L'entrée dans l'histoire se fait rapidement et agréablement à travers les points de vue des personnages principaux, au beau milieu de nulle part, comme l'indique pertinemment le titre. Les personnages sont effectivement des oubliés du rêve américain, vivant dans une bourgade de "small town America" comme en trouve dans de nombreuses histoires. Bons, mauvais ou ambigus, les personnages collent trop aux stéréotypes portés par la culture commerciale qui nous arrivent des States et laissent trop souvent penser que les américains sont des êtres sans nuance et aisément catégorisables.
L'écriture est plutôt fluide, le style simple. Passé la moitié, le cours de l'histoire se ralentit cependant, et bien que la destination où veut nous mener l'auteur paraisse évidente très rapidement, la route s'allonge sans embûches ni nouvelles intrigues.
Je n'ai malheureusement pas trouvé le paysage vivant, comme dans des polars western de Craig Johnson ni ceux de James Lee Burke où le paysage est un personnage à part entière.
Certes la lecture est agréable mais l'histoire est ses éléments sont un peu trop unidimensionnels à mon goût.

This a quick and devastating read about two strangers and the mistakes they make 11 years apart. The writing style of this one wasn't for me, although I appreciated Farris Smith's pacing and his character-building. It is always interesting to read villains who might be good and heroes who are often bad. Although it was depressing, the tone was handled well so that it didn't move into trauma-porn territory. I do think the plot could have been fleshed out a bit more, although it is nice, at times, to just drive old country roads and listen to nothing.

Smith’s Desperation Road is a story in the tradition of Southern writers who have gone before him such as Larry Brown. In that vein, it is neither quite a full on noir or completely literary, but straddles the two things sumptuously. It is a novel of poetic brilliance that goes down as smooth as the finest bourbon, which is definitely not what any of the characters are drinking.

Russell Gaines returns home after 11 years in prison only to be met by kin of the victim of his drink driving who proceed to beat the shit out of him before Gaines looks to regain some semblance of normality in a world that has passed him by. On the other side of town, Maben and her young daughter trek through the heat of the day with little more than the clothes on their back. Maben sets them up with a motel room for the night, but it means the well is running close to dry and she is soon picked up by a cop for solicitation of the sexual kind, but instead of bringing her in, he finds a secluded spot and uses Maben for his own ends. When he calls his buddies to come out too, Maben takes extreme measures to ensure she returns to her daughter.

It’s taken me a time to get round to reading Farris Smith and I’m dumbfounded as to why I ever delayed as he shows why he is one of the premier Southern writers of his generation with just his second novel. Thankfully there is plenty more for me to catch up on.

The title on Amazon is "Desperation Road: A compelling literary crime novel" I enjoyed (if that is the right word for crime thriller with some nasty details). Kept me going.

I think Michael Farris Smith did an excellent job with certain aspects of this book. The character development is fantastic and I feel like I really got insight into their motivations and personalities. The protagonists are flawed and very real which I found refreshing. The setting of the book is vividly described so I felt like I was getting to know this area of Mississippi as I read. While I enjoyed reading this book, I was not blown away by it. In my opinion, it's a very well written story but nothing so unique that I would rate it higher than 3 stars. However, many reviewers are raving about this book so if it sounds interesting to you, definitely give it a try!

The title of this book is undeniably suiting, the back roads of this Mississippi town have seen everything, crime, passion, secrets and tragedy.. the two main characters have experienced life in unfavourable ways, because of a tragic event, they are desperately trying to carry on with their broken lives, but their past continues to haunt them. When their lives intercept , well into the story, they discover each other's parts in the event and continues on a path together, running from their demons and trying to mop up their mess along the way. A story about broken people, forgiveness, sanctity of law makers and the sickly scent of revenge. MFS has constructed a beautiful web of characters, coupled with a steady pace and described imagery that conveys a love for his native Mississippi.

Of the many merits of this book, the ones I most appreciated were the deeply real characters (and here I mean every single one, seriously, every single one), the deeply real setting (oh the memories that flooded my brain along with the intense longing for the soft warm breezes and lightning storms of my childhood that we so rarely get on the summer dry west coast), and of course the story in all of its glory. And of course the writing itself. Of course. Oh, wait! And being categorized as Southern Gothic without going full slimy underbelly.

If pressed I’d describe this as Cormac McCarthy grit smoothed by Kent Haruf downhominess, elevated by William Gay lyricism and an enormous dose of T. R. Pearson humanity (minus the humor).

My only caveats were the occasional strings of repeated phrases, powerful for the first few but carried one or two repetitions too far, and, however fabulously it works to advance the storyline, too much coincidence for me to immerse as fully as I wanted.

But wow how I look forward to reading more of this author.

I could taste the bourbon and coke by the fish pond out back....

Michael Farris Smith is now two for two at producing exceptional, dark, thoughtful, human, literary noir novels. Creating vivid portraits of difficult lives and the things that people do to survive, this is another of those great novels that have no obvious start and no obvious end, no obvious peaks and troughs and no obvious three act structure. It just goes ahead relentless in its examination of the ache of the heart and the head and the soul of people and life and small town America.

[3.5 stars]

This had moments of being a four or five star and moments of being a two star so I decided for something in between.

I'll start off by saying that this is not my type of book at all. This is an adult novel, kind of contemporary but I'm not exactly sure what genre this would be in (maybe literary fiction?), written in a very strange style, and is very much character driven and not plot driven. However, for a book where not much happened, I wasn't bored all too often. It definitely kept my interest throughout.

Unfortunately, I found this novel kind of... meh? I'm not sure exactly how to explain it, but I didn't often find myself emotionally changed by the events and the characters which is something that I expect from books like this. I think honestly that could just be because of my age and the fact that I don't have much in common with the story. I think a lot of people could find this gripping and be truly affected by it, but I just didn't feel that way.

The reason that this isn't a four star is because of the ending. Not gonna spoil anything, but I was expecting something a little bit... more. I think honestly I was just expecting more in general.