In this timeless, mythical tale of unforgiving justice and elusive grace, rural Mississippi townsfolk shoulder the pain of generations as something dangerous lurks in the enigmatic kudzu of the woods. The town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, though those who’ve held on have little memory of when that was. Myer, the county’s aged, sardonic lawman, still thinks it can prove itself … sardonic lawman, still thinks it can prove itself — when confronted by a strange family of drifters, the sheriff believes that the people of Red Bluff can be accepting, rational, even good.
e with Celia, the local bar owner. The Deep South gives these noble, broken, and driven folks the gift of human connection while bestowing upon them the crippling weight of generations. With broken histories and vagabond hearts, the townsfolk wrestle with the evil in the woods — and the wickedness that lurks in each and every one of us.e with Celia, the local bar owner. The Deep South gives these noble, broken, and driven folks the gift of human connection while bestowing upon them the crippling weight of generations. With broken histories and vagabond hearts, the townsfolk wrestle with the evil in the woods — and the wickedness that lurks in each and every one of us.e with Celia, the local bar owner. The Deep South gives these noble, broken, and driven folks the gift of human connection while bestowing upon them the crippling weight of generations. With broken histories and vagabond hearts, the townsfolk wrestle with the evil in the woods — and the wickedness that lurks in each and every one of us.more
This is a literary Crime novel. I loved it…I think. The book/story continues to swirl around and around in my imagination. This is my third book by this author, the most recent that he’s published, and I have found he just gets better and better. It’s interesting to me that the setting is a living breathing character and a coconspirator in the crimes; an amazing accomplishment. There are several things I have never seen before, at least not in one novel. At one point the story shifts to the point of view of a house and by the time I got to this section of the book it seemed natural and it worked. This book is “told,” and doesn’t really ever touch ground, not entirely. It’s a half-step back from a close point of view which kept me from dropping deeply into the “Fictive Dream,” something I need most from a book. This story held me in its grasp in another way, though. It’s told in multiple points of view and shifts from one to another to service the story rather than the characters. There are three plotlines that intertwine to create the rope or backbone of the story. The end stunned me. Maybe because I had expected and or hoped for a different outcome. For the briefest of moments, I thought the story had crossed genres and ventured to the edge of horror and then realized it was the natural and obvious outcome. I read and write novels and can usually predict, based on MAR, motivation action, reaction, what is going to happen. This story snuck up on me almost like a slap to the face. Readers read for emotion and this one has a large dose of it at the end. Needless to say, I will be anxiously waiting this author’s next book. I highly recommend this book for those who like literary crime novels.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
I only came across Michael Farris Smith about a week ago, but I’ve already finished two of his books. Desperation Road was an excellent find, but I think that Blackwood might have even surpassed it. Beautifully written, atmospheric, eerie, dark, but not completely without hope. I expect that this is a novel that’s going to stay with me for a long time.
Author Michael Farris Smith is one of those rare writers who uses language as setting. He opens his fifth novel, Blackwood, in the year 1975 with “The “foulrunning Cadillac arrived chugging into the town limits of Red Bluff, the car having struggled out of the Delta flatlands and into the Mississippi hill country, the ups and downs of the landscape pushing the roughriding vehicle beyond what was left of its capabilities.” Off the bat, the reader knows the stage is set for bad luck and hard times for the drifters come to town. Farris Smith doesn’t snow us with a glimmer of hope, he hands us the premise as a matter of fact. Then the story deepens. Blackwood is a story of loners and outsiders thrown together seemingly by chance. They’d like to connect but lack the fundamental knowledge of how, as each manages their individual vortex trying not to drown in their common sphere.
Red Bluff, Mississippi is lackluster to the point where the town gives away abandoned, downtown storefronts to anyone willing to maintain one. Colburn, haunted by his past, calls himself an industrial sculptor. He returns to the seat of his loveless childhood in his flatbed, looking for scrap metal and such to fashion into art in one of Main Street’s cast-offs. He is looking for something. He wants to confront the demons of his past, and in his search, reunites with a will-o-the-wisp bar owner named Celia, in an attraction so conflicted, it exhumes his childhood pain.
Myer wears his pantlegs tucked in his boots and walks with a limp. He is Red Bluff’s weary law enforcement who gives too little too late to the town’s drifters, who take to the kudzu tangled woods on the edge of town where something sinister lurks.
Rich in tenor, setting, metaphor, and dark imagery, Blackwood is an intricately woven, gritty story of disconnected lives unwittingly affecting each other in repercussive ways, written is language so bleakly mood-setting, reading its pages becomes a state of mind.
Many a luminous author has called Oxford, Mississippi’s Michael Farris Smith one of the best writers of his generation. And he is. And Blackwood proves it.