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Loading... The Death of Sweet Misterby Daniel Woodrell
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. 11   Whisper1 | Jan 1, 2010 |  Stylishly well-written, as I expected, but quite depressing. wandering_star | Dec 20, 2009 | Daniel Woodrell is a very good writer. He just happens to write about distasteful topics. In this book he writes about Red who was about as mean as they come. Red liked two things: Shug's mother Glenda and olden rhyming rock'n roll. He was a "bubble off plumb," and the only time he was even halfway decent to 13-year-old Shug was when he was coaching him in the trade of preying on dying people to steal their drugs. It doesn't get more distateful than this...or does it? This is my second book by Mr. Woodrell. His stories are dark and compelling about people you don't want to know but can't get them out of your head long after the final page is read. (  )2 Donna828 | Dec 17, 2009 | Boktips.net | Nov 20, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0452283302, Paperback)Penzler Pick, June 2001: This is Daniel Woodrell's third book set in the Ozarks and, like the other two, Give Us a Kiss and Tomato Red, it peels back the layers from lives already made bare by poverty and petty crime, exposing the reader to the raw everyday hopes and fears of the poor and the helpless.Told through the voice of an overweight 13-year-old boy named Shuggy Atkins, this is the story of Shug; the one person who loves him, his mother Glenda; and her boyfriend Red, a brutal and ignorant man. Red hates Shug but uses him to break into houses to steal drugs and anything else that can be sold. Glenda makes a meager living looking after the local cemetery and spends her time trying to keep Red amused and away from Shug, whom he loves to humiliate but whom she adores. Glenda is Shug's only champion. She calls him Sweet Mister as she continually boosts his confidence and promises a better life for him, if not for herself. But when Glenda sees a beautiful, green Thunderbird with leather seats and its driver, Jimmy Vin Pearce, a chain of events is set into motion that will end in violence and bloodshed. Glenda must keep hidden from Red her infatuation with Jimmy Vin's money and fine clothes while she and Shug dream separate dreams of making a new life away from the violence. Woodrell writes books that are small in volume but large in scope. It is impossible to put down this story of less than 200 pages until the final tragedy unfolds. --Otto Penzler (retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:07:29 -0500) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
This dark, disturbing tale of abuse, incest, Ozark mountain poverty, dysfunction, alcoholism and drug addiction packs a wallop that takes the breath away!
Told from the voice of overweight, mamma's boy 13-year-old Shugg, the writing is terse, tense and powerful. Little Sweet Mister, so called by Glenda his sultry, seductive mommie, never stands a chance to escape the never ending state of craziness as it envelopes him like the fog on the overgrown path, treacherous and filled with snaky people.
The cast of misfits are vividly portrayed in all their evil nature. Red, Shugg's "father", is about as low-life as possible. While switching between smacking him until he bleeds and indoctrinating him into stealing drugs from dying people, Red certainly does not present a positive role model.
When Glenda discovers a possible way out via a large, well-dressed man who drives a Thunderbird, the story quickly spirals into a fast nightmare.
I read this as a discussion spring board for the Missouri Readers group. (