Review: "The Death of Sweet Mister" by Daniel Woodrell

While a relatively short book, The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell packs quite a wallop and has a lasting effect that is anything but. Called the creator of “country noir” and offshoot of the mystery genre that focuses its stories of mystery and murder in rural areas such as the south or Midwest, Woodrell is another author in a long line of crime writers who transcend the genre and tell stories that are just as much about high tragedy as they are the gory details and sordid actions. Woodrell’s particular place of interest, the Ozark mountain region, becomes a place of great villains and long falls for characters who are not strong enough to survive in a place where violence is not only an everyday occurrence, but a necessity to move onto the next stage in life. To call this story a harsh and bitter one would be an understatement. While Woodrell does not mine the depths of depravity as deep as someone like Jack Ketchum would (no one writing today is that brave), his stories have a great amount of sadness to them in the way youthful innocence and sentiment is stomped flat by the cruelness of the world around it, and he does so with a great writers ear, turning backwoods sayings and rural chit-chat into prose so poetic and awe-inspiring it gives the grandmother of southern fiction, Flannery O’Conner a solid run for her money. The death in the title refers to the main character, Shug Adkins, who is called Sweet Mister by his mother Glenda. They live in a shack next to a cemetery, where they make a measly living tending to forgotten tombstones.  Shug is a painfully lonely boy whose lack any kind of real connection outside of his mother is expressed by the eloquence of Woodrell’s prose. His de facto father Red Adkins is one mean son of a bitch who constantly belittles Shug and forces him to go on dangerous robberies to supply their illegal pharmaceutical drug business. But the one shining light in in the life of Shug, if you can call it that, is his close relationship to his mom. Glenda, also a victim of Red’s abuse, might be the prettiest woman in this small town and has a relationship with Shug that borders on incestuous. These two live their fragile lives in the shadow of Red’s abuse, holding on to hope through their increasingly uncomfortable relationship. Than Jimmy Vin Pearce shows up at the local grocery, driving a fancy car and bringing with him a promise of a new life for Glenda. From there it gets more violent and much more tragic. The death of the title, as Dennis Lehane said in his foreword is one of the spirit in Shug who goes on the journey toward adulthood in a most heinous fashion, carrying with him the rage that has been burning inside him all his life. From a brutal scene of violence, to a heartbreaking betrayal, to the books shattering final sentence, this is truly powerful emotional stuff that any fan of reading should check out immediately.

Rating: 5/5