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Dec 22, 2011

Stephen rated it:

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 mo More...

35 comments like (99 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

karen rated it:

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 More...

70 comments like (82 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2011

Reese rated it:

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 More...

6 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Kathy rated it:

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.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2011

Trudi rated it:

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.

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 readi More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 21, 2011

Kemper rated it:

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 wo More...

15 comments like (34 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2011

Beth rated it:

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 l More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2011

Gary rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Preeti rated it:

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 murder More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Ardene is currently reading it

Set in present-day Mississippi (with trips into the 1970s/80s), this is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. The two main characters, Larry and Silas, meet one cold winter morning when Larry's father Carl stops to pick Silas and his mother up from the side of the road while driving Larry to school. The boys are on opposite sides of the color line, and Larry is a social misfit, but since Silas and his mother live on Larry's family's property, a friendship of sorts develops between the two adolescents More...

0 comments like

Jan 27, 2012

Greg rated it:

I'm fairly certain that my reaction to books is dependent on things going on outside of the text itself. Certain books read at certain times of my life affected me in ways that I can't imagine they would affect me now. Other times the shit that is going on in my life makes me unable to give a book that I might otherwise really enjoy the kind of attention, or mood, or something that it really deserves.

Is this one of those books?

Maybe.

I see gushing reviews for t More...

12 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2012

Sarahdev rated it:

I thought this book was worth taking the time to read, but I think that my review of it, in general, is tamed very much from the average reader because of my career choices and the people I encounter on a daily basis.

In Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter there are a number of criminal suspects, each from a different category of people. Larry, the protagonist, is an accused man, rejected by society, but honestly a good person at heart - one who perhaps has sacrificed his own life seeki More...

0 comments like

Jan 08, 2012

Roberta rated it:

This ebook was an impulse purchase after receiving my new Kindle Touch for Christmas (love the reader!), and the story was not a disappointment! I will not kid you—some of it is difficult to read, partly because of the deep south slang (if you read “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, you will have a clue), but mostly because of the miles-deep, almost debilitating sadness so beautifully and painfully portrayed by the author! The kind of sadness that makes your chest ache unrelentingly.

T More...

0 comments like

Jan 07, 2012

Marianne rated it:

In an a botched attempt to escape the crime and forensics-infested primetime television I stumbled on to this book, and found myself in a crime novel. I said the attempt was botched. Really botched, because the crimes in the novel are against women. (Why is that the hip thing to write about right now? Let's do something about it, not glorify it!) However, the characters were compelling enough (and the violence not so gratuitously grotesque)to keep reading to the end.

As you might gues More...

0 comments like

Jan 02, 2012

Susan rated it:

Can you say the 1970's are historical? Then I guess it is -- as am I.

Crooked Letter, Crooked letter. This is a a well written and thought out novel. The weird Larry Ott and Silas create an unusual friendship in Mississippi which as high school rolls around changes. As do friendships. When Larry takes a girl to the movies, and she is never seen again, well everything changes forever.

20 years later Silas returns as the constable he is forced to deal with the past, and Larr More...

0 comments like

Dec 27, 2011

Susan rated it:

I LOVED this book. LOVED it. I don't typically use all-caps to emphasize my feelings for anything, but I think this merits at least a few all-caps words. I stumbled upon this book at a local bookstore because one of the staff members had written a little blurb about it - something to the effect that it stayed with him for a while, and that it was so deftly written (okay - I'm not sure if he used the word 'deftly,' but if he didn't, then he should have). The story's sense of place--rural Mis More...

0 comments like

Dec 06, 2011

Allyson rated it:

This was a great novel, bringing a small Mississippi town to life in vivid detail. Two young boys, Larry & Silas - one white, one black - are friends until life's circumstances take them different directions and then back together again. It is a story of good and evil, persecution and redemption, friendship and betrayal, secrets and truths. It is a story of life and one of those rare books that make you look at the world around you differently. Larry Ott, a 41 year old white bachelor, is one More...

0 comments like

Dec 01, 2011

Sarah rated it:

I appreciated this book. Franklin is an excellent writer, and he created honest and true characters - characters that I loved while having no problem being angry at them and wanting to curse them. They were authentic without being caricatured.

I think the Edgar Award Nominee seal on the front of the book is something of a misnomer. Honestly, I don't see why it was nominated for an Edgar Award. Not that I don't think it was good - it was great - but I don't see it as a mystery or More...

1 comment like

Nov 22, 2011

Grkchkruns rated it:

I wasn't sure about this book. I think it was the Mississippi lifestyle that I find hard to get into. I will humbly say how WRONG I was. More than the story, it was the way Mr. Franklin unfolded it that made it a page-turner for me. Things revealed that I didn't see coming. OK, maybe I wasn't looking too hard, but still, almost every chapter had it's mini-cliff-hanger. Wonderful use of flashback. Excellent character development. Yes, another reviewer suggested a movie. Any screenwriters More...

0 comments like

Nov 09, 2011

Judy rated it:

Mississippi changed a lot between the 1970s and the first decade of the 21st century. And life certainly changed for Larry Ott, a white child raised in the lower-middle class, and Silas "32" Jones, a black child raised by a poor, single mother. Living in a small rural community in Mississippi, for a short time, Larry and Silas were friends--secret friends--but friends nonetheless. During their teenage years, Larry took a very popular girl to the drive-in, she disappeared, and her bo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 21, 2011

Book Concierge rated it:

In a small Mississippi town, two young boys, one white and the other black, hide their friendship. When they are in high school a young girl goes missing after a date with one of the boys. Her disappearance is never solved, but the town assumes he killed her and they persecute him. Meanwhile the other boy moves away and goes to college. Now, years later, Silas has returned to Chabot as a police constable. Larry is still ostracized and tormented by the local teens. When another young girl goes mi More...

0 comments like

Oct 19, 2011

Sara rated it:

This is a mystery in the grand tradition of southern gothic. There's a white girl, missing for twenty years. A town full of gossips. A father with a disappointing white son and a secret black son. A peculiar white loner. A black baseball star returned to his home town after his glory days are over. A younger white girl gone missing just days ago.

But this is also southern gothic with a slightly less terrifying edge than your average Faulkner novel. Yes, the horrors of racism, repress More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 01, 2011

Gloria rated it:

Whether this novel is a mystery, or a story about two men, or a tale about the Deep South, it is a riveting look into the characters, their development and their environment. Larry and Silas, one white and the other black, were boyhood friends for a short time in Rural Mississippi more than a quarter of a century before (where children were taught to spell the name of the State and river: M, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback, I). They a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 20, 2011

Shannon rated it:

A solid four stars- probably higher for some. Larry and Silas are two complete opposites and end up affecting each other lives greatly- one by simply being who he is and the other by not fully being who he could be.
This is not a crime book or a mystery; you know what is going to happen, it is just a matter of how it will all unfold. I think the book could have been better if there was a bit more mystery around the events; hold something back a bit. Surprise us.
There were some More...

0 comments like

Sep 12, 2011

Lucinda rated it:

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (William Morrow 2010) is the story of two men who were once boyhood friends. When Silas Jones was 14, his mother brought him back to her hometown of Chabot, moving into a rustic cabin owned by Larry Ott’s father. In the late 1970s in rural Mississippi, the two boys can’t be school friends since Silas is black and Larry is white, but they secretly meet to hunt, fish, and hang out together. Larry, who was a childhood stutterer and asthmatic, was never accepted at sch More...

0 comments like

Sep 11, 2011

Lisa rated it:

I was so anxious to read this book after reading some great reviews of fellow bloggers. I waited two months for it at the library, then went ahead and downloaded the Kindle version instead. It is s quick read with easy southern dialogue. Franklin paints a truthful, vivid picture of life in Southern Mississippi and the effect that years of accusations can have on one man and the sense of shame on another for not standing by his old friend.

The story is not a complicated one and is wr More...

0 comments like

Sep 08, 2011

Nancy rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Sep 04, 2011

Teresa rated it:

Two characters in rural Mississippi with totally different lives collide in this book that begins in the 70's and concludes in the present. Larry,who is white and a social outcast in high school, manages to get a date with his neighbor shocking everyone including himself. Silas, a popular African American athlete in high school, seems to have very little if anything in common with Larry until the story begins to unfold. The girl Larry takes out on a date vanishes the night of the date and with n More...

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Aug 29, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Super good! M, I, crooked-letter, crooked-letter, I, crooked-letter, crooked-letter, I, humpback, humback, I. That's how some students in the South were taught how to spell Mississippi.

Larry Ott and Silas Jones make an unlikely pair. Larry comes from a middle-class, white family, whereas Silas is poor and black. Regardless of their class and racial differences, they start a friendship in high school and enjoy spending hours exploring the woods together. Larry takes a neighborh More...

0 comments like

Aug 22, 2011

Katie rated it:

This was a very well-written, sultry, very Southern murder mystery. Two old friends (sort of) relive long-past history when a new murder mirrors a very old one. Of course, nothing is as it seems.... The only reason I didn't rate it higher was because I didn't find it to be that much of a "page-turner," although I think I'm in the minority AND I don't think that should necessarily be the be-all-and-end-all characteristic of a good murder mystery. But I did find it sluggish at times and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)