Marty's review
Tender As Hellfire by Joe Meno
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 they go. It's Joe Meno's first novel, and it comes off that way. He tries very hard to convince us that he is a novelist and does deserve to be published by using too many metaphors, reaching for poetic similies way too often and burdening us with wordiness. If you find the first release, don't read it. He recently went over it again and relieved the book of some wordy strain in the new paperback. UPDATE: I see some people compare him to Salinger, and I would not. I was bored by nine stories, but ...more
