Reviews

Joe by Larry Brown

tittypete's review against another edition

5.0

A heartwarming tail of a violent alcoholic fuckup who takes a teenage boy under his wing. The boy comes from the most absolute degenerate scum father of all time. There’s a mean dog and a fair amount of gunfire. Also rural southern hookers. I liked it mucho.

horthhill's review against another edition

5.0

"Joe" by Larry Brown has bad people doing bad things. This makes a really good read. People who don't make good decisions. But, they do make better decisions. Sometimes. When it matters. Two thirds of the way through the novel I was struck with the thought that Gary is something of a 1980s Huck Finn. Maybe not exactly. But close enough. Plenty violent. But a good end. Really liked Joe.

writermattphillips's review against another edition

5.0

Darn good––pretty brilliant.

nickdleblanc's review against another edition

4.0

I saw David Gordon Green’s adaptation of This novel about a year or so ago and it floored me. Nicolas Cage as Joe and Gary Poulter as Wade are un-ironically incredible. I can’t recommend it enough. I wanted to read this as soon as I’d learned it was an adaptation, and this book does not disappoint. The environment owes a lot to William Faulkner’s version of the south—a place that I really love to read about. In fact, it would be very easy to imagine the setting of this novel to also be the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County except in the 1980s after things have gone even more to shit than they had during Faulkner’s time. It’s a book about characters more than plot. You spend a lot of time with each one of the characters as they move through random encounters in circles almost destined to run afoul of each other. The prose is descriptive without becoming ornamental and really roots you in the environment of the novel. There’s plenty of regional dialect in there—naw instead of no, etc—but it never becomes annoying. Brown is clearly a good writer. His only mistake comes in the few times when he over-narrates a scene. He does such a great job of building the characters, tone, and environment that when you come across it, it hits in a really sour way. A specific example of this is when he needlessly describes one set of characters as “have-nots” and the others as “haves.” It just isn’t necessary. But apart from the maybe two times that happens in these 350 pages, this book is a seriously solid page turner and a great read for anyone, especially if you’re a fan of southern lit. There are some seriously despicable characters and some very honorable characters and then some who are both at the same time. My favorite short section is a one-off chapter where we get to see the villain from the perspective of liquor store owner who never appears again. -
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tl;dr—Modern day Faulkner minus the literary pretensions. Avoid if you like your heroes to be all-good, or if you’re easily bothered by heavy, sometimes brutal and realistic, imagery. Watch the movie too. #2020readsnl

shoba's review against another edition

3.0

“‘Joe looked up the road, then looked back. The boy seemed worried. 

"Naw. I got to have a little break this weekend. You know what I mean?”He was sure he didn't but the boy nodded that he did. He stepped back sadly. Joe shifted into gear and let out the clutch, tossing his best worker a wave of the hand. When he looked back through the camper glass he could see him walking across the road. Dark was half a day away. And it didn't matter what his daddy had done, what he did was all that mattered.’”




All along I was scared what was going to happen to Gary. It turned out I was worrying over the wrong  child.

paulataua's review against another edition

3.0

There is some great writing here and a story about a developing relationship between a fifty odd year old loser with a hard bastard image and a 15 year old boy coming from the worst of families. Thi.s book has gotten so much praise from so many that my ‘never really getting into it’ is not really acceptable as a review. I spent much of the early part of the book searching for the plot without much luck and the rest not really engaged. Ignore this and give it a try. It’s one of those where I think maybe others hit it at the right time and I didn’t.

phaedosia's review against another edition

3.0

Achingly and beautifully written, but just so sad and ugly.

kazalicious's review against another edition

4.0

Slow beginning, plenty of cursing, took a bit to get used to "southern talk"

bobbo49's review against another edition

4.0

A hard scrabble story, set in the middle America that elected Donald Trump. At times painful to read, at times heart-warming, in all this is a very sobering view of the same people described in "Hillbilly Elegy" - people falling into a poverty and despair and hopelessness that is hard to imagine, and harder to overcome. Well-written, even if the story is a real downer.

whofalls's review

5.0

"Joe" was the first Larry Brown novel I picked up. I was inspired to do so by watching the movie of the same name. I enjoyed the movie, but as is often the case the book was a whole new experience. Everything I loved about the movie, the book dished out ten fold. This book inspired me to pick up "Fay" next which serves as somewhat of a sequel to "Joe" in the fact that the character Fay appears in "Joe." Only read this if you want to read the rest of Larry Brown's books. I find it hard to imagine you'll just pick up one.