Give Us a Kiss: A Novel (21 page)
Read Give Us a Kiss: A Novel Online
Authors: Daniel Woodrell
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Fiction / Literary
Rene Shade Novels
Under the Bright Lights
Muscle for the Wing
The Ones You Do
The Bayou Trilogy
(omnibus edition)
Novels
Woe to Live On
Tomato Red
The Death of Sweet Mister
Winter’s Bone
Stories
The Outlaw Album
A
New York Times
Notable Book
“First-rate…. A good read, with salty dialogue, tough-guy prose, quick-sketched characters and sharp, terse imagery.”
—Robert Houston,
New York Times Book Review
“A sly gem of a book…. A darkly funny, lusciously written joyride into the heart of hillbilly wilderness.”
—
Seattle Times
“A backcountry Shakespeare…. The inhabitants of Daniel Woodrell’s fiction often have a streak that’s not just mean but savage; yet physical violence does not dominate his books. What does dominate is a seasoned fatalism…. Woodrell has tapped into a novelist’s honesty, and lucky for us, he’s remorseless that way.”
—
Los Angeles Times
“A darkly comic crime dance where the mystical and the murderous make out in the corner: ‘I was born for this,’ Doyle says. ‘Again, I mean.’ The result of all these genre shenanigans is charmingly (and terrifyingly) good, dirty fun.”
—A. Scott Cardwell,
Salon
“Woodrell knows deeply the subjects he writes on…. Most important, he knows the voices of his people, and he never sounds a false or condescending note.”
—Pinckney Benedict,
Washington Post
“Woodrell is a ladystinger of a writer.”
—E. Annie Proulx
“One of the best-written suspense novels of the decade…. Joyously vulgar and as raw as three-day-old corn whiskey.”
—
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A version of hunger is the thing that binds the folks in
Give Us a Kiss
with the casts of Woodrell’s next four books, all set in the Ozarks. These people are hungry for sex, for cheap beer, for revenge, for love, for amphetamines—you name it. Most of all, though, they crave better lives, no matter that such upward mobility is about as likely as hitting big with the Powerball. Dealing with such characters, it would be easy to slip into caricature, but Woodrell’s lyrical touch renders these people true to life.”
—Daniel O’Malley,
Tin House
“Woodrell is a marvelous writer.”
—Roddy Doyle
“
Give Us a Kiss
is a keeper. One of those choice, quirky,
written
pieces that sometimes makes you whistle because it is so good…. Woodrell’s Ozarks are cut as cleanly as Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia and pocked with characters just as volatile and proud and unpredictable.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“Woodrell finds poetry in a blood feud…. Readers will respond to his sizzling language, his sure hand with dialogue and his deft characterizations.”
—Al Maginnes,
Raleigh News & Observer
Contents
CHAPTER 2: THAT BULLHEAD LOOKS TASTY
CHAPTER 12: PEACE IN THE VALLEY
CHAPTER 14: THE PENNIES TELL ALL
CHAPTER 15: MINGLED GREASE BUCKET
CHAPTER 21: CREAMED CORN AND DESIRE
CHAPTER 22: THIS DREAM MEANS IT
CHAPTER 24: THE POINT OF THE COUNTRY
CHAPTER 25: TUFFY JUST BRISTLES UP AT THAT COLOR MOON
HOW MUCH OF THE OZARKS IS IN ME?
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
PRAISE FOR DANIEL WOODRELL’S GIVE US A KISS
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 1996 by Daniel Woodrell
Foreword copyright © 2012 by Pinckney Benedict
Reading group guide copyright © 2012 by Daniel Woodrell and Little, Brown and Company
Cover design by Ploy Siripant; cover painting:
Sleeping Woman
, © www.amsterdam-artgallery.com / Anikeev Sergey
Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
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First e-book edition: June 2012
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ISBN 978-0-316-20619-8