Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter in Around the World in 80 Books

Jun 29, 2018 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018, friend-love, pulitzerandrunnersupandmore, crime-thriller-suspense, literary

4.5 stars. This is a brilliantly-written book that was much more than what I typically expect from books of this genre.

We follow a black man and a white man from the same community back and forth from the past, when they were boys, to the present, after one of them was shot. It is not always an easy read due to the subject matter, but definitely a worthwhile one.

Sometimes authors can overdo figurative language. This author did it masterfully and wonderfully and the book is worth reading for th ...more

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Aug 30, 2017 Rachel N. rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2017, mystery, friendship, crime, disappearance, reading-road-trip-u-s, mississippi

Larry Ott, a white mostly outcast child, and Silas Jones, a poor African American child, form a friendship during one summer but are soon torn apart. Larry is later suspected of murdering a girl he took on a date after she disappears. Twenty years later another girl disappears and Larry is once again suspected while Silas is the local constable. Not so much a mystery as a story of the two men and their lives. I really liked both of the main characters and enjoyed switching between their pasts an ...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Suzanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mysteries

Very powerful story. Really excellent character development. I felt like I was there in southern Mississippi.

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Apr 12, 2011 Juliana Philippa rated it really liked it

Shelves: advance-reading-copy-or-galley, amazon-vine-program, race-relations, 0-own-in-dead-tree-form, 0-own-avg-rating-3-point-8-plus, 2011-apr-reads, fiction, 0-reviewed, 4-to-5-stars, 0-own

Highly recommend; a book of quiet strength, about the choices we make and the indelible effect they have

This book was often heartbreakingly sad, but a wonderful read that I highly recommend. While Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter took me awhile to get into, I read the last 250 pages in one sitting late into the night. From the beginning there are certain things the reader pretty much knows, but there is still a great deal of mystery in the story. Franklin does a good job of achieving a nice balanc Highly recommend; a book of quiet strength, about the choices we make and the indelible effect they have

This book was often heartbreakingly sad, but a wonderful read that I highly recommend. While Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter took me awhile to get into, I read the last 250 pages in one sitting late into the night. From the beginning there are certain things the reader pretty much knows, but there is still a great deal of mystery in the story. Franklin does a good job of achieving a nice balance between the two and of drawing you steadily in until you feel that a need to know the truth about these characters and what happened.

Silas and Larry seem to be relatively clear and simple characters at the beginning, but their complexities and dimensions are subtly revealed as the story progresses, the book being mainly about these two men and how their lives intertwined and connected. The book flashes between the past and the present until they eventually converge, but the transitions are done smoothly and there is not so much back and forth as to leave the reader feeling lost - several chapters go by before you return to the other time period.

The book is a difficult read emotionally due to the overwhelming sadness woven throughout the story. The characters and their lives often border on the tragic, though in simple and real ways. Loneliness, exclusion, isolation, loss, regret, longing, guilt - these things seem to define the characters' lives, but there is also a strength that we see in many of them and in their ability to continue and survive. You sense Larry's shame and longing to belong when he is made fun of or tries to fit in with the kids at school and you feel his loneliness as he sits in his auto shop everyday without a single customer or anyone to even talk to. Ina (Larry's mom) and Alice (Silas') were also very tragic characters and though seemingly small in the context of the overall plot, the boys' relationships with their mothers (both past and present) were very well-crafted and added a certain depth to all four characters.

One of the biggest dilemmas with these types of stories is how to finish them - at least that's how I feel as a reader - and as I approached the end of the book I was torn between whether I wanted a tragically poetic end or one of resolution and closure - which has the additional danger of bordering on the corny and overly sentimental. I obviously don't want to give anything away, so I will just say that the ending Franklin gives us was, in my view, absolutely perfect.

BOTTOM LINE
I definitely recommend Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter and also think it would be ideal for a book group, providing a wealth of topics and issues to discuss and debate. The plot draws you in and the story was well-done; it makes you think about the different choices one makes and how certain decisions can impact other people's lives, sometimes indelibly. In my opinion, the characters are the book's greatest strength: you end up truly caring about them and feeling invested in their lives. Without some type of connection to a book's characters, its story can only affect you so much and take you so far, so I think that when an author is able to create both characters that pull at some part of you and a story that makes you debate and think and feel, he or she has done what they are supposed to do as writers.
[This review is of an advanced copy format of the book]

(Note: There were more than several typos throughout the book, however since this was an advanced reader copy, I am assuming/hoping they were fixed in the final edition.) ...more

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Aug 13, 2011 MichelleCH rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

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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Aug 16, 2021 Missyjohnson1 rated it liked it · review of another edition

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

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Jan 12, 2012 Mary rated it really liked it

What a wonderful book; an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi in the late '70s. Larry Ott and Silas Jones were boyhood pals. The boys were different as day and night. One growing up in a white, poor family and the other black with a single mother. They somehow stepped outside their differences and became best buddies until tragedy struck. Their friendship was broken and then regained after twenty years. The book is atmospheric and has extremely well developed characters. I found myself no ...more

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Mar 09, 2014 Kathleen Valentine rated it really liked it

Nicely written with some very engaging characters and an interesting plot. For years Larry Ott has suffered under the suspicion that he once raped and murdered a local girl who disappeared when they were teens. Now a second girl goes missing and Larry has been shot. But nothing is what it seems to be. I really enjoyed both Larry and Silas, his old friend and the town sheriff. Well done.

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