This book has received a lot of praise. After reading it I'm not sure all that praise is justified, or maybe I'm just not the intended audience. The 135 page novella starts off with a bang, literally, as a son on a farm in 1921 rural Illinois runs into the house to tell his Ma that Pa's been shot. The author had definitely gotten my attention, and I thought to myself ooohhh I bet this is gonna be good.
Then things go back in time a little bit to the narrator being a kid in school in a well to do family being raised by his father as his mother died when he was very young, and since Dad didn't really like to have a lot to do with the narrator, he finds ways to keep himself entertained. While playing at the construction site for their new house he befriends Cletus, a poor farmer's son his own age. The two hang out together and their difference in background doesn't seem to matter much. Some affairs happen. Some lies are told. Cletus's father loses his wife to another man and decides to get even. Some other stuff happens, too, but I'm not going to give away the whole book. Suffice to say that I thought it was alright and it held my interest, but the author's bad feelings portrayed in this semi-autobriographical piece seem overblown to me. Again, maybe I'm just not the target audience.
This book was a finalist for a Pulitzer prize and won the National Book Award the year it was released, so evidently a lot of people enjoyed it. Maybe you will, too. Personally, I could take it or leave it.
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