Most Popular Books by Tom Franklin

The author of "Poachers" and "Hell at the Breech" delivers a bawdy, inventive tale, set in Alabama in the early 1900s, that combines the gritty edge of Quentin Tarantino and the outrageous humor of Christopher Moore.

“The classic trifecta of talent, heart, and a bone-deep sense of storytelling….A masterful performance, deftly rendered and deeply satisfying. For days on end, I woke with this story on my mind.” —David Wroblewski A powerful and resonant novel from the critically acclaimed author of Smonk and Hell at the Breech, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter tells the riveting story of two boyhood friends, torn apart by circumstance, who are brought together again by a terrible crime in a small Mississippi town. An extraordinary novel that seamlessly blends elements of crime and Southern literary fiction, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a must for readers of Larry Brown, Pete Dexter, Ron Rash, and Dennis Lehane. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town. More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.

Set against the backdrop of the historic flooding of the Mississippi River, The Tilted World is an extraordinary tale of murder and moonshine, sandbagging and saboteurs, and a man and a woman who find unexpected love, from Tom Franklin, the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, and award-winning poet Beth Ann Fennelly The year is 1927. As rains swell the Mississippi, the mighty river threatens to burst its banks and engulf everything in its path, including federal revenue agent Ted Ingersoll and his partner, Ham Johnson. Arriving in the tiny hamlet of Hobnob, Mississippi, to investigate the disappearance of two fellow agents who'd been on the trail of a local bootlegger, they are astonished to find a baby boy abandoned in the middle of a crime scene. Ingersoll, an orphan raised by nuns, is determined to find the infant a home, and his search leads him to Dixie Clay Holliver. A strong woman married too young to a philandering charmer, Dixie Clay has lost a child to illness and is powerless to resist this second chance at motherhood. From the moment they meet, Ingersoll and Dixie Clay are drawn to each other. He has no idea that she's the best bootlegger in the county and may be connected to the agents' disappearance. And while he seems kind and gentle, Dixie Clay knows full well that he is an enemy who can never be trusted. When Ingersoll learns that a saboteur might be among them, planning a catastrophe along the river that would wreak havoc in Hobnob, he knows that he and Dixie Clay will face challenges and choices that they will be fortunate to survive. Written with extraordinary insight and tenderness, The Tilted World is that rarest of creations, a story of seemingly ordinary people who find hope and deliverance where they least expect it—in each other.

An Edgar Award winner, Tom Franklin's Poachers collects ten stunning, bleak tales set in the woodlands, swamps and chemical plants along the Alabama River. Staking his claim as a fresh, original Southern voice, Tom Frankin's lyric, deceptively simple prose conjures a world where the default setting is violence, a world of hunting and fishing, gambling and losing, drinking and poaching—a world most of us have never seen. In the chilling title novella, three wild boys confront a mythic game warden as mysterious and deadly as the river they haunt. And, as a weathered, hand-painted sign reads: "Jesus is not coming." This terrain isn't pretty, isn't for the weak of heart, but in these deperate, lost people, Franklin somehow finds the moments of grace that make them what they so abundantly are: human. "While he may occasionally wax sentimental about life in the impoverished South, Franklin's style is often as laconic and simply spoken as his characters' dialogue, sometimes close to Hemingway, but more often akin to Denis Johnson or Raymond Carver in its resonant ordinariness." — Publishers Weekly

In 1897, an aspiring politician is mysteriously murdered in the rural area of Alabama known as Mitcham Beat. His outraged friends -- —mostly poor cotton farmers -- form a secret society, Hell-at-the-Breech, to punish the townspeople they believe responsible. The hooded members wage a bloody year-long campaign of terror that culminates in a massacre where the innocent suffer alongside the guilty. Caught in the maelstrom of the Mitcham war are four people: the aging sheriff sympathetic to both sides; the widowed midwife who delivered nearly every member of Hell-at-the-Breech; a ruthless detective who wages his own war against the gang; and a young store clerk who harbors a terrible secret. Based on incidents that occurred a few miles from the author's childhood home, Hell at the Breech chronicles the events of dark days that led the people involved to discover their capacity for good, evil, or for both.

Reclam Lektüreschlüssel XL – hier findest du alle Informationen, um dich zielsicher und schnell vorzubereiten: auf Klausur, Referat, Abitur oder Matura! Differenziert, umfassend, übersichtlich! - Lektüreschlüssel zu englischen Werken sind auf Deutsch verfasst, enthalten aber das wichtigste Vokabular für die Analyse auf Englisch - Präzise Inhaltsangaben zum Einstieg in den Text - Klare Analysen von Figuren, Aufbau, Sprache und Stil - Zuverlässige Interpretationen mit prägnanten Textbelegen - Informationen zu Autor:innen und historischem Kontext - Hilfreiche Infografiken, Abbildungen und Tabellen - Aktuelle Literatur- und Medientipps - Prüfungsaufgaben mit Lösungshinweisen auf Englisch - Zentrale Begriffe und Definitionen als Lernglossar auf Englisch Ein Südstaaten-Roman über Freundschaft, Verrat und Alltagsrassismus: Larry und Silas, zwei Jungs, der eine weiß, der andere schwarz, waren einmal Freunde, bis Larry des Mordes an einem Mädchen verdächtigt wird. Ihre Lebenswege trennen sich. Doch als Larry – 25 Jahre später – erneut unter Mordverdacht gerät, muss Silas, inzwischen Polizist, gegen ihn ermitteln. Szenen ihrer gemeinsamen verdrängten Vergangenheit durchbrechen das aktuelle Kriminalgeschehen. Basiert auf einem exklusiven Interview mit Tom Franklin

«Mi Sur es la zona baja de Alabama, frondosa, verde y llena de muerte, los condados boscosos que se extienden entre los ríos Alabama y Tombigbee», donde las emociones corren con la misma crudeza que el alcohol de destilación ilegal. Diez relatos sobrios y potentes en los que el autor evoca un paisaje de bosques y pantanos, cazadores y pescadores, furtivos y borrachos, parques de caravanas y basura blanca pobre. Personajes perdidos que reaccionan con violencia frente a un mundo agonizante de cuya gravedad no pueden escapar. «Con esta colección de maridos lamentables, colegas inútiles y matrimonios desgastados, es como si el autor hubiese secuestrado a los personajes de Raymond Carver y los hubiese dejado a su suerte en el Sur Profundo.» New York Times Book Review «Gracias a Dios los sureños siguen escribiendo como sureños; ángeles caídos que actualizan las viejas y oscuras costumbres. Franklin es el más reciente de la camada, y uno de los mejores.» Bob Shacochis «Los cuentos de Franklin me gustan tanto como la música de Lucinda Williams. Se desarrollan en el Sur, por supuesto, pero componen una nueva canción para el Sur. Poseen una ternura inherente, aunque sean bruscos y duros.» Richard Ford «La fuerza de Franklin me tiene impresionado. El poder evocador de su prosa y la implacabilidad de su imaginación me recuerdan a William Faulkner. Su autoridad al representar el mundo natural es deslumbrante.» Philip Roth «Furtivos es como una mano que surge del pantano verdoso en una noche sin luna y te tira de la canoa.» Tampa Tribune

Rarement un recueil de nouvelles aura été salué par tant d'éloges, évoquant les plus grands noms de la littérature : Faulkner, Hemingway, Carver. Tom Franklin appartient à cette lignée d'écrivains dont la voix singulière est imprégnée de l'atmosphère sombre et violente du Sud profond. Son Alabama natal est peuplé de chasseurs, pêcheurs, braconniers et pochards, ouvriers d'usine et agriculteurs. Englués dans des marécages pourrissants ou des rivières polluées, tous braconnent, chacun à leur manière. Ils réagissent parfois avec violence à la lente agonie d'un monde qui abandonne ses forêts luxuriantes et ses cours d'eau aux usines de pâtes à papier ou aux centrales électriques, et les entraîne inexorablement dans sa propre chute. Un univers sombre, violent et sans rédemption, hanté par l'image fantasmatique de l'Alaska, lointain symbole d'évasion et de pureté. Réédité pour la première fois vingt ans après sa parution, Braconniers mérite d'être redécouvert. L'auteur de La culasse de l'enfer, devenu un livre culte, fait déjà preuve d'un immense talent.

Mississippi, 1927. Gonflé par les pluies diluviennes, le fleuve menace de détruire les digues qui protègent la région et d'engloutir le petit hameau de Hobnob, où les agents fédéraux Ted Ingersoll et Ham Johnson enquêtent sur la disparition de deux collègues venus arrêter un trafiquant d'alcool. Au coeur de ce paysage d'apocalypse, ils découvrent un bébé abandonné, qu'Ingersoll - lui-même orphelin - confie par hasard à Dixie Clay Holliver. Sans se douter que la jeune femme est le plus grand bootlegger du comté, et peut-être la dernière aussi à avoir vu les deux agents en vie... Chantre de la littérature du Sud, Tom Franklin, auteur de La Culasse de l'enfer, unit ici sa voix à celle de son épouse, la poétesse Beth Ann Fennelly. Dans le contexte dramatique de la Prohibition et de l'une des plus grandes catastrophes naturelles de l'histoire des Etats-Unis, ce roman est tout autant la fresque d'une époque que d'un lieu où la beauté côtoie chaque jour le danger. « Un nouveau roman de Tom Franklin est toujours une occasion de se réjouir, mais un roman qui unit Franklin et Beth Ann Fennelly, c'est une fête ! » Dennis Lehane