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Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

by Tom Franklin (Goodreads Author)

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 · rating details · 15,262 ratings · 2,771 reviews

Tom Franklin's narrative power and flair for characterization have been compared to the likes of Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy.

Now the Edgar Award-winning author returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far; an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pal

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Hardcover, 274 pages

Published October 5th 2010 by William Morrow (first published 2010)

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Community Reviews

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Jun 12, 2012 karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: appalachian-noir-southern-gothic

it is totally okay to float old reviews when you suddenly have a picture of yourself and the author to attach to them. also, when you are bored. but only once a day. anything more than that becomes boring. or desperate.

one of the best books i have read, ever.

and exactly what i was looking for when i posted my query in my very own readers' advisory group. so, thank you, james, this is a perfect suggestion to the kind of book i was looking for. and i am going to immerse myself in tom franklin's ba...more

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view all 89 comments

karen i get frustrated when that happens, definitely. but i think i need to refine what i mean by that, because nearly any (interpersonal)conflict can be av...more
Jun 15, 2012 05:02am

Laura I forgot to mention that I feel the exact same way and agreed with you wholeheartedly when i read it.

I see what you mean with the difference between...more
Jun 17, 2012 11:11pm

Dec 22, 2011 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, mystery, 2006-2010, audiobook, literature, 6-star-books, all-time-favorites, signed-first-or-limited-edition

Gorgeous...

Gorgeous and dripping with emotion and ache...

This story OWNED ME from the opening page and LARRY OTT is among the most endearing, heart-wrenching characters I've come across in a long, long time. That I connected so well with both the story and its main character surprised me because, being born and raised in Vegas, my own life experience is so vastly different from both Larry and the town of Chabot, Mississippi, where the story takes place. I give heaping mounds of credit to author...more

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Sep 24, 2012 Nataliya rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Nataliya by: Countless positive GR reviews

Shelves: 2012-reads, excellent-reads, location-is-the-true-protagonist

Oh, small-town, rural America, why must you scare me so? Why must this book, written about you, kill something inside me with every page? Why does it, and you by proxy, need to crush me with loneliness and sadness and desperation?

This is a profoundly sad book about sadness in life, which is sad. And I'm not even being a brat here when I say that. There's nothing about this story that's even remotely optimistic, even the quasi-hopeful ending is very sad, if you think about it.

And why wouldn't it be sad? The background for the story is quite melancholic, quite depressing, really. Set in a tiny Mississippi town that is slowly dying, in the heart of poverty and little hope for the future, the story is full of racial tension, prejudice, bigotry, hatred, misogyny, and all the other little petty evils that lurk in the hearts of people. Like Stephen King, the author oh-so-frequently referenced in this book ((view spoiler)), Tom Franklin portrays small towns full of their secrets and prejudices as a perfect breeding ground for the monsters we carry within our souls.

"He passed a clothing store that had gone so long without customers it’d briefly become a vintage clothing store without changing stock."

The whole story is about the lives of two men, Silas and Larry, whose lives got mixed together a few decades ago, back when they were children. One white kid, one black kid, and the unlikely and short-lived friendship that followed. And now, a few decades later, Silas is a small-town cop and Larry is a small-town pariah convicted in the hearts of the locals of the crime he has not committed. And as Larry is struggling between life and death, it's up to Silas to figure out what happened and to revisit the painful moments from their past, the moments he would much rather forget.

"But that was his trouble, wasn't it? Letting himself off the hook had been his way of life."

Tom Franklin is very skilled at creating characters that are so human and flawed and likeable and pathetic and strong and fragile at the same time. He creates characters that we come to care about so much that when scary things happen to them it hurts like punch in the gut. He creates tension and suspense by making us truly CARE - and does that with the remarkably non-melodramatic sadness that resonates with the reader long after the book is finished and put aside. Something about the way he chooses to tell the story and to wrap it up is so unsettling and yet touching that this book is likely to stay with you long after the last page is turned and the events of the story have gone out of focus in your mind. Because it's not about the plot, or the easy-to-guess mystery, but about the simple human nature of Franklin's characters doing their best in this not-so-friendly world.

It's a masterfully written book, and the one I easily recommend. 5 sad, heart-wrenching melancholic stars.

"Was that what childhood was? Things rushing by out a window, the trees connected by motion, going too fast for him to notice the consequences?"

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Feb 23, 2013 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Nancy by: Kemper

Shelves: crime-mystery-thriller, library-books, race-relations

It was Kemper's review that made me add this book to my shelf. It was Stephen's that made me rush to the library after work and grab a copy.

After reading Shine and Winter's Bone, I was hesitant about reading another depressing story set in the south, but I’m so glad I did.

Larry Ott had a tough childhood growing up in rural Mississippi. He was sickly and he had a stutter. He never quite fit in among his classmates, usually the butt of a joke or the target of a bully. His dad was cold, distant a...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jeffrey by: On the Southern Literary Trail

M, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback, I.--How southern children are taught to spell Mississippi

Tom Franklin

My wife's family is from Prentiss, Mississippi not far from where the action of this book takes place. When her grandmother died a few years ago we went down for the funeral. This was my first time in Mississippi and I remember a couple of things about the experience. First, this is small town USA and there were two funeral homes. O...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Richard rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pearl Ruled: CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER by TOM FRANKLIN (p96)

Rating: one grudging star of five

This review has been revised and can be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

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Jun 14, 2012 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone

Recommended to Mike by: If Franklin writes it, I read it

Shelves: contemporary-southern-literature, race, crime, tom-franklin, fathers-and-sons, signed-first-edition, 2010, 2012, on-the-southern-literary-trail, group-read

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: Thoughts following a second reading

"The Rutherford girl had been missing for eight days when Larry Ott returned home and found a monster waiting in his house."

Read that first sentence. What? It doesn't grab you? Keep reading. It's like that long slow climb up to the peak of that first drop on the roller coaster. Hear the click of the chain pulling you to the top? After you hit the top, you're in for a ride.

First came this mean little collection of a novella and...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Reese rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Reese by: Kathy & Kristi

Shelves: favorites, recom-by-gr-friends, best-of-the-best

To write a review of this book, I had to consciously give myself permission not "to do it justice" because I'm not up to the challenge. Sorry -- especially since CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER puts the impact of injustice in the reader's face, belly, and heart. Besides injustice, Tom Franklin's novel is about finding missing pieces and putting them together, not about taking the whole apart. And so I won't explore pieces that scream "ANALYZE THIS" -- the novel's epigraph, its structure, the name...more To write a review of this book, I had to consciously give myself permission not "to do it justice" because I'm not up to the challenge. Sorry -- especially since CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER puts the impact of injustice in the reader's face, belly, and heart. Besides injustice, Tom Franklin's novel is about finding missing pieces and putting them together, not about taking the whole apart. And so I won't explore pieces that scream "ANALYZE THIS" -- the novel's epigraph, its structure, the names and clothing of characters, the places where major events occur, or other elements that do not mean only what they seem to mean.

More than once, Tom Franklin uses italicized print when one of the novel's major characters asks himself, "What's missing out of you, Silas?"[ital.](155, 207). The answer "Courage"(207) comes to him, and though it's probably not all that's NOT there, I'll grant that its absence has played the crucial role in the life that the novel's protagonist, Larry Ott, has missed. Wanna know Larry Ott? Have time to read just two sentences? Read these: "I don't know anybody except my momma and she don't know me. I used to go a week sometimes without talking to anybody except the girls in Kentucky Fried Chicken" (216). He's a voracious reader who is considerably brighter than other people realize; if you heard Forrest Gump in Larry's words, you heard Forrest's heart, not his mind. Broken in countless ways, but ready to serve others, Larry Ott validates the belief that "No good deed goes unpunished" (Oscar Wilde et al.). It's easy to wonder how the hell he has kept on keepin' on. But in revealing what Larry knows how to do, but doesn't actually do, the author may offer us an answer: "Somewhere he'd read the solution to people slamming mailboxes with baseball bats. . . . [Y]ou bought a pair [ital.] of mailboxes, a small one and a much larger one, big enough for the first to fit into, like a package. You put the smaller one into the larger and poured concrete in around it, embedding it. When it dried, you cemented the whole heavy thing into the ground on a metal post. So the next time a car roared along, punk out the window, baseball bat cocked back, let him take his swing, let him break his arm" (237).

Tom Franklin's CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, with its endearing and despicable characters; beautiful, lean prose; captivating story about matters of great importance, was nominated for an Edgar Award. It didn't win. "Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"; and justice -- well -- justice may not be the result.

*I owe a "gi-normous" thanks to Kathy and Kristi, GR friends who wanted me to read this work. They knew why. And now I know too. (less)

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Nov 15, 2011 Trudi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-mystery, a-sense-of-place, modern-lit, prose-that-sings, judge-a-book-by-its-cover, 2011-reads, family-ties, secrets, love-the-title, on-my-kobo, first-line-fever, rusa-reads, good-country-people

Guh! This book ... (flails helplessly) ... it is a gut puncher, heart-wrencher. Franklin is a poet, his prose sings, his characters walk off the page, and he puts the reader into a time and place that absolutely resonates with a vibrancy and brutal honesty all its own.

I was so sad -- so emotionally invested -- that I found the reading painful to bear at times. Franklin's descriptions of human isolation and loneliness are so raw and uncompromising I forced myself to take breathers between readin...more Guh! This book ... (flails helplessly) ... it is a gut puncher, heart-wrencher. Franklin is a poet, his prose sings, his characters walk off the page, and he puts the reader into a time and place that absolutely resonates with a vibrancy and brutal honesty all its own.

I was so sad -- so emotionally invested -- that I found the reading painful to bear at times. Franklin's descriptions of human isolation and loneliness are so raw and uncompromising I forced myself to take breathers between reading sessions. I don't think this is a book meant to be read in one gulp; it is made up of so much complexity and depth that it's better to sip from its well, savor what you've tasted, and then go back for more. The water can be frigid cold, and if you drink too much too fast you're bound to get excruciating brain freeze.

This book had me at hello: it's set in the American south, it features the mess of family dynamics, and secrets big and small stalk its pages. It is a coming-of-age story and at its center are two boys -- Silas and Larry. Their lives intersect in ways neither could have predicted, and one of them must carry the pain and punishment of that connection his entire life. It is a heavy burden, but I will say not without redemption.

I love Larry Ott -- not only is he a die-hard Stephen King fan, despite years of being ruthlessly cast as town pariah, Larry quietly goes on about his business. He is not consumed by bitterness, or enraged by the unfairness of the abuse that has been heaped upon him. That takes a strong man, and this is what probably made me the most sad is that Larry doesn't know how great and kind a man he really is. Beaten down first by his father, then by the town, he is prevented from discovering his true qualities of inner strength and dignity.

Read this book. It is beautiful. So very sad, but beautiful.

And because they are so good, and do the novel such justice, I will refer you to the reviews of Stephen and Kemper.

First line fever: The Rutherford Girl had been missing for eight days when Larry Ott returned home and found a monster waiting in his house.(less)

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Jun 10, 2012 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

There are books that you read as you drift off to sleep, setting them aside and then coming back to them the next night. This is not that type of book. Based on my experience, this is the kind of book that you pick up at night and then read straight through, getting up several times to avoid sleep, in order to keep reading. From the first line, I was transfixed. While the book is well plotted and interesting, it was the characters that kept me turning the pages late last night. Larry Ott, town b...more

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Mar 19, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Poor white boys, poor black boys, Mississippians

Shelves: crime, mystery, audiobook, american-literature, contemporary, southern-fiction, race-relations, poc-protagonist

This is a good ol' Southern mystery that really isn't that much of a mystery, since we know who the culprits are (and aren't) nearly as soon as they are introduced. However, there are some twists and revelations along the way. What this story is really about, though, is not a whodunnit, but the two characters who are inextricably and unwillingly tied to events that happened in both the present day and nearly 30 years ago.

The first of our protagonists, Larry Ott, gets shot in chapter one. From th...more This is a good ol' Southern mystery that really isn't that much of a mystery, since we know who the culprits are (and aren't) nearly as soon as they are introduced. However, there are some twists and revelations along the way. What this story is really about, though, is not a whodunnit, but the two characters who are inextricably and unwillingly tied to events that happened in both the present day and nearly 30 years ago.

The first of our protagonists, Larry Ott, gets shot in chapter one. From there we go back in time to find out how poor Larry grew up as a poor white boy in Mississippi - not so much poor economically (though his family isn't exactly well to do, despite owning land) but poor socially. Larry is the perpetual outsider, the nerdy kid reading Stephen King horror novels while everyone else is playing sports, the boy who's a constant disappointment to his hard-drinking father, the boy who wants to be popular, or just to have some friends, but he's always on the outside, pressing his nose against the glass. His childhood is a catalog of disappointments and humiliations, culminating in a disastrous first date which turns into even more of a disaster when his date never comes home. From then on, "Scary Larry" is assumed to be an unconvicted rapist/murderer. No body was ever found and they were never able to arrest him, but that doesn't stop the entire town from assuming that someday, he will be. Because of his mother, who is in declining health, Larry can't leave, and so he spends the rest of his days in quiet purgatory for a crime he didn't commit.

In contrast to Larry, Silas "32" Jones grew up truly poor, a black boy from Chicago dragged to Mississippi by his mother at a young age. Although they barely have the clothes on their backs, Silas is a handsome, popular, athletic kid, and when he gets older, he enjoys the success and popularity that Larry can only dream of.

There is a secret between them - that for a little while, as children, they were friends. Now, years later, "Scary Larry" is still a pariah, Silas has returned to the town also, now as its constable, and another girl has disappeared. And then someone shoots Larry.

The unwinding of this story is a human drama that will make you feel terribly sorry for both Larry and Silas, two men who've been damned by their own guilt and inescapable pasts. The narrative is plain but evocative, putting you firmly in Mississippi today and in the early 80s... it's not the Mississippi of all those old movies or the pre-Civil Rights era, but it's still backwoods Mississippi, where White and Black can now kinda sorta be on friendly terms, but if you get too close, bad things can still happen. Where even though people pretend times have changed, an awful lot really hasn't. And nothing has ever changed for poor Larry.

This was a pretty impressive book. I teetered between 4 and 5 stars, so I'm copping out and giving it 4.5. Not quite rich or deep enough to carry 5 stars all the way to the end, but the writing and the characterization definitely makes it a worthy read, and one that would make me inclined to check out more work by this author. Highly recommended for anyone who likes a bit of crime drama with woeful, believable characters, and for fans of Southern fiction.(less)

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Apr 26, 2013 Bettie marked it as onhold

Shelves: e-book, published-2010, spring-2013, mystery-thriller

opening: THE RUTHERFORD GIRL had been missing for eight days when Larry Ott returned home and found a monster waiting in his house. It’d stormed the night before over much of the Southeast, flash floods on the news, trees snapped in half and pictures of trailer homes twisted apart. Larry, forty-one years old and single, lived alone in rural Mississippi in his parents’ house, which was now his house, though he couldn’t bring himself to think of it that way. He acted more like a curator, keeping t...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Tfitoby rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit

Deceptively good.

Town outcast, missing teen girl, the obvious happens in the minds and attitudes of the townsfolk, cops get involved.

That's basically what they would have you believe this book was about. It's not, that's just stuff that happens in the background of the story of two middle aged men, former childhood friends, whose lives were changed by an unsavoury incident in their youth and how they come to deal with who they are and what they've done. In other words, literature.

I wanted to lov...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Kathy Buchko rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Kathy by: Bea McMillion

I loved this book! Although it may be classified as crime fiction, it belongs with other great literary works, along the lines of "To Kill a Mockingbird." I loved the author's use of the southern drawl, as well as his character development. This should be a movie, giving it exposure to the non-readers out there.

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Sep 29, 2011 Kwoomac rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: award-winning, contemporary-lit, couldn-t-put-it-down, favorites, reviewed, southern-lit

Sometimes you read a sentence and think, "Exactly," and believe you could've written this same thing. other times, you read something and just think, "Wow". Tom Franklin writes like that. I love how he thinks and I love how lyrical his words are. The story is a compelling look at racism, ignorance, and small-town mentality in a southern Mississippi town. The story is suspenseful, not because you don't know who the bad guys are, but because it doesn't matter who the bad guys are. Bad things happe...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Ana Lopes rated it 1 of 5 stars

Oh. My .God. It happened. I knew it would happen. Reading the Faever books did make me stupid. It's the only thing I can think of to explain how, against all of the glowing praise this novel gets here, I found it to be so, so boring. I can't even say I read it, I literally skimmed through it.

What can I do to get my brain back,people? It seems to have shriveled up and died after I read those 5 pseudo fantasy porn books. Will I have bad taste in novels forever now? Will I dislike a book if it doe...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Kemper rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, crime-mystery, modern-lit, rednecks

The geeks may have seized a nice chunk of pop culture these days, but it’s too easy to forget that it wasn’t that long ago when reading and collecting comic books made you a bit odd. Long before remaking ’70s slasher films with as much blood as possible was considered mainstream entertainment, liking Stephen King novels or other horror books and movies might get your folks a closed door session with your teacher. Before Lord of the Rings made a gazillion dollars and won Oscars, you probably woul...more The geeks may have seized a nice chunk of pop culture these days, but it’s too easy to forget that it wasn’t that long ago when reading and collecting comic books made you a bit odd. Long before remaking ’70s slasher films with as much blood as possible was considered mainstream entertainment, liking Stephen King novels or other horror books and movies might get your folks a closed door session with your teacher. Before Lord of the Rings made a gazillion dollars and won Oscars, you probably would have gotten blank stares or called a nerd if you tried talking about hobbits and orcs to most people.

Larry Ott is a geek who was born just a bit too soon, and that’s why he completely broke my heart in this excellent book.

In a small Mississippi town, we meet Larry and Silas “32” Jones. Larry is a 41 year old white bachelor who lives in his parents’ house that he has preserved just like it was when they lived there, and he goes to work every day at the garage his father ran despite the fact he never has any customers. Larry lives with almost no interactions with other people and spends most of his time reading or visiting his mother in the rest home. When Larry was 16, he was a geek who read horror novels all the time and was considered a weirdo by everyone in his school. Larry finally scored a date with a hot girl, but unfortunately she was never seen again after he picked her up. He was never charged or convicted of a crime, but the entire community decided he killed her and he’s been an outcast ever since.

Silas is black and the local constable of a small town that is completely owned by a lumber mill. He was a baseball star in high school before tearing up his arm in college. For a brief time before Larry went on his ill-fated date, he and Larry were friends, but Silas now does everything he can to avoid contact with him. Now that a local college girl has gone missing, Larry is a prime suspect, and the events that happen will force both men to face their pasts.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. The depiction of life in a modern small town being choked out by large corporations was excellent as were the many supporting characters. It uses extensive flashbacks to set up our present day story and then fill in the blanks with the history. Even with the great setting and clever story telling, it’s the characters of Silas and Larry that really make this thing hum.

Silas is a former local hero who has returned back to the site of his previous glory, but even though most people still call him ‘32’ after his old baseball number, he spends his days directing traffic, writing tickets and riding around in a decrepit old jeep because the town can’t afford anything better.

But Larry has it even worse. Over two decades as a local boogeyman have left him isolated and stuck in a past that wasn’t that good to begin with. He’s the kind of guy who feels bad for the chickens in his coop for having to spend every day on the same patch of mud so he rigs up a mobile trailer and rotates them around different parts of his field so they can spend time in fresh grass. He lives in his quiet routine without complaint even after 25 years of being harassed by the police, barred from local businesses and churches, and being the target of frequent drunken teenage pranks. The saddest thing is that he doesn’t even seem to realize how achingly lonely he is.

This was a terrific story about how people become trapped by the perceptions that others force on them, whether they deserve the label or not.(less)

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Feb 12, 2013 Rusty rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, mystery-thriller

This is not your typical murder mystery. It's about humans - humans who abandon their friends, who are afraid to speak up when it might help someone else and finally, about a man who grew up when he finally told the entire story that had caused a town to ostracize his friend.

The story begins with Silas, a deputy, finding a body in the swamp and having the feeling that he should check on an old childhood friend, Larry. He asks another deputy to do so and Larry is found shot, laying in a pool of b...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Beth Bedee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemprary-fiction, crime-thriller

This was a very well-written book. I actually listened to it on audio. That was a little difficult at first because throughout the story, there are flashbacks. They are from different characters' perspectives and not necessarily in chronological order. Because I couldn't see the separation between paragraphs on the page, it was hard for me at first to understand what was going on. As I learned the structure, I was fine.

The narrator was excellent. His character voices were amazing. It literally s...more

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Feb 05, 2011 Gary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
New York: HarperCollins, Publishers
$24.99 - 274 pages

“MI crooked letter, crooked letter I, crooked letter, crooked letter I, humpback, humpback, I”

(how southern children are taught to spell Mississippi.)

How many times have you heard the lament, “They don’t write southern novels the way they used to”? This statement is usually followed by a catalog of classics like To Kill a Mockingbird along with a few reverent references to Truman Capote, Carson McC...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Preeti rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, goodreads-reco, fiction

I read this book thanks to a recommendation/review from Stephen. You might as well go check that out for a more thorough and in-depth review than you'll ever find here.

This is not a book I would normally have picked up on my own, so I have GoodReads to thank for it. It was worth it.

The story is about an ostracized man, Larry Ott, who lives in the deep South (of the US). Though he was never formally charged with anything, when he was young he was suspected of raping and murdering a girl by the en...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Chad Sayban rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: highly-recommended

A mechanic living a solitary existence in a rural town in southeastern Mississippi, Larry Ott is surrounded by a town that despises him for his involvement in the disappearance of a girl twenty years earlier. Silas Jones was Larry’s only pal when they were in school. Now he is the town constable and when another girl suddenly goes missing, Silas is not just forced to confront the possibility that Larry was once again involved, he must confront his own past – which is swiftly catching up with him...more A mechanic living a solitary existence in a rural town in southeastern Mississippi, Larry Ott is surrounded by a town that despises him for his involvement in the disappearance of a girl twenty years earlier. Silas Jones was Larry’s only pal when they were in school. Now he is the town constable and when another girl suddenly goes missing, Silas is not just forced to confront the possibility that Larry was once again involved, he must confront his own past – which is swiftly catching up with him and the rest of the town.

“Maybe Larry was wrong about the word friend, maybe he'd been shoved away from everybody for so long all he was a sponge for the wrongs other people did.”

Billed as a mystery, Tom Franklin’s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is also an atmospheric drama based in the deep south of the newly integrated south of the 1970s as well as the current day. While many authors have attempted to weave the past and present together in a continuous narrative, very few pull it off well. Franklin on the other hand, uses it masterfully to create the feeling of memory and the past infringing on the lives of the present. Franklin also brings to life the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of a rural small southern town including all if its grit and poverty.

First and foremost, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a character story. Larry is the centerpiece of the drama. Far from being some bumbling simpleton, Larry is a highly intelligent, though socially ostracized bookworm. His ability to turn the other cheek to the actions and attitudes of those around him endears him to us right from the start. His interplay with dirt poor, baseball star Silas brings to light all of the bigotry and social politics of the newly integrated south of the 1970s and how it has carried over into the attitudes of the community decades later. Franklin brings these characters to life with a realism that very few writers are capable of.

The plot is also extremely well done as the mysteries are unveiled in an organic, realistic flow rather than a series of shocking “gotchas”. It makes Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter absorbing, painting a picture of the town and all of its residents so vivid you really do expect to bump into one of the characters on your way out to the mailbox. And the ending is a real gem that had me wishing I could go on just a bit longer with this world.

Tom Franklin crafts a masterwork of fiction with Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. I can’t think of a single negative thing to say about the story or the writing. I highly recommend you pick yourself up a copy of it, ease back into a comfortable chair, and take pleasure in the story Franklin has produced. You won’t be disappointed.
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Jun 13, 2012 Anne (Booklady) Molinarolo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Anne (Booklady) by: Stephen

Shelves: anne-booklady-105-books-in-2012, coffee-n-books-105-in-2012, good-fiction, summer-2012, thriller-mystery

“The Rutherford girl had been missing eight days when Larry Ott returned home and found a monster waiting in his house.”

He is not surprised. Larry had been an outcast for as long as he could remember. He was an odd child: he loved to read, he was mechanically disinclined, and he was the only child of lower - middle class parents. His mother prayed that he would find a friend and he did in Silas Jones, the son of a single poor woman. They were as different as day and night. Larry was white. Sila...more “The Rutherford girl had been missing eight days when Larry Ott returned home and found a monster waiting in his house.”

He is not surprised. Larry had been an outcast for as long as he could remember. He was an odd child: he loved to read, he was mechanically disinclined, and he was the only child of lower - middle class parents. His mother prayed that he would find a friend and he did in Silas Jones, the son of a single poor woman. They were as different as day and night. Larry was white. Silas was black. This difference was paramount in the late 1970’s in rural Mississippi, but friends they were until Carl Ott forced them to fight and an ugly utterance softly left one boy’s lips. The two boys still stole glances at the other for a few years until Cindy Walker went missing after a drive-in movie date with Larry. He told everyone, he didn’t know where she was; the county’s Sheriff and residents didn’t believe him. No body was found. No charges were filed, and he’d gone from “crazy” Larry to “scary” Larry with no friends and no customers at his car repair shop. Silas “32” Jones has returned after 20 years and is the small town’s Constable. He believes Larry is guilty of kidnapping Tina Rutherford. His belief has nothing to do with the suspicions around Larry, though. “32” has several secrets of his own. Will he have to disclose them to lift suspicions from his former boyhood pal? Does he really want to?

Guilt, betrayal, and friendship run through Tom Franklin’s beautifully written novel. It isn’t your typical mystery thriller. There is a psychological thriller undertone to CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER but the real story is the friendship of the young Larry and Silas and how the adult Silas views his relationship with Larry 25 years later. The mysteries are woven into the men’s stories as flashbacks during Silas’ investigation. My heart reached out to Larry and Silas. I won’t forget these wonderful characters for a very long time. Tom Franklin captures the mood and dialogue of the rural South in the late 70’s and early 80’s to a Tee. I was in Mobile, AL then, and I can attest to it. It is an easy read that a reader can’t put down, because Franklin has the reader’s emotions in his hands until the very last word.
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Jan 26, 2013 MichelleCH rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fic, favorites, group-reads, mystery, suspense

This is not my usual kind of book to read. Contemporary fiction and books focused in the South generally don't appeal to me, so I really appreciate the groups I have joined here which have broadened my reading horizons, without a group read, I would certainly have missed this excellent novel.

The relationships and connections the author details kept me turning the pages and I finished this book in record time. It felt authentic and real. Every one of the chatacters were believable. From page one...more

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May 17, 2012 Snotchocheez rated it 5 of 5 stars

Do you ever wonder what the secret formula is for commercial success of a novel these days? How Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" and Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" can dominate the NY Times Bestseller List for 2 years ? (as of this writing, Ms. Stockett's ode to the hired help in Mississippi has been in the top ten for NINETY weeks. 1 1/2 years. How?!?!) A special alignment in the stars? A feeling of transcendence for the reader? Or is it just another example of THE OPRAH EFFECT?

Consider the ma...more Do you ever wonder what the secret formula is for commercial success of a novel these days? How Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" and Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" can dominate the NY Times Bestseller List for 2 years ? (as of this writing, Ms. Stockett's ode to the hired help in Mississippi has been in the top ten for NINETY weeks. 1 1/2 years. How?!?!) A special alignment in the stars? A feeling of transcendence for the reader? Or is it just another example of THE OPRAH EFFECT?

Consider the marketing campaign for Tom Franklin's remarkable, Mississippi-centric (and Pulitzer Prize-worthy) novel "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter") (a novel with tremendous potential commercial appeal): How do you get the uninitiated (i.e. those who've not yet been acquainted with Mr. Franklin's talent) to read this thing? A creepy cool cover certainly helps; laudatory quotes on the jacket from a fellow author with impeccable "sense of place" (Dennis Lehane) and a Pulitzer Prize winner (Richard Russo). At first I questioned the use of a lavish praise-y quote from an author (brazenly included ABOVE the title) whose (arguably inferior) novel benefitted greatly from an endorsement by Oprah (David Wroblewski, who penned "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle"), but then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Oprah nay-sayers be damned: what better way to sell this nascent not-yet-classic-but-destined-to-become-one quasi-thriller and character study (and tale of loss and redemption, certainly Oprah-worthy tenets of superior fiction) than to directly market it to Oprah's legion of readers? The time is well nigh for Tom Franklin to become a household name (and join the pantheon of superior Southern US writers like William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Tennessee Williams, et.al.), and if this requires the endorsement of a (in my mind, anyway) dubious arbiter of talent in literature, then so be it.

I intentionally waited a few months after reading this to write a review because I wanted to see if its gritty realism "had legs" and continued to resound in my mind. It does, and my contention is, it will for you, too. Like his other works, Mr. Franklin's tale defies genre-pigeonholing, but at first blush resembles an eerie dual-murder mystery: set in deep Mississippi (whence the title originates: "M-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-I-Humpback-Humpback-I) and alternating in narrative between present day and 30-or-so years ago to the days of forced desegregation in the school systems there, it focuses on the relationship between two unlikely friends: "Scary" Larry Ott, a shy, reticent book-loving white son of a mechanic and Silas Jones, a recently-transplanted-to-the-south black kid (who along with his mother, take advantage of Larry's father's largesse in staying on Mr. Ott's property in their time of dire need) with a penchant for sports. Their relationship changes demonstrably as they grow up and grow apart, and subsequent to a disappearance of a local girl (never totally explained, but local lore attributing her disappearance to "Scary" Larry) their lives' paths do not cross for 30 years, when a murder in the community brings them back together again...with tragic consequences.

As a thriller, it's a little uneven, a little predictable (but still effective); as a character study, it stings and crackles and burns under the skin; as a socio-economic statement, it serves admirably as an indictment against the self-perpetuation of poverty in a Walmart economy in the rural south; as a poignant descriptor of race-relations in today's southern US, it's dead-on perfect. While books like "The Lovely Bones" and "The Help" (both, mind you, perfectly good books) dominate best seller lists, it would be nice to finally have a book that DESERVES commercial recognition to be up there with the Stephanie Myers and James Patterson-esque cookie-cutter books that don't at all deserve it.

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Mar 13, 2013 Nicole rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book well enough. It was a well-written story with all too familar themes of racial tensions after de-segregation. The author tells the story from the past and present perspectives of two childhood friends, one white and one black, in a seemless manner as if the characters are reliving those experiences. This book is not meant to a page turner. I think that author intends for the reader to be absorbed into the chacaters' lives so I never had that feeling of not being able to turn th...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Lakeshia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I read the reviews and most of them were favorable. I ran out and purchased this book. After finishing it tonight I must say I was disappointed. I expected to love it but it was missing the wow factor for me. I did not connect with the characters at all. The imagery was good but the story wasn't strong. The idea was there but it was executed poorly. For me it was just OK.

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Nov 01, 2012 Evanston Public Library added it

Shelves: fiction

Though Franklin's novel contains some grisly murders, the heart of the story is that of boyhood pals Larry--white, shy, lonely, and Silas--poor, black, athletic, popular. Both had a difficult childhoods, and barely acknowledge each other now over twenty years later though their complicated relationship goes very deep. As a teen Larry was the prime suspect when a girl went missing though the evidence was only circumstantial and he was never indicted. He's been ostracized by his small rural commun...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Anita Laydon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Most of us are lucky enough to know people we can depend on, people we can trust for good, solid advice. When it comes to book recommendations, I often read the blurbs on book jackets. If I read a blurb from an author I enjoy reading, I trust the book they’re praising is also one I’ll enjoy.

When I noticed Dennis Lehane’s recommendation blurb on Tom Franklin’s “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter,” I had to give the book a shot. Lehane is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I featured his work in...more Most of us are lucky enough to know people we can depend on, people we can trust for good, solid advice. When it comes to book recommendations, I often read the blurbs on book jackets. If I read a blurb from an author I enjoy reading, I trust the book they’re praising is also one I’ll enjoy.

When I noticed Dennis Lehane’s recommendation blurb on Tom Franklin’s “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter,” I had to give the book a shot. Lehane is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I featured his work in two separate Book Groupie columns, something I’ve done for only a couple other authors.

Lehane’s blurb calls “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” a “cause for celebration,” and I agree. The book is ripe with good, old-fashioned story-telling. The sentences are long when the mood calls for it, sparse when that’s all that’s needed. Franklin puts readers into the heads of his characters, and he makes the setting—rural Mississippi—an important character as well.

The story weaves in and out of two time periods, the 1970’s and more than twenty years later. Two characters are followed through these periods, their lives crossing in unexpected ways. One character is an unusual white male, Larry Ott. As a kid, Larry was bullied by his father and his classmates. He never had any real friends, except for the second main character, Silas Jones.

Silas is the son of a poor black single mother. He excels in sports and is popular in school, despite the racial tensions that exist in his small town. Silas surreptitiously befriends Larry for a few months of their childhood. The experience marks both their lives forever.

While in high school, Larry takes a local girl to a drive-in movie and never returns her home. The entire town believes Larry has killed the girl, but there’s no evidence to support the suspicions. Larry is ostracized in the community, and more than twenty years later, when another local girl goes missing, Larry becomes the sole suspect.

Silas is a constable investigating the second girl’s disappearance. While searching for the girl, he also searches his own heart. He decides it’s time to reveal a secret he’s been carrying around for decades—one that may take suspicion off Larry, but place it on himself.

I’m glad I trusted Lehane, and I hope you’ll trust me. “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” is a book worth reading.

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Apr 14, 2013 Debbie W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: around-the-states, read-in-2013

I have had this book on my TBR for a while and have heard such rave reviews about it recently that I decided it was time to move it up. It also worked for two of my challenges for this week. This book is a little difficult to describe as it is a thriller in a round-about way. It is more of a life lesson in that everything is not always what it seems to be. The prose was well written and both main characters were well described. It was easy to understand both men even though they are extremely di...more

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About Tom Franklin

Tom Franklin was born and raised in Dickinson, Alabama. He held various jobs as a struggling writer living in South Alabama, including working as a heavy-equipment operator in a grit factory, a construction inspector in a chemical plant and a clerk in a hospital morgue. In 1997 he received his MFA from the University of Arkansas. His first book, Poachers was named as a Best First Book of Fiction b...more

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“Maybe Larry was wrong about the word friend, maybe he'd been shoved away from everybody for so long all he was was a sponge for the wrongs other people did.” — 6 people liked it

“Was that what childhood was? Things rushing by out a window, the trees connected by motion, going too fast for him to notice the consequences?” — 5 people liked it

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