I am not sure what made me pick up this trilogy, either I read about it, or it was on Obama's reading list for his vacation this summer. Anyways, I knew about Woodrell because he wrote the book Winter's Bone which was made into one of our favorite movies this past year. The trilogy is set in Louisiana, a mythical town of St. Bruno, and once again, you read it for the language, the combination of cajun low and artistic high, a hard act to pull off. Woodrell's sentences and images take me back to reading Banville's mysteries, also so well written. All three follow the low life's one finds in St. Bruno, though all three have at the center, more or less, the Shade family, especially Rene, a detective in the first, suspended in the second and third. He's about the only honest person in the three texts, as he goes up against killers, crooked cops and politicians, even his family at times. The stories have rolled together so I cannot remember the plots except for the last, which follows the Shade's derelict father, John Q Shade, who abandoned the family some 30 years ago, but comes back to St. Bruno, with his eight year old daughter, because he has no where else to go, and is fleeing from Lunch Pumphrey, who he owes 48,000 dollars, which he ain't got. Quite a character, they both are, seemingly never worked a day in their lives, other than playing pool, gambling, chasing women, and getting in trouble with the law or other low life's, like themselves. Easy reads, wonderful dialogue, a bit weak on plot, though the characterization is strong. Go get them.
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