viktor_haag | Recently read: Tomato Red

Busted Flush Press, a small independent imprint focussed on "fine thrillers and hard-boiled crime fiction reprints", has reprinted Daniel Woodrell's "Tomato Red", a short crime thriller from '98, published eight years before "Winter's Bone". I so liked the latter that I immediately yanked the former off the shelf when I saw it at my FLBS.

Is it as good as "Winter's Bone"? No. But it's still very good.

"Tomato Red" is, structurally, a formulaic noir narrative. Marginal, well-spoken loser gets mixed up in circumstances that he can't resist: he's led by his pants, the emptiness in his wallet, a sad over-valuation of his abilities, and some ambiguous sense that something better might lie out there that he can grasp. And the reader can fully see that things will not end well: how could they possible do so? It's awfully hard to enlist the reader's sympathy in any of these characters: there's not much nobility in poverty-stricken loserhood. These folks have not much at all to recommend them, barely a chipped cookie jar of crumbs.

The femme fatale for whom the book is named is Lomanesque in her mistaken conviction of entitlement. She's so certain that she deserves more that she binds herself into completely unsustainable choices in the present, choices that ensnare the narrator, and her family, leading to misadventure, homicide, and a bad deal all around.

As with "Winter's Bone", Woodrell's craft is on display: his portrayal of events is graphic, but not necessarily exploitative, frank but not fetishistic. His writing draws you forward smoothly, but has enough texture, depth, and power to convince you that there's something beyond just the events on the page: the book borders on fine bourbon and not just a pedestrian corn mashy slop.

I'm glad I read the two books in this order, because if I'd started with "Tomato Red", I'm not sure I'd feel I needed to move on to "Winter's Bone". But given the strength of the latter, I'm glad to have expanded a bit into Woodrell's earlier work. The two books together lead me to expectation of Woodrell's next book, and not necessarily the rest of his back catalog. I'd give "Tomato Red" a solid B, and if you like well written hard-boiled thrillers, then you'll probably be pleased to read it. It doesn't quite bring to the table what "Winter's Bone" does, but it's quite good all on its own, thanks.