Tomato red by Daniel Woodrell Review

Too bad – if you were born in the Ozarks, you have bad luck. The vast hilly plateau region in rural Midwestern United States that large parts of the states of Missouri and Arkansas make up and extend as far as Oklahoma and Kansas, is a very, very conservative area. Reich remains rich and poor remains poor. And who was born in Venus Holler, a seedy district in the middle, was particularly bad cards that ever something better out of it is.

But Jamalee Merridew wants to know. She is nineteen and has only one ambition: to get out. That she has anger inside and rebellion in the blood that signal visible from its tomato-red hair. With her younger brother Jason, they could create an escape from their underdog -Existence. Jason looks so stunning that it all females immediately expire. That’s why he is the only one in the family who actually brings money home. All customers of the local barbershop want to be served by him.

This attraction raise her own shop, of course, “in a wealthy neighborhood where people spend their money only because so they do not need it rumschleppen with him,” which is Jamalees business idea.

The thing is, of course a catch. The lovely Jason is gay. Under the Hillbillies in the remote valleys of the Ozarks is a damn dangerous predisposition. Still, the fights pretty desperate to make a something out of his miserable existence, the main thing it comes a bit upward, Sammy Barlach, 24, the first-person narrator.

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So far it is not yet much succeeded in life. He has seen inside of a prison, now attracts around and is (to which the district belongs Venus Holler) in the barren West Table stuck. As he has found a job in a dog food factory, housed in a loud bums in a trailer park and hits his free time with beer, tequila and Crank dead. He is also keen on the girl with the Mausezähnchen. The has a great idea. There is an elegant villa empty and invites him outright that he falls, while the stinking rich owners are away

Only those who dare can win, and incidentally hopes Sammy that it For really great his new friends when he does the not risk-free job. Through a small window of “kindly” inferior quality, he lands hard in a completely different world. As he roams amazement the exclusive surroundings, wrapped in pleasant scents, his gaze falls on never-before-seen objects that he could not call by name once – furniture, accessories, souvenirs from around the world. “My mind … stumbled two or three paces behind my body here,” and he starts to philosophise: “A place of this caliber exposes you as a failure and makes you that you yourself want as a tiny speck of dust discriminate against you Nothing that only the planet messes on which this worthy representative live so grand and wish they could and your kind you keep “.

the role that this situation may refer to it, it is aware of” scum. ” To accept to yield an urgent rage and beat everything to bits is resisting a temptation Sammy. Not out of insight into the concrete hard immutability of the conditions in the Ozarks, but because befuddled him Crank . Rather he uses in the spacious kitchen of vodka and cheese and is in a good night’s sleep slide. In the morning it wakes a well-styled young couple. They lead him through the house in all its glory, tell this and that from their travels around the world, ask him out a little as it related to an application, and finally propose him as “security” for the estate of the family to hire, and show him his new room.

“Cursed class” takes Sammy that. Strangely only to the two for a sign of the boy back quickly from the dust make. When the cops move in, it dawns Sammy that he has disgraced himself as “added dröhnter idiot” and the two also were just burglars, albeit much smarter than him. So Jamalee, Jason and Sammy have found each other and stay together as a trio. Who knows, calculated Jamalee whether the man she and her brother can not be useful for her breakout from Venus Holler and their rise in the world.

“You can crawl beneath us.” The invitation of the two siblings followed Sammy only too happy, however much he longs for friendship and family connection. In the form of mother Bev him is both and even more given. Forty years ( “a Barbie, who had gone with Truck Stop whiskey and fried chicken from the glue”) operates as an opportunity prostitutes, preparing among others the Ortscop now and then a few happy hours and now includes Sammy in her voluminous heart.

Unfortunately Jamalees plans soon find an abrupt end. Jason is found dead in a marshy pond. Although the water is so shallow that “you here already needs help to drown,” the police make no big fuss and hooked the event afloat from an accident. Daniel Woodrells social thriller paints a depressing, hopeless picture of a solidified company that is sorted simply by rich and poor and to where to move anything now and in the future. In any case, according to those who call the shots. The “low elements” can therefore yapping still so much and to bite, they are “only soft, loamy dirt, can trample on the all at any time.” The three heroes make every effort, with an old “conduct book” their “social costume that our humble origins revealed at first glance,” store. “We are simply not grown up with decent values.

We will have to learn it by heart,” Jamalee drives her boys. But their transformation efforts have no chance. In vain Sammy will eventually show its teeth, the “hero” play, commit a brutal murder. She has no sense or system, and not even a connection with what he was important, but at least it is one reason that he tells us his story. “Now you know everything,” he concludes. The so-called better society also occurs, but disqualified himself viciously. Already with the birth of the gentlemen will be represented all the benefits and opportunities for advancement.

What then is different from the have-nots (and what they consider to be so desirable that they are willing to radically deform), are hollow externals – Gold Clunkers Shoes, “which were so ugly that they cost a fortune had” , tawdry styled villas, fine fuss, snobbish-arrogant phrases. Behind the glitter facade conceals a swamp of Immoral. This simple black and white image of society, the author likes operated course always read clichés, but they are wonderfully packaged. Totally unspoiled enjoyment prepares Daniel Woodrells narrative style.

He is a master of language, and his translator, the indefatigable Peter Torberg is his equal by the German language again creates with all its unusual, expressive submission, smashing, rough, tough, poetic sentences. The author’s hobby seems it is the personalization. He provides us with as small beads ( “Since the ham comes with Bev.”), But also like spreads whole motif rugs from ( “A freight train was traveling and swore with his loud horn at each level crossing the road, an insult that one for miles could hear. “-” I was the evil that I was always on his heels, see already squatting on the edge of the campfire, it yawned, desks in the teeth, lying in wait “).

The poetry of his unvarnished images is often disconcerting, both beautiful and frightening, full of understanding and disgust (Venus Holler “was a sink full of small square houses that are a little inclined to the side like a bunch of drinkers who do not hear so good anymore. “). A dense local-color atmosphere in the best American narrative tradition draws on the reader. Daniel Woodrell has ” Tomato Red </ span > “Daniel Woodrell: “Tomato Red” at”