Reap - Softcover

Rickstad, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1451564848 ISBN 13: 9781451564846

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010

Synopsis

"Intoxicating. Poetic. Arresting. Powerfully bloody." — The New York Times Sunday Book Review.

From the New York Times Bestselling author of THE SILENT GIRLS and LIE IN WAIT comes a smoldering and devastating literary crime novel in the tradition of Daniel Woodrell, Larry Brown, Chris Offutt, and heralded by the New York Times as "Intoxicating. Creepy. Poetic. Arresting. Powerfully bloody." In this hard-edged, quick-moving, and violent tale, a young fatherless boy is unwittingly lured into a murderous plot in the Gothic backwoods of Northern Vermont when he bonds with a paranoid ex-con he's unaware is bent on revenge. All tempered by a fine lyric sensibility and an awareness of people and place that sings with evocation and authenticity.

Taut, riveting, and unflinching, REAP draws readers into the dangerous and claustrophobic backwoods of Northern Vermont to witness a hard-edged, quick-moving, and violent story charged with fate, bad blood, and family secrets, tempered by a fine lyric sensibility and an awareness of people and place that sings with evocation and authenticity. A masterwork of literary crime fiction heralded alongside Denis Johnson, Russell Banks, and Robert Stone.

THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW Remarkable. Intoxicating. Arresting. Poetic. A tale of macho violence and alternative horticulture in a creepy edge-of-the-world setting. The body count is high, and the violence persuasive. Most remarkable is the evocation of the territory, the Gothic tangle of native forest and exotic cash crop that mirrors the characters’ claustrophobic inner landscapes [and] the grimly poetic images scattered throughout, like flashes of submerged lives never quite reeled in.

SUNDAY CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER A bloody beauty. Reap illuminates worlds of darkness. A dramatic reminder of the mystery and majesty of the wild places that exist in both man and nature.

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW A complex portrait of a group of people whose interlocking fates snap into place with gruesome repercussions and of a boy who unwittingly stumbles into adulthood like a bird dog into a wolf trap.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Harrowing. Absorbing. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Bucolic and eerie, it probes the mysteries of growing as plants people and situations twist inexorably in unpredictable, dangerous directions. A progressively more harrowing, absorbing tale.

BOOK MAGAZINE Transcends the typical. Harrowing. Inevitable. Rickstad renders dark, often violent characters with such elegance that we will embrace them long after they’ve opted for the choice that is clearly wrong.

BOOKLIST Rickstad pulls back the veneer of the bucolic wilderness of northern Vermont and finds trouble in paradise. Colorful, marginal, and often violent characters, and the undertone of violence, desperation, and drug dealing as a way of life underscores the fact that the country joins the inner city in becoming a modern American wasteland.

WEEKLY ALIBI A haunting, dark story that seethes with human emotion. Turning each page is like opening the door to an open field.

About this title

About the Author

Eric Rickstad is the New York Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling author of the forthcoming THE NAMES OF DEAD GIRLS, THE SILENT GIRLS, LIE IN WAIT and REAP. His novels are heralded as intelligent and profound, dark, disturbing, and heartbreaking. He lives in his home state of Vermont. He is represented by Philip Spitzer of the Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency.

From Kirkus Reviews

An innocent and mild-mannered boy grows up fast and ugly as his choice of friends sucks him into another familys self-destructive tailspin: a relentlessly hardscrabble debut. In the northern reaches of rural Vermont, where dirt roads are fast tracks for renegades and every house and trailer hides a tragedy, 16-year-old Jessup is simply trying to come to terms with a first awkward romance. After going the whole season without kissing the girl who was a summer visitor, hes now left with fishing and daydreaming to occupy his time. All that changes, however, on the day when Reg nearly runs him over as Jessup is trying to hitch a ride after his bike breaks down. Reg is older, a hard-driving, hard-drinking, hard-nosed ex-con with a big marijuana harvest to haul out of the mountains and a grudge against a local pair of brothers who are also in the cultivation business and whom he blames for sending him to prison. He gives Jessup a ride to remember, first introducing him to his family: wheelchair-bound Hal, a weight-guessing barker at county fairs; and Marigold, whose married life hasnt been the same since her logger husband lopped off a piece of his equipment with the chainsaw. Hal and Reg get Jessup so stoned, drunk, and dizzy that hes sick. Then Marigold comes on to him, and when the night is over the boy hardly knows who he is anymore. Worse, the dark side to Reg is swiftly triggered when, in his cabin, he finds a cousin all shot up amid the pot plants. He hatches a malevolent plan, with Jessups unwitting aid, thats somewhere between suicidal and just crazy. When the smoke clears, Jessup is battered, traumatized by all hes seen, and utterly alone. Absent fathers are the supposed reason for this whole misadventure. Maybe, but the characters move at the speed of light toward rack and ruin, and the psychology cant keep up. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1451564848
• ISBN 13: 9781451564846
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272