A new novel from Tom Franklin is always a reason to get excited, but a novel from Franklin and Fennelly is just cause to throw a block party.” — Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestelling author of Live By Night
“The Tilted World is everything I hold dear in a novel—a raucous, page-turning story with grit, utterly steeped in the land and people, and told in such poetic language that I kept forcing myself to slow down so I could enjoy the writing.” — Eowyn Ivey, New York Times bestselling author of the The Snow Child
“Thriller stories are easy to come by—as are small lyrical gems. The two come together in The Tilted World. . . . You will experience a sprawling story of conflict, disorder, shame, and horror that is umbrellaed by an even bigger story—one of love.” — Garden & Gun magazine
“A swift, soulful mix of love story and crime saga . . . evocative characters and unpretentious but shapely prose . . . The Tilted World is literary crime fiction of the highest order.” — Seattle Times
A swift, soulful mix of love story and crime saga . . . evocative characters and unpretentious but shapely prose . . . The Tilted World is literary crime fiction of the highest order.
The Tilted World is everything I hold dear in a novel—a raucous, page-turning story with grit, utterly steeped in the land and people, and told in such poetic language that I kept forcing myself to slow down so I could enjoy the writing.
A new novel from Tom Franklin is always a reason to get excited, but a novel from Franklin and Fennelly is just cause to throw a block party.
Thriller stories are easy to come by—as are small lyrical gems. The two come together in The Tilted World. . . . You will experience a sprawling story of conflict, disorder, shame, and horror that is umbrellaed by an even bigger story—one of love.
Thriller stories are easy to come by—as are small lyrical gems. The two come together in The Tilted World. . . . You will experience a sprawling story of conflict, disorder, shame, and horror that is umbrellaed by an even bigger story—one of love.
Rough South writer Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and the poet and nonfiction writer Fennelly (Great with Child), distill in this prohibition-era tale of bootleggers and revenuers an atmospheric draught of prose that is at once poetic and gritty. It’s 1927 Mississippi, and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover has sent two unbribable federal revenue agents, Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson, into the maw of the Great Flood to investigate the disappearance of two other “prohis” from Hobnob Landing. On the way, Ingersoll and Ham find a baby, the lone survivor of a country-store looting gone bad. Ingersoll, an orphan himself, gives the boy to bootlegger Dixie Clay, a 22-year-old bereft of her own child. Along with her violent husband Jesse Holliver, Dixie might have been the last person to see the missing revenuers alive. Love for Dixie rises in Ingersoll’s heart like the waters on the levee, and he knows that “to fix things... would require broken vows and broken laws, blood, desertion, and money.” There’s a bit of corn in this mash, but fans of Fennelly will savor her depictions of a mother’s ferocious love, and Franklin’s following will shine to the violent rendering of a nearly forgotten time and ethos. (Oct.)
Brian d’Arcy James’s narration offers just what a reading should: enhancement that engages the listener and piques interest in the story. His vocal characterizations are subtle yet distinct in drawing portraits. He depicts protagonist Dixie Clay in softer, gentler tones than her moonshine-marketing and philandering husband. That dubious career brings Dixie all the luxuries of the day, but her dreams of a happy marriage and children lie fallow. After filling her days with bootlegging, Dixie’s sad life in 1920s Mississippi is brightened when a revenuer gifts her with an orphaned baby. James is on target emotionally as Dixie battles illness, abuse, possible prison time, and the rising Mississippi to right her tilted world. J.J.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Brian d’Arcy James’s narration offers just what a reading should: enhancement that engages the listener and piques interest in the story. His vocal characterizations are subtle yet distinct in drawing portraits. He depicts protagonist Dixie Clay in softer, gentler tones than her moonshine-marketing and philandering husband. That dubious career brings Dixie all the luxuries of the day, but her dreams of a happy marriage and children lie fallow. After filling her days with bootlegging, Dixie’s sad life in 1920s Mississippi is brightened when a revenuer gifts her with an orphaned baby. James is on target emotionally as Dixie battles illness, abuse, possible prison time, and the rising Mississippi to right her tilted world. J.J.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
The world that's tilting refers to the Mississippi Delta in April 1927, site of one of the greatest natural catastrophes in American history. Although the Great Flood of 1927 provides the background for the narrative, Franklin and Fennelly focus on an unusual, and perhaps implausible, love story. Revenuers Ham Johnson and Ted Ingersoll are sent to Mississippi not only to track down the makers of some of the finest moonshine in the South, but also to solve the mystery of who was responsible for the recent deaths of two other revenuers. Along the way, they find an orphaned baby, and they don't quite know what to do with this unforeseen state of affairs, but Ted had been an orphan himself and so takes pity on the newborn. When he asks around the town of Hobnob Landing, he finds out about Dixie Clay Holliver, a young mother who had recently lost a child to scarlet fever, so he shows up to give her the orphaned infant, whom she names Willy. It turns out Dixie Clay is married to one of the biggest moonshiners in the state, the egregious Jesse Holliver, a womanizing, self-centered and viciously ambitious man. Because Dixie Clay has shown great business acumen, she's taken over her husband's moonshining operation, as Jesse has other irons in the fire. A romance develops between Ted and Dixie Clay, abetted in part by Jesse's abusiveness toward his wife and his indifference to the child. Jesse begins to prepare for a new life, one that involves his blowing up a levee with dynamite and drowning the town, the townspeople, Ted, and even his wife and child. Originally conceived as a short story, the book shows signs of attenuation in its expansion to novel length.
