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madiroo91's review against another edition
3.0
"A head is just a pumpkin with ears when it smashes."
Not a bad little book. I had never heard of this book or even this author until I came across the movie they made, called Tomato Red: Blood Money. So obviously I had to read it so I could watch the film. It stars Julia Garner, who I think is perfect for the role of Jamalee. Oddly enough, the book is set in a small run down town outside of the Ozarks.
Not a bad little book. I had never heard of this book or even this author until I came across the movie they made, called Tomato Red: Blood Money. So obviously I had to read it so I could watch the film. It stars Julia Garner, who I think is perfect for the role of Jamalee. Oddly enough, the book is set in a small run down town outside of the Ozarks.
bundy23's review against another edition
2.0
I get why others loved it but for me the characters were even less likeable than they were believable. Sorry, but scummy methheads just aren't this intelligent.
christiek's review against another edition
4.0
I am very impressed by Woodrell's ability to captivate me, and his use of language makes me feel like a cat rolling in the sunshine. The characters in this book are probably not all that unusual, but their voices make them so rich and I am reminded actual people are all just as rich. This book reminds me of Steinbeck.
guardianang's review against another edition
5.0
No way Woodrell can top the unforgetable characters in this short but absolutely vivid book. Loved it.
ventellina's review against another edition
dark
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
nataliya_x's review against another edition
4.0
“I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.”Daniel Woodrell's Tomato Red is lighthearted and wickedly funny - until it abruptly isn't, and you are in vain trying to recover from the unexpected whiplash from the change in direction and tone, and trying to figure out when exactly this black comedy became tragedy - and has it been tragedy all along but you just haven't noticed in time??? - and rereading the last few pages trying to figure out when and how exactly it changed course to bleak desperation, and all of this is causing you a headache like you haven't had in ages, and a bit of the hollow feeling somewhere deep in the belly.
At least that's my experience with Tomato Red - a book I was considering setting aside somewhere in the first third of it or so, having never been a particular fan of this particular brand of hopeless bleak humor. But something in it made me keep going, and I have no regrets.
The only Woodrell I've read until now was Winter's Bone, the bleak and chilling story of Ozarks where meth is the king and overwhelming poverty is reality. Well, the setting here is similar in feel and tone, and pervasive hopelessness is another common thread. But in Winter's Bone we had a real protagonist - tough-as-nails Ree Dolly who was a ray of hope in the oppressive bleakness. Tomato Red instead gives up Sammy Barlach, a pathetic young kid "who should in any circumstances be considered a suspect", with drug addiction, no prospects, and the overwhelming desire to belong, to be accepted, to be loved.
Sammy does find a ragtag bunch from the wrong side of the tracks that seems to accept him with no questions asked - by their own sad admission, maybe not even the lowest scum in town: an aging prostitute Bev Merrihew and her children Jason (a strikingly beautiful young boy struggling with his homosexuality) and Jamalee, a girl with tomato-red hair, a girl whose greatest ambition is to get out of the squalor of her hometown.
"This expression of utter frankness takes over Jason's beautiful face, and he says, 'I don't think we're the lowest scum in town.'It's Jamalee, a little flame with her tomato-red hair - or maybe hair the color of blood? - who is not content with being the (almost) lowest scum in town. And it's Jamalee who (as you can expect from the beginning of this book) ends up being a hurricane that wrecks up the status quo - but, like a hurricane, leaves destruction and a world of hurt in her path. And it's Jamalee who's too easy to blame for the stupid, pointless tragedy that happens in this book - until you stop to think of the real cause of everything, the crushing oppressive poverty aided by addiction and small-town isolated-community mentality.
He didn't argue that we weren't scum, just disputed our position on the depth chart."
And, just like in The Winter's Bone, the real character of this story is the setting itself, the Ozarks, the place that to my privileged middle-class educated self seems almost unreal and yet is the reality for so many people, the place that is not afraid to bite if you happen to cross it and it's code of conduct. And that is the most sobering thing in this book for me, really.
Perhaps it's exactly the juxtaposition of humorous witty voice of Sammy-the-village-idiot and the crushingly cruel hopelessness of reality that make this book what it is and make my brain spin over it. I'm not sure, but I know I'm not likely to forget this story any time soon. 4 stars and a lasting shaken-up feeling.
swhit's review against another edition
4.0
Woodrell's books are almost painful to read because they are so real. They are so near and dear... people I know, people I pull for, want to change, know they won't, root for anyway, and mourn for when they are lost. The story of Tomato Red is perhaps a little more mundane than that of Winter's Bone, but his descriptions of characters and places are some of the best I've ever read. Ever. The scene where Sonny goes to the trailer to collect his hat and mixed tapes felt like deja vu.
matthewcpeck's review against another edition
4.0
Daniel Woodrell is such a rush to read. This book is narrated by an ex-con/drifter named Sammy who drives a car like a "pregnant roller skate" and whose only wish is to belong to a group that will have him. The plot is roughly similar to his immediately previous novel 'Give Us A Kiss' (unsavory protagonist falls in with mother/daughter and things go wrong) but it's better and more haunting, moving further away from a crime story into social commentary. Reading the prose is like sitting in the same room with a storyteller at a party, mixed with the Coen brothers at their idiomatic richest. I recommend 'Tomato Red' as a Woodrell starter.
christythelibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
I’m a huge fan of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone and have delved into his backlist before by reading his earliest works: the three books that comprise the Bayou Trilogy. Like most of the characters from those books, the central four characters of Tomato Red dwell in the fringes of society.
Tomato Red is told in first-person by an ex-con drifter and self-described “loser” named Sammy Barlach. The first-person narration is used to great effect, especially in the beginning and end of the novel. Sammy’s first words to the reader – “You’re no angel, you know how this stuff comes to happen” – starts us off on the tale of how Sammy fell into the company of the Merridew family. With hair the color of the book’s title, Jamalee Merridew is nineteen and wants out of her poverty-stricken life in Venus Holler. Her seventeen-year-old brother, Jason, possesses stunning good looks, and is also, perilously, gay. Their mom, Bev, earns her living as a prostitute; she is practical about her lot in life and disapproving of her daughter’s dreams. Woodrell’s depiction of Bev and Jamalee are very well-drawn, but it is the character of Sammy that has left an indelible impression on me.
Sammy’s mind is marked by poverty, lack of education and damaging familial neglect. He informs the reader early on, “I can’t sleep anywhere until I know I’ll get to eat again if I need to”. He is so desperate to belong, that he is instantly loyal to the Merridews, because they are “the bunch that would have me.” I found this heartbreaking. His desperation also manifests itself in a disconcerting tendency toward violence to those who cross him or the Merridews.
Sometimes Woodrell’s turn of phrase became too elaborate for my tastes, but sometimes the ambitious metaphors paid off. It’s not a comfortable book by any means, but the storytelling is magic. I am still haunted by Tomato Red.
Tomato Red is told in first-person by an ex-con drifter and self-described “loser” named Sammy Barlach. The first-person narration is used to great effect, especially in the beginning and end of the novel. Sammy’s first words to the reader – “You’re no angel, you know how this stuff comes to happen” – starts us off on the tale of how Sammy fell into the company of the Merridew family. With hair the color of the book’s title, Jamalee Merridew is nineteen and wants out of her poverty-stricken life in Venus Holler. Her seventeen-year-old brother, Jason, possesses stunning good looks, and is also, perilously, gay. Their mom, Bev, earns her living as a prostitute; she is practical about her lot in life and disapproving of her daughter’s dreams. Woodrell’s depiction of Bev and Jamalee are very well-drawn, but it is the character of Sammy that has left an indelible impression on me.
Sammy’s mind is marked by poverty, lack of education and damaging familial neglect. He informs the reader early on, “I can’t sleep anywhere until I know I’ll get to eat again if I need to”. He is so desperate to belong, that he is instantly loyal to the Merridews, because they are “the bunch that would have me.” I found this heartbreaking. His desperation also manifests itself in a disconcerting tendency toward violence to those who cross him or the Merridews.
Sometimes Woodrell’s turn of phrase became too elaborate for my tastes, but sometimes the ambitious metaphors paid off. It’s not a comfortable book by any means, but the storytelling is magic. I am still haunted by Tomato Red.