Tomato Red is the sixth of Daniel Woodrell’s ten novels. Published in 1998, it is set in the Ozarks, the mountainous area of Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, where he grew up. 235 pages, it is a swift read, despite the occasional difficulty of the language, a first person account of the main character, a drifter. He falls in with a pair of teenagers, a girl, 19, and her brother, 17, whose mother is a prostitute who runs her business out of her little home. The overall tone is of despair and anger. These people have been dealt a bad hand by life and suffer a defeatist attitude. Although I had a hard time relating to that, I do remember how overwhelmed I was by the enormity of life as a young man, so I did experience a bit of empathy. Fortunately, I did not allow futility to cripple me as it does them. The prose and dialogue are genuine and clever, the characters well-drawn. I worried about the fate of the young players, as it was clear violence was in the future. The words “redneck” and “white trash” are frequently employed by them and others. This dire quote from Theodor Reik precedes the narrative: "Anybody possessing analytical knowledge recognizes the fact that the world is full of actions performed by people exclusively to their detriment and without perceptible advantage, although their eyes were wide open." If I'm interpreting it correctly, it was called "self-defeating behavior" in one of my college courses. The novel is bleak and sad. I suspect Faulker was a major influence on the author. The title refers to the color of the girl’s hair. It is hard to warm up to such a story, where hope is virtually absent. On a scale of five, I rate it three, and that is due more to the fact that Woodrell has had ten works published by major publishers, so there may be a lot I’ve missed. 61 contributors at Amazon forge to a consensus of four of five. Woodrell also has had two of his books adapted to the screen: Woe to Live On, which became Ride with the Devil (1999), the only Ang Lee movie I've hated; and Winter’s Bone (2010), which I added to my list at Netflix because it stars Jennifer Lawrence, whose talent is so impressive.
There was an odd occurrence at the floating book shop today. An elderly gentleman approached with his walker and addressed me in Russian, as he had yesterday. Instead of shrugging, I held up four fingers, assuming he'd asked how many books I'd sold. When he left I wondered if he'd interpreted that I was staying until four o'clock. I felt like an ass. Fortunately, he returned about a half-hour later and offered to sell me books in his native language at a buck apiece. Feeling like an idiot, and a bit guilty, I bought three, certain I'd disappointed him. He returned a while later and gave me the rest of his haul, about 15 in all. I don't know if he was telling me to pay him later or what. One is a beautiful, illustrated Bible in English. I sold a couple of the others and gave one to a nice lady who drops off a book at a time and whom I hadn't paid back in a long time. I'll give the guy five bucks, which I may be able to get for the Bible alone, when I've sold a few more. Spasibo, sir, and thanks also to the elderly woman with the lovely Irish brogue, who donated six excellent works, including bios of Rita Moreno and Patti Lupone, which Herbie bought, as I anticipated he would.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
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