Tender As Hellfire
by Joe Meno
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 119)
Read in August, 2007
I wrote a blurb for this for my job interview, but I don't remember it offhand. The book is about two brothers with damnation in their destiny. Pill and Dough, named thusly by their father in a "Boy Named Sue,"-way to toughen them up, live in Tenderloin. It's a trailer park. The book details (and details) their loss of innocence through fire, sex, abuse, dogfights, robbery, and much more. The devil is chasing these boys who carry the burden of their long gone father around wherever the...more
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Read in January, 2008
we-ell (always a good way to start a review)...avoiding the easy Salinger comparisons that inevitably arise whenever anyone writes something that isn't terrible featuring a protaganist under the age of eighteen or so, even if the comparison doesn't really fit, the book does capture a bit of that queer confusion surrounding being eleven or twelve. At the same time, the narrator's just a little too precocious for the book to ring true, and the various plotlines never really weave together into a c...more
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Read in July, 2008
The Joe Meno 4th of July holiday reading tradition continues for the fourth year in a row! I read the recently rereleased/reedited Akashic Books version of the text, and absolutely loved it. It may compete with Hairstyles of the Damned for my favorite Meno. It's about 10-20 pages too long, but incredibly sensitive and well done in general. It's his best achievement, so far, at marrying the noirish/potboiler form to the sadness and fumbling, precocious wisdom of a bunch of kids straight ou...more
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If Salinger had written about white trash in middle America rather than middle class in the North East, he may have written something pretty similar to Tender As Hellfire. It is a well told coming of age story as related by the younger of a pair of troubled brothers. The only reason I've given it three stars as opposed to four is I am not sure of it's re-read value.
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Read in August, 2007
For Joe Meno die-hard fans only. Yeah, he was barely in his twenties when he wrote this. And one can certainly see the adolescent sweetness juxtaposed against the rugged underworld to be found in his later books. But this is too clumsy and early a novel to be seriously considered. Read the great later novels instead.
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Read in September, 2007
Now, I know I'm going out on a limb here...but I'm going to say that Joe Meno is a modern day JD Salinger. His books are touching in that "coming of age" way that Catcher In The Rye was for us all. I really love his fiction.
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Read in March, 2008
I don't know what it was about this book but i read it one sitting on a lazy tuesday, and then spent the other part of the day flipping back and forth rereading bits and pieces. It grabbed me, and I wasn't expecting it.
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Read in April, 2008
This debut novel also has a too neat ending (see review for _The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman_), but its clever, multivalent, simultaneously denotative and connotative title saves it from 3 stars.
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Read in January, 2008
Not what I was expecting but good nonetheless. Does a good job of describing the boys however he uses the word "greasy" too much for my taste. Past that it's great.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in May, 2008
I'm slowly getting through the middle in hopes that the "unexpected ending" will make it worth it.
This is the book that inspired the short film I just worked on.
This is the book that inspired the short film I just worked on.
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joe's book came out while i was a student in his class at columbia chicago. he's an amazing instructor and writer.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
fans of the author
Better than I expected and full of really striking visual images but a little immature.
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Read in November, 2007
Too many typos and holes to loooove it, but Meno's a lovely story teller...
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