[NAX]∎ PDF Free Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories Frank Bill 9780374532888 Books

Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories Frank Bill 9780374532888 Books

Download As PDF : Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories Frank Bill 9780374532888 Books

Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories Frank Bill 9780374532888 Books

As someone who spent time in southern Indiana, and understood it as something different from any other place, certainly a radical departure from the rest of the Midwestern state, Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories delivers. Bill writes with speed and sound of a rambling train in the night, replete with loud and unsettling roars. It is impossible to determine his influences, although Faulkner was, I think, trying to write just this kind of book in Sanctuary. Bill takes his readers to the outer excesses of human existence, where everything is possible. And, he insist that you visualize, smell, and taste all the unpleasant imagery that changes from one sentence to the next. An original voice, it will be interesting to see how Bill is regarded in another decade or so. I see him as a darker and wilder Jim Thompson.


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Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories Frank Bill 9780374532888 Books Reviews

Imagine standing on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, you come across a gate with barbwire and "no trespassing" signs decorated with bullet holes guarding a dark, thick forest. Empty beer cans are scattered about the ground, and you smell something phenolic cooking in the distance. Then you hear shotguns doing some target practice somewhere in that thicket. You decide to jump the gate and wander inside. That's what opening the first page of this book is like. It's a wild ride into some dark places and minds that you wouldn't believe existed. Where redemption is in the eye of the beholder or behind the barrel of a gun. You'll need a hot shower after reading this.
A certain nationally prominent website that sells a lot of books and other stuff, and which makes recommendations to buyers of a given item about others similar items of a like nature that the buyer might presumably enjoy (a nice service, by the way), suggested that I might like this book. So I bought it. They were right. This collection is killer good. Alas, they apparently don't want me to mention their website in my comments, or they don't want me to mention the other book or its author, or something. I don't know which, because they wouldn't say. So pardon the vagueness here.
Wanted to like it but didn't. Too over the top, writing too simplistic. I liked the interconnected story idea and darkness/grit of the time/place, but his writing didn't do much for me. Felt too comic book-y. This is what is called "hillbilly overkill" in Southern lit circles. It borders on exploitation.
Dark and real, too real, you know somewhere this stuff is going on and it shouldn't be. Frank Bill tells us that we have a cancer in America and it is growing fast, sure it is fiction, sure they are just stories.Go on stick your head in the sand, this is the truth of a world that is just outside the door, and we have let it go, and hidden from it. But it is out there waiting for you, waiting to chew you up and spit you out. Frank Bill has done us a favor he let's us touch this world without getting hurt.
I'm from Southern Indiana and I enjoy short stories...that's what drew me to this book. I think the stories were entertaining, some amateurish, but they all held my interest as a compilation of short stories. I have to say, though, that it misrepresents S Indiana! This book makes it sound like S Indiana is the scariest damn place to even drive through! It may not be a tourist area; there's not much going on in those acres and acres of farm land and gorgeous rolling hills of grazing cows and corn fields. Any large city is WAY more populated with lunatics killing and maiming and torturing each other. The book stereotypes S IN folks to be a bunch of no-brain, drunken hicks with no teeth in their head, and with blood on their mind! Sooo, not true! Regardless, a fun rainy-day afternoon read.
Folks should quit with the comparisons to Cormac McCarthy while Bill writes about violence set in rural America, that's where the similarities end. Little thought has gone into narrative structure, and if there is a unifying concept of any value behind the writing, I can't detect it. The prose style is straight-forward and sparse, and it reads quickly, but there's nothing special there either.

Overall, fairly amateur work that didn't inspire me to think about the stories when I wasn't reading them. Nothing at all like McCarthy in that aspect.
As all the reviews will tell you, this is a book with a collection of extremely violent stories, all taking place in the same general region, some of which are intertwined with characters from previous stories. Almost all of the characters are unlikable or dispicible. Dog fights, murders, meth-heads, veterans with untreated PTSD, rape, prostitution, bare-knuckle fighting -- it's a rough crowd. A sense of place - yes. But, this is strictly the underbelly and not likely representative of the entire region (at least, I certainly hope so). All in all, a good -- but not great -- book. I did not find any of the stories to be "great".
My 5 favorites The Penance of Scoot McCutchen, The Accident, A Coon Hunter's Noir, Amphetamine Twitch, Old Testament Wisdom.
My least favorite The Old Mechanic.
"Cold, Hard Love" was a good story, but failed to be believable. Maybe it needed to be told in a longer form.
Capturing a similar aura of "backwoods" desperate lives, I highly recommend "American Salvage" by Bonnie Jo Campbell. This book by Campbell is better, in that the writing is better and the characters are more fully developed. I would give "American Salvage" 4.5 stars, vs 3.5 stars for "Crimes in Southern Indiana".
As someone who spent time in southern Indiana, and understood it as something different from any other place, certainly a radical departure from the rest of the Midwestern state, Crimes in Southern Indiana Stories delivers. Bill writes with speed and sound of a rambling train in the night, replete with loud and unsettling roars. It is impossible to determine his influences, although Faulkner was, I think, trying to write just this kind of book in Sanctuary. Bill takes his readers to the outer excesses of human existence, where everything is possible. And, he insist that you visualize, smell, and taste all the unpleasant imagery that changes from one sentence to the next. An original voice, it will be interesting to see how Bill is regarded in another decade or so. I see him as a darker and wilder Jim Thompson.