Meeting Michael was a highlight of this year. So I went back and read his backlist. As a reader of majority female authors thjs was a fun read and a gate way j to reading more male written. Besutiful yet gritty

Another fantastic novel from Michael Farris Smith. Superb prose, excellent story, and well-drawn characters. Readers will quickly be swept up by his writing, and come to care for the characters. Excellent.

Two damaged and desperate people are heading to McComb Mississippi on the same night. Russell Gaines is heading home after spending eleven years in prison for a drunk driving accident that left a man dead. He is met at the bus stop by the brothers of the dead man who are intent on revenge. Maben Jones, homeless and a recovering addict, is also headed home with her young daughter. An encounter with a corrupt deputy will result in his death and force Maben to go on the run. Inevitably, the pair will cross paths but the outcome of their meeting is not simple - it could easily lead to either their salvation or destruction.

Desperation Road by author Michael Farris Smith takes us on many deserted backroads and winding highways. It is a dark and gritty examination of the human capacity for hate, cruelty and just plain stupidity as well as hope, the possibility of change, and, in the end, redemption. Smith is a true craftsman making the reader feel like they know this place, these people – despite the fact that both Russell and Maben are, in many ways, responsible for their circumstances, it is not as simple as personal failure - there is a sense of ‘there but for the grace of God’ to their stories making it impossible not to empathize with them. This is one beautifully written and plotted tale full of complex characters and wonderfully descriptive prose and it throws one heck of an emotional punch. It is the kind of read that demands your full attention, that keeps you up at night and still thinking about it long after you have finished reading. This is what literary crime fiction can and should look like and I recommend it highly.

Thanks to Netgalley and Little Brown & Company for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

Desperate no more!

2017 (aka The Year of the Reading Slump) has been wearing me down with lots of mediocre books and very few 5-star standouts. Reading "Desperation Road" back-to-back with S.M. Hulse's "Black River" has put me on a new course!

After serving more than decade in prison, Russell Gaines tries to start his life anew in his small Mississippi town. Unfortunately for him, a few people in town don't think Russell has paid for his crime, and are intent on their own brand of justice. When Russell meets a young woman and her daughter he confronts choices that put him at odds with his own self-interest and he has to decide just who he really is.

Farris Smith's "Desperation Road" is everything one wants in a solid grit-lit novel: mistakes, regrets, flawed characters, ambiguity, redemption, "good guys" who haven't always been on the right side of the law, and awful SOBs who don't deserve mercy.

4.5 stars rounded up

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown and Company for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Having been a reader for my entire life, I can pretty much tell early on, sometimes even within the first few chapters, when a book is going to be something special. For me, Desperation Road turned out to be one of those sometimes. It was Michael Farris Smith’s distinct style—his lack of frilly overtures and sometimes sparse dialogue, all delivered in a compelling way—that struck a chord with me. There was a beauty to the simplicity of his writing, this cast of broken people, his ability to draw out my curiosity and the very question underlying it all - should our lives be defined by the mistakes we make?

The author holds his secrets close, revealing the big picture one sliver at a time; something I personally found utterly engaging. It's not a pretty story per se, but sort of humbling in all of it's desperation. Have I mentioned yet how aptly titled this book is?

It was a horrible decision, made late one night, eleven years earlier, that set this cast of characters on a collision course or the same Mississippi road paved with desperation, if you will. Having spent all those years since, behind bars, paying for that bourbon-induced mistake, Russell is out and ready to live some type of life. Unfortunately for him, there are those that think he hasn’t quite paid enough.

“My road is the road that brought us all here led by what hand I don’t know.”

Then there’s the mysterious woman, Maben, with barely enough money for food, roaming the side the of highway and sleeping in the woods with her young daughter. What could have landed her on this road of discontent?

Each complex and troubled in some way, torn by what they’ve been through or what’s been done to them, these characters don’t make excuses for who they are, but instead own their flaws in some way. Despite everything, the most common thread was an underlying resilience and a much-needed reprieve from the darkness; the yearning to leave the past behind and move forward.

While I wouldn't consider this particular story to be as gritty or dark as some of the other Grit-Lit or Southern-noir books I’ve dabbled in, Desperation Road is still a worthy opponent. One that showed me the power of Michael Farris Smith's style and convinced me I need to check out his backlist.

I wanted to like this one. I desperately wanted to. It breaks my heart that I didn't liked it that much and the only reason i'm giving 3star is because 4.21 at the moment seems a tad high. This is more of a 3.5 to me.

It IS a great novel. It IS beautifuly written. Farris Smith's prose is delicate and powerful and subtle and strong. But it just didn't work for me. I dunno if it was my state of mind in the last ten days or because i just finished The Last Child by John Hart and rarely felt such a strong connection with the characters, but in Desperation Road, I just couldn't get to be one with Russell and Maben.

I also would have liked for the location to be a bigger part in this novel. Southern Grit-lit is all about bringing the location to life and making it one of the main characters to me.

It just wasn't the right time for this novel and me. Doesn't mean it isn't good. Go ahead and give it a try.

4.5 stars

This book was not on my TBR list as I didn’t think it would be one that would appeal to me. I was basically ordered by a trusted Goodreads buddy to get it immediately and read it soon. So OK, that’s what I did.

The first half of the novel consists of a lot of sultry southern summer scenes, much sadness, a ton of drinking and driving, and a whole lot of whilin’ away the time by the characters. I turned to my buddy for encouragement. She was very confident that I would be just fine if I hung in there, so OK, I trudged on. Just a few pages ahead, the threads of the plot came together and the story really took off.

Man, what a powerful little tale this is! Desperation Road is a superb title to describe the flavor of this book. Russell and Maben are nice people. They have good hearts. They just want to find a modicum of contentment and maybe even a little happiness. Circumstances, however, are not in their favor. They have not been dealt aces by the “here’s a nice life” cards. So they do what they can. Their lives are not pretty; in fact, they are heartbreaking.

Michael Farris Smith is an outstanding writer. Without frills he can really set a scene. Add some cicadas, and he would have totally transported me back to the summers of east Tennessee where I grew up. A lot of desperate people lived near my neck of the woods. Even better, Mr. Smith pulls his readers into his characters’ minds. I could feel their desperation, their overwhelming desire—no, more than that—their overwhelming NEED to set their lives right.

This is not a pretty story, but a real reminder to us who are more blessed that desperate people, good people, are out there suffering and struggling and doing their very best to survive. We must not forget these people. They are just like us, except for bad luck, very bad luck.

How can something like this have even a shred of a happy ending? Well, don’t forget about hope. There is always that. And it too can be a powerful thing.

Read this book.

Many thanks to Net Galley, Lee Boudreaux Books, and Michael Farris Smith for an electronic copy of this novel. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

This was a raw and gritty story told from third person POV. The opening chapter was gripping, but I lost some interest halfway through the book with all of the shifting POVs between the numerous characters. Overall, an okay read.

Best book I have read this year! An absolute must read!
Beautifully written, you can’t help but be drawn in by the vivid detail given to each character.
Russell is an ex-con, just released from a Mississippi penitentiary after 11 long years. Maben and her daughter Annalee are running from nowhere on their way to anywhere better than the past they left behind.
Multiple tragic events that initially appear to be independent of one another, all heading for the inevitable collision-course. No one is coming away from this unscathed!
The characters are real...their feelings are real. You feel the pain, the angst. Knowing this out-of-control freight train is going off the rails in the worst way, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Becoming so emotionally involved with each character you want to stop it. Put up a road block, shout a warning, distract a character. But nothing you can do is going to change what awaits around the next bend. This incredible novel held me tight right to the very last word. Epic suspense. Time for a deep breath.
All I can say is...wow!
Thank you to NeGalley, Little, Brown and Company Publishing and Michael Farris Smith for a copy of this book to review in exchange for an honest review.

To be posted on Goodreads 4/3/17

5 Huge Glorious Stars!!!

This book touched me in so many ways. It's raw, gritty, personal, and so completely REAL.

With a title like Desperation Road, I was already thinking small town location with plenty of dirt roads and endless skies. A place where the rules don't always apply to everyone. Where people tend to turn a blind eye because to get involved could get you hurt. A place where bad decisions change lives and grudges never fade. Welcome to Macomb, Mississippi.

11 years ago one bad decision sets off a chain of events that changes multiple lives forever.
After paying his dues, Russell Gaines is released from prison with only one place to go-back home where it all began. Getting off the bus he is greeted by the brothers whose lives he forever changed with a solid ass-whooping and the promise of much worse to come.

Across town a woman and young child are on the run. Tired, scared and desperate, their paths cross with Russell and the story starts to ramp up from there.

This book is beautifully written with memorable characters that I at once loved or hated. The author did an amazing job creating a mood and atmosphere that really made reading this an experience like none other. The way the characters talked, thought or felt was so on point it could have been happening to myself or someone I knew.

The only downside? It was just too short-I wanted this to go on and on and on....

Michael Farris Smith has quickly just placed himself on my top 5 authors to watch. This is not my typical genre, but I couldn't ignore all the 4 and 5 stars ratings popping up everywhere. I'm glad I stepped outside my box and gave this a go. I can't wait to get my hands on whatever he comes up with next, and I highly recommend this to anyone who likes good storytelling, no matter what genre.

ARC provided by NetGalley

WOW! Just WOW!

For once I read a book slow. I savored this book. So wonderfully and eloquently written. Powerful book about loss, bad choices, heartbreak, pain, suffering, serving time, starting over and second chances. Two people marked by violence who are trying to create a better life for themselves while the world keeps kicking them in the teeth. How much can one person take?

Russell Gaines served 11 years in Parchman penitentiary. On the day of his release, brothers Larry and Wyatt were waiting to "welcome" him home. Larry and Walt are the brothers of the man, Russell killed years earlier while drinking and driving. They have a score to settle and do not see Russell's time served as punishment enough. He wants to start over and live his life, but quickly learns that is easier said than done.

Maben and her daughter, Annalee, have been walking along the freeway carrying all of their possessions in a trash bag. Maben is hoping for a break - for something to make their lives better. Maben uses what money they have left to get a motel room for the night. A place to rest from the punishing heat. That night, worried about money and their dismal future, she makes a decison. She hopes to make some money but decides against it but it is too late. She falls into an even worse situation. A situation that is horrific, frightening, demeaning and results in a fatal shooting. Now Mabel and her daughter need to find a way to leave town safely and hopefully, just hopefully, start over.

It is only a matter of time before Russel and Mabel's paths collide. Thrown together by chance they learn that it is a small world after all and that they do have a connection. Russell figures out their connection first and soon all of the pieces fall together. Russell feels a need to protect Mabel and her daughter and asks his father to allow them to stay in his barn. Russell knows he is putting himself at risk, but he feels a strong need to protect them no matter what the cost is to him.

Can I gush? This book was AMAZING!! I want to give this book a standing ovation. It was so beautifully written. The pacing and the story progressed at the right speed. Nothing felt rushed. The love, the loss, the pain was seering. Smith's writing is haunting and eloquent. I have not read anything by Smith before, but I am going to go binge read his other books now. What I loved most about this book was the characters. They are flawed, they are beaten down, but they don't give up. His characters are real, their pain is real, their desire to start over feels real. This book is full of revenge, retribution, loss, suffering, pain, but also there is hope, second chances and decency.

This book is going to end up on my favorite books of the year list. I loved every single page of it! This is the type of book, I love to fall into. So well written, so engrossing, so captivating. Read slowly and savor every single beautifully placed word. This book will not disappoint.

I highly recommend this book!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

You won’t easily forget the opening of Mississippi-author Michael Farris Smith’s third and newest novel, and you’ll come by that honestly. It was, after all, as the author revealed in an interview with Mountain Times, this image that haunted Smith into writing “Desperation Road” (Lee Boudreaux Books).

But, there’s more. Much more. “Desperation Road” is a deeply textured novel that embraces the darkness that shades much of Smith’s fiction, but also incorporates merging destinies — and the despair inherent in those — with lyrical and sustaining prose well-suited to tell those stories.

And so, as the lives of the parolee Russell Gaines, homeless mother and daughter Maben and Annalee, Russell’s father and a dead deputy collide, what rises up is a path toward redemption that only Smith could have foreseen.

Drawing on the strength of the Mississippi landscape, “Desperation Road” brings to a juncture storytelling steeped with the literary likes of Ron Rash, David Joy and Tom Franklin.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Tom: Let’s start with an easy one … what were the seeds for the story you write in “Desperation Road?”

Michael: The thing I couldn’t get rid of was the image I had in my mind of a woman and child walking down the side of the interstate. The opening image where Maben has the little girl by the hand, and the garbage bag flung over her shoulder, that was it for me. Immediately, I knew where they were, near the Mississippi-Louisiana line down on I-55, just trying to make it to the truck stop for the night. I couldn’t get rid of it. I immediately felt empathy for them. I was immediately worried about them. I was immediately curious about what had happened to them and what might be coming, and I had no choice but to sit down and start following them.

Tom: It makes quite a statement that it is Russell — who should be, and in some ways is, hardened by 11 years in prison — who is the one to ultimately make the choice to help a woman and small child traveling with everything they own in a black trash bag. This is a story about many things … redemption, integrity, loyalty and destiny, but it begins with more basic emotions … love and respect, would you agree?

Michael: It’s interesting to me that you say that, because when people have asked me what it’s about — I know my work is dark and I know it’s bleak — but my answer really is that this novel is largely about love and courage. I don’t mean romantic love, and I know you don’t either, but, I mean just love for human kind and empathy and having love for one another. Reaching out a hand to someone who needs a hand held out to them. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, we all have that capability to give love to someone else at any given moment. I feel like that pervades the novel — this notion of here I am, I’m the one who can help, will I?

Tom: It is also a story of courage — the courage to keep going when everything is going against you. You present this from a few different perspectives: Russell, who made a youthful mistake and paid for it with that youth; Maben, whose poor choices and life circumstances put her on Desperation Road; Annalee who courageously follows her mother out of love and trust; and Mitchell, Russell’s father, who must make a new life after the death of his wife. Why explore this concept from so many different points of view?

Michael: One thing I’ve learned about novel writing over the past five or six years is that every character really matters. Every character has their own story. You have to figure out who each person is. We all have more than one problem. We all have several things that are on our mind at any given time. What I also learned about novel writing is that I want to make it difficult for my characters because I want to see how they’re going to react. It’s just like in life, you find out about someone when things go bad. You find out who someone really is in moments of hardship and moments of heartbreak, and that’s the philosophy I’ve adopted for my characters. I love them dearly, but I want to see what they are made out of. Not just one of them. All of them. Treating each character as a person and giving them their own wants and desires and fears helps layer the novel, helps make it more complex. Like you said, you’ve got strings pulling from all different directions. As a writer, I love that because it makes things difficult. I used to get to a point in story writing that things got so difficult that I didn’t really know how I was going to get them out of it. I would back away from it. But, I’ve learned that that’s really a moment you embrace as a writer. When you get them into a spot and you don’t really know what’s going to happen or can’t figure out how in the world you’ll get them out of it — that’s the moment I’m searching for.

Tom: In “Desperation Road,” which character did you find the most difficult to deal with, that you had put him in such a bad circumstance that you said, “How am I going to get him out of this one?”

Michael: Maben — she just seems to have so much to get through. Part of it’s her fault. A lot of it’s her fault. There’s so much stacked against her, but at the same time, she has a child, which raises the stakes for her tremendously. It would have been one thing to have Maben walking alone down the road, but when I put that little girl in her hand, it changed everything.

Tom: Is Maben a good mother?

Michael: She wants to be. Through it all, she may in some way by the end of it come to a closer realization of what that means.

Tom: Like much Southern fiction, setting is extremely important to this novel. I would contend that it almost becomes a character in itself — would you agree?

Michael: I would agree and I would say thank you for that. I hope it comes across that way. The writers and the novels that I love are Southern writers mostly, and the ex-patriot writers of the ‘20s, and place always plays a big role and becomes a character itself. (Williams) Faulkner’s Mississippi, Williams Gay’s Tennessee mountains. The rough South of Harry Crews and Larry Brown and Cormac McCarthy’s Mexico-Texas border. All those places play such a huge role, an active role, and I loved that from being a reader even before I was a writer. So, it’s just part of my nature and my makeup as a writer. And, honestly, if you’re living here in Mississippi and you’re writing about Mississippi and you’re not using Mississippi as a character itself, you’re probably missing out on a great deal.

Tom: Speaking of setting, the story is also about a sense of home. For some of the characters in this novel, home isn’t defined just by a physical location, is it?

Michael: No, it’s not, and that’s where some of myself comes through. I’ve been kind of a nomad all of my life. Mississippi is my home, but there’s not really one spot on the map that I can point to and say, this is it. We moved around a lot when I was a kid. My dad was a Baptist preacher, and that’s just kind of the nature of it when you’re a young family. I’m in Columbus now. I’ve lived closer to the coast. I’ve lived all over the state. While Mississippi is my home, I can’t really stick a tack anywhere and say, that’s home. I also lived abroad for awhile and I felt strangely comfortable immediately living in France and being in Western Europe. France and Paris, in a lot of ways, feel like home to me in some strange way. What I’ve realized over time, and I think this comes through in the novel, is that home for me is more of a collection of emotions than anything else. That place where there’s that group of people that you feel like you belong, no matter where that is geographically. What the characters in the novel seem to be doing is grasping for those emotions that make them feel connected to the world some way.

Tom: That’s an excellent definition, and probably the only one that would allow someone to compare Columbus, Miss., and Paris in the same breath.

Michael: I get that a lot.

Tom: Is the preacher in this story based at all on your dad?

Michael: Not really, it’s more of the language of religion that’s just part of who I am. When you grow up in the church and your dad preaches, your mom plays the piano and you sing in the choir, religion and religious symbols and stories from the Bible become part of your language and your DNA. Those things come to life in my novels because it’s kind of always on the tip of my tongue, just such a big part of my upbringing. In the same way that someone who is a chef, and they’re writing novels, when they get to the kitchen scene they’re going to know their way around it pretty well. The Virgin Mary appearing in “Desperation Road,” that symbolism, just kind of came out, very simply for me because it’s part of who I am.

Tom: Your work has received praise from the likes of Ron Rash, Wiley Cash and Tom Franklin and you’ve won numerous awards. You’ve also been favorably connected to Southern literary giants, such as writing in the vein of Faulkner. What does it mean to you to be in the company of such a literary tradition?

Michael: It’s very flattering, but it’s also humbling and it’s validating too. That’s what I wanted to be. The south has such a grand literary tradition. Mississippi itself has such a great literary tradition. When I started out, I wanted to make my place at the table there. Now, to have those comparisons being made, and having wedged my way in some ways, it’s very validating and humbling at the same time. … I want to be part of carrying the tradition on.

Tom: You’re on quite a book tour. My understanding is that you’ll be signing along with David Joy in Asheville. David had quite a few good things to say about “Desperation Road” when I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago, would you like to return the favor about his new novel, “The Weight of This World?”

Michael: Absolutely. David is a writer North Carolina should be proud of. He writes with heart and soul, and he has the goods to be around for a long time.

Tom: Your next novel, “The Fighter,” is due out April 2018. Any teasers you can give me?

Michael: “The Fighter” is set in the delta, because the Mississippi Delta is such an interesting place itself, and I had this idea of a 40-something busted up old cage fighter who is really at the end of his rope, in about five or six different ways, and he’s got a lot of catching up to do in a very short time.

Tom: Another novel about redemption?

Michael: Yeah. I think somehow or other, all of my novels are going to be about my characters scratching, clawing to get out of the hole they’ve dug themselves.

4.7

Ready, set, camera, action! And I mean it! The whole time I was reading this book, I felt like I was looking through the lens of a camera, scoping out the place. Slowly panning from one end of the scene to the other, panorama style. It was a fantastic feeling and a fantastic visual.

It’s like a magic trick, really it is. The author loads my eyeballs with images at the exact same time that he’s loading my brain with words that tell a story, and ta da, suddenly I’m watching an exciting movie! I would like to say it’s in HD and that I have surround sound, but that would be exaggerating. But what is true is that the second I read the words, I saw a crystal-clear image—I was right there. I think it’s a unique skill that this author has. I’ve read tons of books where you get a sense of place, but I never felt like I was holding a camcorder before.

Yes, such an incredible writer! His language is unembellished (understatement). The language might seem overly simplistic, but it’s deceiving—the story and the moods are not in the least simplistic. It’s weird because sometimes I would stop and notice that it was a bit stream-of-conscious-y, yet when I zoomed in and examined particular paragraphs, the text seems sort of devoid of feeling and the language sounds like a monotone report. But lickety-split I’d get a clear visual of the place and would feel what the characters were feeling. How did the author accomplish this? This was a weird and terrific kind of read. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Okay, enough about the camera. What’s the book about? This is the story of two down-and-outers, Russell and Maben, who try like hell to stay out of trouble. We are introduced to them separately, though their lives eventually get painfully tangled up together, a total mess. Their horrible choices combined with their horrible luck send them straight down Desperation Road. The whole time I was worried sick; I knew a train wreck was about to happen. I wanted to tell Russell and Maben to just stop doing stupid things, that they were only making things ten times worse. Man would I get twisted up! But bad stuff kept happening, of course, and to my horror the outlook kept getting bleaker and bleaker.

The plot, the characters, the scene, the tone—all A-pluses. I got very attached to Russell and Maben; they are very well-drawn victims whom I hoped would somehow get out of their convoluted snarl. At the beginning, there’s an ugly scene—it’s the kind of ugly that sticks with you. There’s a kind father, and there’s a bad guy who is super scary. The ending is well done. The story is dark and juicy, which I just love. But if you hate dark books, you’ll want to stay away from this one.

My Complaint Board has three in-my-face problems for me, and they, sadly, kept me from giving the book 5 stars.

Complaint No. 1: Maben did one stupid thing that I didn’t buy, no matter how much I tried. And oh I did try, believe me—because I wanted this book to be perfect. However, without this piece of the plot, the rest of the story couldn’t have happened, so I get why the author made the decision to include it. It just didn’t work for me, AT ALL.

Complaint No. 2: The story starts out with a bang, telling us Maben’s brutal story. Too soon, the story switches over to Russell, and his story goes on forever. Even though his story pulled me in, I was dying to get back to Maben—we were left hanging for a little too long.

Complaint No. 3: There’s a statue of the Virgin Mary. Religious statues and I don’t really get along. I know there’s some deep religious symbolism going on here, but I wasn’t interested or enlightened.

But these complaints didn’t bother me as much I thought they would—mostly because the way this author writes had me sitting up straight, camcorder in my head. Brilliant writing, brilliant characters. Wow, what a writer. Must check out his other books, oh yes.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

In the most monumental of all first round NCAA upsets GR buddy-ups I awoke this morning to notifications pinging of The Review Sloth beating me to the punch when it came to posting his opinings. I should have known better than to offer myself for a buddy read with a frenemy like Ron 2.0. Not only did he start reading the book days before the agreed schedule, but when I checked up on him to see his status he was “hoping he’d have time to finish it.” Since he is the go-to-guru of all things Netflix I figured he’d need another day or two minimum due to his binge-watching and went about my bidness (a/k/a reading and reviewing two other books). And now I find this??????? Ron may have just earned himself a new name . . . .

WHEEEAAAAAATOOOOONNNNNNN!

I requested a reader copy of Desperation Road last Fall when my better half told me to. Per usual, I immediately forgot about it and proceeded to read alllllllllllll the liburrrrrrry books instead. After a combination of growing tired of not possessing that elusive 80% badge on NetGalley and seeing Ron add it to his TBR I figured it was time to roll the dice.

The story here is two-fold. One follows a recently released inmate named Russell and the other a woman named Maben who is seriously in possession of the shit end of the stick. As with most stories, eventually the two cross paths and you’ll find that Sherlock Holmes was 100% correct when he asked “What do we say about coincidences?”

"The universe is rarely that lazy."

So there you have it. The story is woven well together, but nothing will probably come as a huge surprise to most readers. The writing is perfectly palatable and not overly done. In fact, I even pulled out the ol’ blue highlighting tool in order to share something with the class . . . .

“Maybe if you told me what was going on I could figure out a way to help.”

“Maybe Jesus will come down from His high horse and cook us supper.”

The pacing was great and the story had little to no filler, but give me a few weeks and I have a feeling this one will fall off my radar so much I’ll have to double-check to even remember what it was about. In my defense Mitchell and I might be a little jaded having recently reading The Weight Of This World which really went balls out when it came to desperation so we would have been more satisfied with a not-quite-so-tidy ending. I also seriously disliked Maben. What a waste of fucking time that bitch was. However, I’m interested to see what else Michael Farris Smith has in the tank and will definitely check his stuff out again.

DISCLAIMER: I’ve not yet read Ron’s review, but did notice we are of one mind when it comes to this rating. The forecast should be calling for swarms of locusts and rivers turning to blood any minute now.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

Published by Little, Brown & Co. on Feb. 7, 2017

Newly released from a Mississippi prison, Russell returns to the town where his father is waiting for him. Russell’s mother died while he was in prison and his father filled the unbearable silence by bringing a woman, an undocumented immigrant, into his home. In addition to his father, trouble is waiting for Russell, old scores that people feel a need to settle. Russell did something stupid but not malicious. He can’t put the crime behind him and neither can the malicious people who think he was not sufficiently punished for it. His former fiancé called off his marriage after he went to prison and now has three kids and a life she regrets. Russell isn’t searching for forgiveness or redemption, nor does he believe he deserves any.

Larry and his brother Walt are the key antagonists who trouble Russell during the novel. Larry isn’t allowed to see the son from his first marriage and his second wife is publicly and repeatedly unfaithful to him. Seeking revenge against Russell may be a way or restoring his sense of manhood.

The other desperate character in Desperation Road is Maben. Broke and homeless, she’s taking her daughter Annalee back to Mississippi because she has nowhere else to go. Desperate circumstances motivate her to take a desperate action. Soon enough, she needs to leave, but again has nowhere to go, no plan, no help, and no hope. Her road intersects with Russell’s a bit beyond the novel’s midway point. That part of the novel hinges on a large coincidence but coincidences happen. This one isn’t so outrageous as to damage the story’s credibility.

Some of the supporting characters are drunks and scoundrels, or just drunks, but other characters are living a responsible life, doing their best with what they have, which isn’t much. Michael Farris Smith’s muscular prose captures the rural southern characters who inhabit his novel (“Russell came across the pond bank and said how you doing old man and the old man grinned with his lips held tight to keep it from getting away from him and he gave Russell a solid handshake as if he’d just sold him a calf”).

I’m impressed with the humanity and understanding that shines through in this novel, the recognition that people are defined by more than their mistakes. Russell believes that rough lives get rougher and he doesn’t believe in fairy tale endings, but the reader hopes that he will manage to find a way out of his various predicaments.

In that regard, I’m also impressed with the suspense that Smith builds. Whether things will end well for Russell and Mabel is the question that hovers over the story. These are people for whom nothing ever seems to end well, so the sense of foreboding is palpable even as the reader roots for their survival. If they stay alive and stay out of prison, that’s the best they can expect. They are, in the novel’s words, “holding on,” and whether they can hold on a while longer is the question that keeps the reader involved with this quietly intense story.

RECOMMENDED

I had not read Smith's work before so thanks to Netgalley up front for the ARC which introduced me to him. THis is a thoughtful and challenging novel, with a carefully constructed plot and even more complex characters. I didn't expect it to be as impactful as it was - the blurb, I think, gives the sense of Southern noir but not of the ethical issues, I think we've all seen a Maben out there by the side of the road and now those of us who read this will think twice about what that woman has faced and is facing. Russell's decisions may not have always been the right ones but he's certainly qualified to deal with this. Beautiful writing. Try this one!

Thank you; although, I did not finish reading this book due to writing style and lack of interesting plot.

Quite possibly one of the best books I've read in some time, so beautifully written I was close to tears at one point. 'Desperation' is the perfect word for these people's lives--and they are characters you will really come to care about. "My road is the road that brought us all here led by what hand I don't know."

READ THIS BOOK!!!!

So grateful to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read an arc of this fine book.

Maben's life has been plagued with bad relationships and addiction. She and her young daughter are making the long journey back to her hometown of McComb, Mississippi, in hopes of a second chance. Low on cash, Maben nearly slips back into old habits to make a few bucks. She stops herself at the last second, but there's someone watching from the shadows ready to exploit her moment of weakness.

Around the same time Maben arrives in town, Russell Gaines is back home after serving eleven years in the state penitentiary. He considers his debt to society paid in full, but there are people not ready to let him off so easily.

"Rough lives get rougher." These characters have been to hell and back. The story is dark and gritty. In the first 15%, there's prostitution, rape, death, assault, and a flashback to a tragic drunk driving accident. The story moves along at a deliberate pace, matching the slow and easy pace of the small town. The characters' pasts are a mystery at first, but all is revealed eventually. There's a constant tension in the air, because it feels like these characters are heading towards tragedy. The setting was brilliantly drawn. I was able to picture the Mississippi landscapes so vividly in my mind. I grew up in a swampy part of the Gulf Coast, 282 miles/4 driving hours away from McComb. In fact, it's mentioned that Maben's little girl was conceived in my hometown! So many aspects of the town felt like home: dingy buildings in various states of disrepair, old trucks, good 'ol boys, mosquitoes, humidity, and the marshy forest buzzing with wildlife.

This author excelled making it easy to root for characters that didn't always make the best decisions. Eventually, I even felt a small bit of empathy for a character who terrorizes Russell:"he would rage against the most striking object of his hate and he would look into the rearview mirror and see that object staring back at him and it was easy to hate the other things but it was always the most crippling to hate himself." Most of our time is spent with Russell and Maben, but the author slips seamlessly into the minds of several supporting characters. Even minor townspeople we only meet in passing have distinct personalities. The characters prefer to deal with their biggest problems on their own. Russell refuses help from both his dad and an old buddy from high school. Maben's been burned too many times to think that anyone would help her without a cost.

Russell repeatedly says that he's done his time, but he says it so much that it seems like he's trying to convince himself. He doesn't hesitate when the chance for redemption falls in his lap, even at great risk to his own freedom. One of my favorite scenes was a discussion he had with the prison's preacher about grace. He doesn't understand how men who have committed terrible crimes get redemption, while their victims struggle to get through the day. The priest wonders if maybe Russell is trying to make himself feel better about his own sins. The characters also wrestle with moral gray areas. Sometimes it's not as simple as right and wrong and the line between good and bad isn't so clear cut. Can something that's wrong on the surface sometimes be a mercy? Can doing what's technically the wrong thing be the most ethical course?

Both Maben and Russell suffer from the heavy burden of guilt. They want a second chance, but they have to forgive themselves first. Maben's hopes for a second chance are dashed almost as soon as she arrives in town. She knows no one will believe her story. The people who are terrorizing Russell don't seem to want to stop until he's dead. How will these two escape their desperate situations? I wasn't sure that they would. This book deals with some unsavory characters and heavy issues, but I really liked spending a little time in Mississippi each night. I'd love to read more of this author's work!

“Trouble been doggin' my soul since the day I was born”
- Ray LeMontagne
And that aint no lie. Wow these characters go through a lot in this book. I also went in and out of many emotions. This book will end up making my top 5 of 2017. Get ready for the love of a new author in your life.