Ironweed (1983)

Iron Weed starts out good - interesting characters, amazing writing. The about 3/5 of the way through, it takes a nose dive. It goes sideways too far into a background that wasn't needed. Fortunately, it gets back to the current time before it ends, helping redeem it to a four star for me. Kennedy creates riveting characters with (almost) enough rationale for their actions - with Annie the possible exception. I haven't read the first two books in the series and I might not go out of my way to track them down, but if I stumble across them at a book sale or something like that, I'd gladly give them a read. ( )

Fiction

As I began reading this I was at some level aware of the story. I had never watched the movie, but I was aware when the movie came out and I must have seen a trailer or read something about the story at that time. And I had read some GR reviews that described enough of the tone of the novel to confirm my other impressions. I wasn't expecting to love this story. I was thinking it would be dark and depressing. Well, that preliminary impression was not far off, but it didn't matter. I thought the writing was wonderful, and the characters were crisp and vivid. Yes, there was a lot of violence, and there was frustration for me because the characters didn't have to be in the position they found themselves. But that was an integral part of the story. It wasn't all bad luck. There were choices made, and recognition by the characters of those choices. They knew themselves such that their lives were inevitable. That inevitability made the thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing nature of the story that much more impressive. ( )

Dark, dreary..too wordy. ( )

Steinbeck meets Selby ( )