Arkansas

by John Brandon

Overview

Originally published by McSweeney’s in hardcover and met with wide acclaim, Arkansas is a darkly comic debut novel written by John Brandon about a pair of drug runners, Kyle and Swin, set in the rural southeast. Drawing comparisons to a striking range of storytellers, from Quentin Tarantino and Mark Twain to Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, John Brandon—an MFA graduate of Washington Universitywho worked an array of odd jobs while writing the novel, including at a rubber factory and a windshield warehouse—delivers a tightly written, bitterly funny story that chronicles the monochromatic landscape of the American southeast and gives a glimpse into the mindset of his wildly troubled yet seemingly real characters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802144362
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	06/03/2009
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,069,770
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

Editorial Reviews

“John Brandon’s remarkable first novel will blow away a certain readership. . . . Arkansas rants against the machine in a voice combining Raymond Chandler’s side-of-the-mouth noir with Quentin Tarantino’s gleeful-psychopath wit and Mark Twain’s episodic romance of the journey.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Brandon’s premier novel is a must for those who love the criminal and the stern yet dark optimism of the existential. His vision of Arkansas is unique, his wit is sharp, and the sympathy he has for his characters is genuine. For all the dark alleys Brandon explores, both physically and psychologically, Arkansas’s power rests in its redefining and restructuring of the criminal’s only hope: family.” —PopMatters

“Add novelist John Brandon to your list of hipster-sanctioned must-reads . . . Brandon’s writing is so sparse it sometimes feels blasé, but the tension between his hard-boiled prose and his characters’ appealing naiveté makes the novel work.” —The Portland Mercury

From the Publisher

Brandon introduces his main characters gradually in his quirky debut about a bunch of rootless drifters who form an unstable drug-distribution network in Arkansas: Swin Ruiz, who pulls his first scam before dropping out of college; Kyle Ribb, a shoplifter who stumbles on a job as a courier; and mysterious Ken Hovan (aka "Froggy" or "Frog"), who begins with bootleg tapes but graduates to run the shadowy organization. Tangential characters include a middleman, Pat Bright, who oversees Swin and Ruiz in their nebulous and phony cover jobs in a state park, and a black woman known only as "Her," who passes packets and instructions to the couriers. As Swin and Kyle try to puzzle out how to survive in a crumbling organization, their futile attempts to create some semblance of a normal life evoke only pathos. Not evil as such, these unsympathetic people simply fall into a rut that leads inevitably to violence and death. (Mar.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Brandon's first novel details the grim misadventures of two young drug runners, Kyle and Swin. With boss Pat Bright, they work for a mysterious man named Frog out of a neglected Arkansas state park, as dead bodies pile up in more and more gruesome ways. Bright, whose past is littered with despicable activities, suffers a ghastly death at the hands of Nick, the nephew of a drug customer. After Kyle kills Nick, they dump his body in a swamp and take charge of Bright's operation. The only positive influence in their lives is Swin's girlfriend, Johnna, a nurse who adds a woman's touch to their dumpy trailer. After Johnna gets pregnant, Swin realizes there is no future in what they've been doing and dreams of something better. But as Kyle says, the world has no intention of offering them worthwhile lives, and the distressing conclusion bears him out. Some readers may have difficulty with the violence-others may not care about the misfits crowding out the story-but this uncomfortable book will find an audience in most large public libraries.
—Donna Bettencourt

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