Anyone interested in Southern US contemporary fiction who hasn't yet made acquaintance with Tom Franklin needs to do so. If you prefer a slice of the old South, 2003's Hell at the Breach , while super violent, is just a terrific (and terrifying) fictional account of a real skirmish in South Alabama. If the old stuff doesn't float your boat, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter : part thriller, part examination of race relations in today's Mississippi. If you're a Cormac McCarthy fan (an author that Franklin cites as an influence on his Goodreads profile page), you may want to give Smonk a try. Anyone that knows me at all on here is probably done hearing my rants on McCarthy's annoying penchant for ditching quotation marks. Not only does Frankin try with Smonk to emulate McCarthy, it's almost like he's trying to purposely out-McCarthy McCarthy here, right up to ditching the quotes and adding as much violent imagery and degredation as possible. The violence is so gruesome here it's almost comedy (and is hilarious, if your tolerance for said base behavior is high.) What I cannot understand: why Franklin felt compelled to completely copy McCarthy's style. He'd already established his own distinctive style before 2006's Smonk, why make an overt attempt to emulate McCarthy? - Smonk's complete title Smonk, or, Widow Town: being the scabrous adventures of EO Smonk & of the Whore Evavangelina in Clarke County, Alabama, early in the last century pretty much gives you the idea that this is not going to be your typical western. Nope, not by a long shot. From the git-go, you know this Smonk guy is one bad (and disgusting) dude. We see him hauled into court in Old Texas, AL with a laundry list of offenses, from prostitution to murder.(not to mention he's begoitered and has a glass eye that pops out at inopportune moments). We find out quickly why Old Texas becomes known as Widow Town (as you might intuit, Smonk pretty much mows down the male populace of the town.) and also find out the role of the Whore Evavangelina (it's not exactly for comic relief as that cumbersome name might indicate). Despite this being an overt McCarthy smackdown of sorts, and disgustingly violent, I still liked this, just nowhere near as much as Hell at the Breach. There are threshholds of violence one can endure when that violence becomes so pervasive it turns into parody. I'd really only recommend Smonk for die-hard Franklin fans (with iron constitutions); otherwise, avoid this and read anything else of his. But make sure you do read something of his. You won't regret it.
smonk! excuse me, smonk!!!smonk smonk smonk smonk smonknow isn't that fun to say??one more time: smonk i would rather just keep saying "smonk" than write this book report, even though i thoroughly enjoyed the book. it is just too tempting to smonk.now i understand...okay, but for serious, because goodreads is a place for the serious reviews of books, not just a place for made-up words that shout at you float after float after float.this is my second tom franklin, and while i don't think it was as good as crooked letter, crooked letter, it was a great read.this book is a carnival of gore and unfortunate physical malformations and sex and cults and a parade of offensive behavior. this is not a book club book for ladies whose last book was the help. this is not even maybe a book for people who liked crooked letter. this is like mccarthy meets burroughs meets brautigan meets donoso all hopped up on mescaline.animals will die. people will die. the streets will be flooded in blood and death will occur in the most improbable ways. underage prostitutes will murder their johns and seduce little boys all for a dollar. birds will eat human eyeballs outta living men.there will be cross-dressing and racism and sodomy and a glass eyeball will be repeatedly swallowed and ...recovered. someone stabbed in the stomach will leak bloody rice from his wound. dogs will be burned.but it is all presented comedically. or i read it that way. it is an absurdist book which eventually ends on a giggle, if you can giggle around all the vomit sure to be filling your mouth.(maybe i should have stopped at smonk.)i could probably write a better review of this, but right now i am too busy giggling over smonk.perhaps i will return to this someday. call it a float.
Do You like book Smonk (2006)?
I honestly do not know what to say about this book. Except that it was so twisted. I don't even know how to rate it. Some parts were wonderfully written, and Tom Franklin sure knows how to write interesting characters. This is my second book by Tom Franklin, after Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. I was not expecting this. It was gruesome, like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Including the random fountains of blood and body parts flying everywhere. And the things these people do with glass eyeballs and gigantic facial moles...has no one heard of hygiene? Or decency? Or just not being disgusting? Even after all that, I kept reading because Smonk and Evangeline were the type of characters that you just have to keep reading about. Even if you don't particularly like them. But that's ok because there was no one in this book who was likeable. Not even the children.I liked the humor and obvious *nudge, nudge, wink, wink* that Tom Franklin wrote with. Which reminded me again of Quentin Tarantino. It was absurd and everyone, everyone had a fixation on penises. There were penises everywhere. Not all of them were attached.This isn't a book many people will like, unless they don't mind gruesome and twisted. I thought it was hilarious. Just, please, don't let your mother skim through it! (Sorry mom)
—Amanda
Tom Franklin's got talent to burn -- but "Smonk" turned out to be something I respect more than like.The description led me to anticipate an anarchic satire like Tom Sharpe's "Riotous Assembly". It's nothing of the sort. "Smonk" is a dense Southern Gothic affair that reminds me of Faulkner, and not in the best way. It's not overly long, and it's not given to Faulkner's run-on sentences, but I found it a chore to get through rather than a pleasure. There are gleams of humor, but it's more incidental.Eventually, "Smonk" turns out to be about a bizarre religious cult, and that's not exactly new ground. Franklin does put his own unique spin on it, and his language and imagery can often be dazzling. If I had to compare this to anything else, though, it would be "And the Ass Saw the Angel" by Nick Cave. Franklin doesn't run amok with five-dollar vocabulary words the way Cave did, but the central theme is quite similar, and so is the feeling of an ambitious effort that doesn't match expectations.
—Rory Costello
Here we have a Tom Franklin novel masquerading as a Cormac McCarthy novel, quotation mark-less and spare. It features E.O. Smonk, a one-eyed, goitered, syphilitic, tuberculous killing machine. Also Evavangeline, a fifteen year old, fiery-locked whore prone to biting.But what begins as a McCarthy rip-off grows into so much more, a completely unexpected genre mashup with a rich mythology and twists and turns to boot. I can't even describe what happens without giving it away, but if you read this book, you're in for a crazy ride.
—Christopher
