destiny to which they are condemned as her children in their small town, and the young redneck alcoholic misfit who clings to them. It is crude, graphic, and vulgar, but not excessively so, and these characteristics are essential to effectively painting this story. Woodrell makes essential and profound observations on alienation and the rigid barriers which maintain social stratification, and the savage consequences of challenging authority. After reading this novel I was prompted to read other Woodrell works. While they are good, this is by far his best so far, and reflects a vast growth in his sophistication as an author. This is one of those rare books that you keep thinking about after you've read it, and look forward to reading it again. Though I'm always hungry to read something different I found this so well written that I made a point of rereading it when I needed to immerse myself in something I knew would be good.
Rating:
Summary: Beauty is only trailer-park deep
Review: When Sammy Barlach breaks into a mansion in a meth-induced fog, having gone more nights than he can count without sleep...and is drawn only to the refrigerator for food...he falls into a deep, dream-riddled sleep. Upon being awakened in strange surroundings, he is confronted by the oddest pair of wealthy kids he could ever imagine. Jamalee and her stunning beauty of a brother Jason have him duct-taped to the very chair in which he fell asleep, and are interrogating him to determine if he is "dangerous enough" for their plans. This is the incredible premise which opens "Tomato Red", and immediately the reader is sucked into the vortex of these lives. When Sammy discovers that the pair aren't in fact residents of the house he's broken into, but two kids from his side of the tracks, literally, who have also broken in to "practice bein' rich", since Jamalee is positive that was the life they were destined for, it all riding on her brother's looks. But every one of their thoughts are severely flawed...and the story takes a hellish ride through the subsequent landscape in which they are imprisoned. Daniel Woodrell writes with an uncanny ear for dialect and a poetic way of depicting such regional wastelands. "Tomato Red" is one of those books which never rested far from hand. With razor sharp wit and unerring ability to write without pulling any punches, Woodrell gives us a classic downgrading of "Catcher In The Rye", done with panache and humor.
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