Desperation Road by Michael Farris Smith
Publisher: Lee Bourdeaux Books
Release Date: February 7, 2017
Length: 304

Single Sentence Summary: Russell Gaines, fresh out of prison, returns to his hometown where he crosses paths with a desperate woman and her young daughter.

Primary Characters: Russell Gaines has just been released from 11 years in prison. He returns to the small Mississippi town where he grew up in the hopes returning to the life he should have led. Maben is a hard luck a story of a young woman if there ever was one. She and her daughter are homeless, traveling on foot to the town where she also grew up.

Synopsis: Russell Gaines spent 11-years in prison, paying his debt for a horrible mistake. He’s returning to the rural Mississippi town of his youth, hoping for a new life. But, there are those in town who aren’t happy Russell is out and they deliver that message loud and clear right from the start. Maben and her daughter, Annalee, have been traveling on foot in the hot summer sun for weeks. They’re exhausted, dirty and hungry. When Maben decides to use the last of her money for a cheap truck-stop motel room, she has no idea that she’s setting into motion a chain of events from which they may never be free.

Review: There was much I liked about Desperation Road and much I didn’t. The title is fitting, as both characters are filled with an almost palpable desperation for lives they can’t quite envision. In this and more Michael Farris Smith’s writing was excellent. He wrote some descriptive passages that were so vivid I felt I was there.

“In the Southern Mississippi swamp you can watch the world awaken as the pale yellow sun edges itself between the trees and moss and winged cranes. Dragonflies buzz and.…Reptiles slither and blackbirds cry as the early light slashes and relieves the deep and quiet night.”

For some characters Smith’s development was exactly what you would hope for. I thought he did an especially good job with Maben. This was a women beaten down, a woman who had made poor choices time after time, and yet, she was desperate to hang onto her daughter. Even Maben was amazed that she’d never lost Annalee to foster care. I liked that Maben didn’t really know what she was doing. She just kept moving, trying to reach a better place. Maben made sense.

Russell made less sense. Smith presented him as a man desperate to get back to his life, having paid his debt in prison. Russell cared most about a handful of things: his father, the woman who once loved him, and never going back to prison. That last one is where the story derailed for me. On his first night home, Russell is “driving around” when he sees police lights off in the distant woods. He’s been drinking and has a shotgun in his truck, but decides to drive out to the scene and see what’s going on. This was pivotal to the story’s plot, but made absolutely no sense to me. Why would a relatively smart man, just out of prison, want go see what cops were doing in the middle of the night? It felt forced.

The rest of Desperation Road was tied to that night and because I was hung up on why Russell would have gone there, it took away from the rest of the book. And sadly, there was much I should have enjoyed about the rest. Russell’s father and the woman he lived with were a great part of the story that I’d have liked to know more about. The plotline of what happens when the lives of Russell and Maben intersect was touching and well played. I just wish Smith could have found way to tell their stories without forcing such an unlikely scene in order to get there. Grade: C

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

One night, eleven years ago, Russell did something stupid, made a terrible mistake - he drank and drove and ended up killing someone. Now he’s done his time in prison and he just wants to settle down into a normal life. On the same day as Russell’s release, troubled Maben, and her daughter, are trudging through the grass along the interstate. That night they end up in a motel with no money left and Maben decides there’s something she’s got to do to get them some cash. The night ends, instead, with a dead deputy and Maben pulling her daughter off running. The next day, Russell and Maben cross paths and Russell has to decide if it's his life, or theirs, that he’s going to save.

This is a story about revenge, redemption and acceptance. Quite a different novel to what I’m used to but I do like to step outside my comfort zone every once in awhile. I ended up really enjoying this book, even though, as the title suggests, it’s a little bit dark and depressing at times.

What I loved the most about this book was how realistic it was. There are millions of mystery thrillers out there, that I read on the daily, that are based around “normal” people;s lives but we know, could never be real. This story, on the other hand, is perfectly plausible to imagine in a bit of a down-and-out town. With inherently flawed but morally conscious people and others who are driven to madness and evil by their deep rooted emotions, this is the kind of novel that can really hit home.

Russell, although flawed in many ways, is one of the most likeable characters I’ve ever come across. He means no harm to anyone and does everything out of the good of his heart.

My only issue with this novel was the ending, that I felt could have been grown upon. It felt a bit dead-ended and cut off, but other than that, this was a beautiful story.

Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for giving me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Maben and her young daughter Annalee are walking to Mississippi from Louisiana, where Maben's drug use has lost her her job and home and set them on the road. Russell has just gotten out of prison where he spent 11 years after a drunk driving incident. Russell is being stalked by a couple of thugs who are the brothers of the man Russell killed in the accident. The characters of Russell and Maben were good ones but the relationship between them felt contrived, including their meeting and their past history.

I waivered between three and four stars for this book but settled on three because, while it was well written, I did not find it exceptional in any way. Maybe I've just burnt out on Southern noir. The central themes of pickup trucks, guns, drugs, alcohol, violence and bad choices are really too common in this literature. To elevate it above these clichés, the book needs to have more of a point to it than this one did. Characters spent a lot of time driving around aimlessly with alcoholic beverages stuck between their legs. You would think that Southerners would object to these stereotypes. It certainly wasn't a bad book, but I didn't love it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Southern noir and fast paced grit-lit, Desperation Road is compelling and enduring dark fiction.

Russell returns to a small Mississippi town, fresh off the bus from 11 years in the penitentiary, only to be jumped by the family of the man who put him there. Maben, running from a drug habit and the darker sides of herself, has a bad run in with a local cop. Russell and Maben, two flawed, but decent people. They are at the center of this tight tale of revenge and repentance.

It was difficult to put this book down, so I read it in big hunks, growling at anyone that came near. The characters were sharply drawn, and I count the countryside of Mississippi as one of them. It was easy to see the lakes and ponds of the area, easy to feel the heat and the bite of the mosquitoes. It was also easy to see how the need for revenge could be nurtured in this hot and humid environment.

For 300 pages, this book was an incredibly fast read with characters that had depth to them and a realistic feel. I highly recommend this tense, quick trip to Mississippi. It's so beautifully written, you'll feel as if you were there right now, without the cost of air fare and the ugly realities of this world. There's an ugly reality there too, but at least there I felt as if there was also hope for the future.

Once again, highly recommended! (I think fans of Donald Ray Pollock would especially appreciate this dark tale.)

Desperation Road is available on February 7th, here: Desperation Road

*Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Book Group for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*

I just want to sing the praises for this book. It was so good, so sad, and yet so good.

Russell has just spent the last 11 years in prison and is now coming home. He's just finished his workshop and is on the bus home. He stands up, heads towards the door and stops. Two guys are waiting for him, they aren't friendly. They proceed to beat the crap out of him. They have decided 11 years inside isn't enough punishment. Welcome home.

Maben and her little girl are walking down the freeway. They've been at this for a while, a long while. Longer than Maben would like to count. A man feels sorry for them and picks them up and takes them to the nearest truck stop and gives her $40. She feels rich, she has just doubled her money. They eat dinner and get a room. The first shower and bed they've had in weeks.

Both Maben and Russell know this is their life. They've come to accept it and they try to make the best of it. They are good people. No matter what they try to do, someone always hands them another sh&& can.

They end up together, little do they know that they have a past connection. However, before they discover it, they are already trying to help each other. This is their story. It's a great story, I absolutely loved it. I am already going to say that it will be on my list for best of 2017. There is so much going on. People abusing their power, grown men who won't grow up, revenge, people who need to be in jail walking the streets, it's just crazy some of it. And a lot of it is just one guy. I was so sad to say goodbye to these characters. I really became attached to them, especially Maben and the little girl. She was trying so hard and just couldn't get a break.

This was the second book I have read by this author and I have loved both this one and "Rivers".

Huge thanks to Little, Brown and Company for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

The idea of redemption as a back story is always an interesting one for me as a reader and it is with great pleasure that I read Desperation Road. What an interesting narrative but the character development and description put this reader in the place of these folks, so horribly trudging through their daily lives. A wonderful piece of writing that I enjoyed immensely. Thank you.

Life can be so heartrendingly unfair for some people it is hard to believe this is by chance. In Michael Farris Smith’s DESPERATION ROAD this point is illuminated by writing that is both lyrical and searing. After eleven years in prison, Russell Gaines believes he has served his debt to society and returns home. Almost immediately he realizes that some debts are never quite repaid. Meanwhile, a hard-bitten woman named Maben and her young daughter blow into the same town as Russell. The hard way. Not by bus or car, but trudging down the side of an interstate highway under a brilliant sun. In short order the lives of these virtual strangers will collide, and Russell will be forced to make decisions a man just released from prison would likely want to avoid. As quite a few reviewers have pointed out, the pacing and characterization in this novel are two of its highlights. I was also taken by Smith’s stylistic creativity (beautifully winding sentences with clauses connected by nothing more than a simple “and”; dialogue written into the narrative). Readers of Wiley Cash, Ron Rash, Tom Franklin, Daniel Woodrell, and David Joy rejoice. Southern fiction has another face to carve into Rushmore.