A gripping, dark and gritty story, a great gothic novel that kept me hooked till the end.
It's atmospheric and its disturbing and creepy atmosphere kept me on the edge till the end.
The characters, the setting and the plot are great and the author is a talented storyteller.
An excellent read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Outside of my love of crime fiction, I am also a fan of American fiction, and more particularly the canon of authors who write within the Southern gothic genre, so writers such as William Faulkner, Daniel Woodrell, Frank Bill et al. Having been completely blown away by Farris Smith’s last book The Fighter I then backtracked and read all of his previous books. What a writer he is. So, it was with immeasurable delight, as I’m sure you can imagine, that Blackwood was received, and quickly read…

Farris Smith is for my money one of the finest contemporary American writers, and has a natural talent for encompassing big emotional themes in a relatively compressed page count. This book focusses very much on what is termed small town America, where sins of the past acquire a mythical status, and, by the same token continue to infuse the sensibility of the present. The key protagonist Colburn, a man returning to his hometown of Red Bluff, encompasses the veracity of this theme, as the local populace, in particular local lawman Myer begin to remember the traumatic event of Colburn’s youth. Throughout the book Colburn’s every action is influenced by this event, leading him ever closer to despair, and compounded by present day events with ramifications for those he has made a connection with, the book sucks us deeper and deeper into his personal darkness. In fact, aside from Myer, pretty much every character in this book seems to be descending into some kind of personal insanity leading to murder, acts of violence, a recognition of the malign influence of the supernatural or a feeling of disconnect on a human level with those around them. Colburn only makes one meaningful connection, but inevitably this becomes tainted too.

I found the characterisation in this book incredibly powerful and the way that the author imbues each character with a sense of victimhood worked on a real emotional level. There seemed to be a real sense of the weak and the strong, but with Farris Smith blurring the lines between the two with ease. Equally, the day to day lives and routines of this claustrophobic town, and those that live within it gave a real texture and richness to the book, with petty rivalries, unfaithfulness, and an overarching feel of suppressed violence.

What really stood out for me in this book was the author’s integration of both the beauty and malevolence of the natural world. The passages of description of the verdant landscape, tainted by the trailing tendrils of the kudzu vines, added a real texture and atmosphere, becoming ever more threatening in parallel to the deepening darkness of the central plot itself. This continual feel of the natural world impinging on each character, or determining their actions was so beautifully portrayed that I began to feel a genuine sense of fear. As the natural world encroaches more and more on the psyche of those seeking shelter, and, at times, redemption within its grasp, it also seems to arouse in others an even more heightened motivation to commit evil deeds.

Blackwood is not an easy read as there is a feel of unremitting sadness about the book as whole, with only slight interludes of humans making any meaningful connections to one another. But I loved it. There are passages of sublime description, stoked with a resonance of our small place in the natural world, and also the sheer folly of some our actions toward others. I was genuinely moved in parts, enraged by others, as we are drawn into this world of damaged individuals, hell-bent on destruction or looking for redemption, or more simply, affection. Powerful and beautifully written. Highly recommended.

Dark gritty and compelling. I sat up through the night reading this book. The characters and the plot make it a compelling read. I could imagine the characters and their surroundings. Brilliantly written, I wanted this book to be longer.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

The second book I’ve read published by No Exit Press. I was delighted to find them offering this, by an author recommended to me by a friend just recently, so I leapt at the chance and it didn’t disappoint.

The atmosphere he creates is overwhelming - sinister and mysterious. Invasive kudzu is smothering the landscape, whole houses left to moulder away under its layers, and we are led to wonder about how it used to be. It is a constant presence in the lives we read about here, blighted by tragedy, guilt, desperate poverty and society’s indifference. It is a hard, bleak world for those at the bottom and there is little here in the way of hope that anything will change for the better. His writing has a certain rhythm to it that I can’t really explain, haunting and hypnotic. I was riveted by it and fully engaged with his characters and the events in their small community. My one niggle is the ending which I found jarring in the direction it took - I was expecting and would have preferred the novel to finish in Red Bluff.

Highly recommended.

The being the first book I have read by Michael Farris Smith, so I wasn’t sure what his style of writing would be like, but I certainly didn’t have to worry.

This is a very gothic feeling, dark disturbing read, written with such beautiful prose evoking the atmosphere given all around with the Kudzu Vines, as they seem to be taking over and hiding secrets, burying properties. Nothing happy happens in this book but not what a read.

1956 Red Bluff a young boys life Colburn is changed forever when he opens the barn door. The first chapter just packs such a punch and draws you in.
Jump to 1976 and a battered old Cadillac just about rolls into town and breaks down as it hits the car lot of a post office, inside are three people a man, woman and teenage child, all their worldly possessions are in that car. Empty food cans, raggedy dirty clothes, blankets.
Sheriff Meyers turns up and asks them there business and offers to help get the car started in the morning to get them on the way. But the man has other ideas and pushes the car off the road hidden under trees and vines. The boy and woman are seen daily with a shopping trolley rooting through bins for food, empty bottles they can return for money.
Colburn turns up in town as he has seen flyers offering the use of empty storfronts for free to artists, he goes around collecting scrap metal, hub caps and any other bits he can get his hands on to weld together as a sculpture. Celia runs the bat in town, Colburn takes a shine to her, she begins feeding the young boy each day as she feels for him.

Then twins disappear and the town goes from being empty to being swarmed by tv stations wanting to know about the missing boys. Where could they have gone. Celia knows about Colburn past and a relationship starts, until she disappears. The kudzu vines hide so much from the present and the past.

A truly gripping, haunting story, that will stay with you after you have finished it.

I would like to thank #netgalley and the publishers for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

This is another very compelling book from Michael Farris Smith. I thought that Desperation Road and The Fighter were both outstanding; Blackwood is equally readable, atmospheric and involving but I’m not sure it said quite as much as the previous two.

Blackwood is set in rural Tennessee where a small town has been surrounded and all but taken over by the invasive weed kudzu, which covers and ultimately chokes all other vegetation and any houses which aren’t constantly defended. Into this town come a family of drifters headed by a dangerous and increasingly unhinged man, and another man returning to his childhood home and seeking some answers to tragedy from his past and possibly some redemption. Sinister, sometimes violent developments ensue and Farris Smith again explores issues of damaged masculinity seeking salvation, repression, anger and the mores of a small, isolated community – all with the unspoken metaphor of the encroaching darkness and oppression of the kudzu.

Farris Smith’s writing is, as always, brilliant; terse, compelling and realistic in its portrayal of place and character. I was utterly involved from the start and it’s a completely engrossing read which doesn’t shy away from tough subjects nor go in for easy resolution. I did find the ending a little odd and out of step with the rest of the book, though, and afterward I had the sense that there was less new insight than in his previous books.

These small reservations aside, I can recommend Blackwood warmly.

(My thanks to No Exit Press for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Early on we are introduced to:

- A young boy who witnesses a family tragedy
- A man, a woman and a boy: people with virtually nothing who become stranded in a small town
- A sculptor who collects scrap metal which he intends to turn into strange forms
- A girl who owns a run-down bar and and lives with memories of her fortune teller mother

Who are these people and how are they connected? We are to learn the answers, but slowly as this often harrowing but completely engrossing tale plays out.

The action is centred in and around the town of Red Bluff, Mississippi. It’s a tired place, with stores that are boarded up and where Kudzu has overtaken a valley on the edge of town. Within the valley a now uninhabited house has all but disappeared, swallowed up by the writhing knots of the invasive vine. There are other things hidden in this valley too, it’s a creepy and mysterious place.

The sheriff is a man called Meyer. He’s held the badge for twenty uneventful years, but he’s about to be confronted by the most significant challenge of his career. In this gothic tale we’re swallowed up by the claustrophobic atmosphere of the piece, whilst hard facts are hard to come by. Information and answers are withheld and then eked out until at last we are able to see the whole picture, or at least most of it. As the story nears its conclusion it’s with a sense of pain and dread that pages are turned.

The writing, as always with this author, is hauntingly beautiful. It’s a book to keep you up late, reluctant as you are to put it down, and then to keep you up all night as you dream of the events you’ve just witnessed. It’s a wonderful piece of storytelling with characters you’ll love and hate and a setting that’ll most likely stick in your mind for years to come. You’ve done it again MFS, this is another masterpiece.

The talented Michael Farris Smith's latest Southern gothic novel is hard edged, gritty, and uncompromising in its bleak vision and darkness with its anatomy of a dying small town, Red Bluff, at which unnamed drifters, a man, woman and boy arrive after their car breaks down. They have discarded one young boy earlier, unable to afford to keep him, they are ragged, desperate, and starving. Smith asks deep philosophical and religious questions in his narrative, as the drifters settle amidst the lush landscape of kudzu vines, vines that harbour the past, secrets, swallowing homes and any signs of humanity with ease. It's a veritable Garden of Eden, with its original sin, with its serpent of horror, the sinister, bearing the heavy weight of history and past generations. This is a tale of broken people, of despair, physical and mental pain, madness and guilt, of lives forged in hell and tragedy.

As a boy in 1956, Colbert experiences a disturbing trauma, he is now returning to Red Bluff in 1976, responding to the town's offer of free abandoned storefronts for musicians, writers and artists, in return for maintaining the building. He is a junkyard sculptor with an inner need to understand his past, thinking no-one will remember him, in fact it seems as if no-one has forgotten him. Sheriff Myer wanted to help the drifters move on, and seeing they are not going to, feels the town will respond to their needs. He is to be sorely disappointed as the woman and boy scavenge among the garbage, to be judged, rejected and found wanting. Celia, the bar owner tries to feed the boy, but he is like a wild animal and takes a while before taking up her offer. Colbert finds love when he least expected to, but the trauma from the past still has him in its hold. As madness, loss, violence and grief take their toll, we see souls seeking evidence that they exist, some form of connection with others, rather than the neglect and indifference that is their lot.

Smith's harsh realism portrays a town that only acts when twin boys go missing, followed by the disappearance of Celia. What lurks hidden amongst the Kudzu vines is the terror of nightmares, a malignant presence that pulsates with a life and a voice of its own. There is little in the way of light, but there are glimmers of hope, love and redemption in the depiction of a town, broken folk, and splintered families. This is a utterly gripping read, of lost dreams and lives, of never ending pain and misery, a litany of life's horrors that its impossible to look away from, an allegory of the troubled and disturbing world we live in today. A must read that packs a huge punch and which I recommend highly. Many thanks to No Exit Press and Oldcastle Books.

I loved Desperation Road and The Fighter and Michael Farris Smith is a master of his trade.

This is Southern Gothic noir at its best. His description of small town life is beautifully done as is that of the demons that lurk in the woods.

The pace is someone’s slow but the language is vivid and lush.

A book to savour and treasure.

There is a small town called Red Bluff in Mississippi. This book is set there. It feels as though it is somewhere where nothing much happens and hasn't for sometime. A vagabond family that no one knows anything about and seem a little less than desirable arrives. Colburn comes into the town and it seems as though there may be a history there. The sheriff has become accustomed to not needing to deal with problems. People who have lived there all there lives may be still stuck in a past. It seems that events may build up to a perfect storm.

The book actually starts with a brief chapter which is set some 20 years earlier than the main part of the book. It features Colburn and his father in the main. It could well be described as disturbing. This book then follows the story of events 20 years later in Red Bluff. The writing gives a deep sense of place. One further "character" needs mentioning. There is the kudzu. I realise very early on that "kudzu" - a word I had not come across - was going to be important. I looked it up and realised that for some places this invasive plant causes major problems.

The main characters are well developed and alive for me. I can feel there heat and see the kudzu. I found it a book that was far easier to continue to read than put down. I also had little idea where it might go by the end. Throughout there is a sense of dread. It is dark and bleak at times however not depressingly so for me.

Last year I read this author's book "Desperation Road" and I loved it. I was very happy indeed to be able to read another of his books. His writing is so vivid and rich. I know of few authors who can conjure up the emotions and scenes as well as Michael Farris Smith can. I will certainly continue to read his books. Fans should love this and those new to his work should take a look at this and other books he has written to see what appeals.

Michael Farris Smith is one of my favourite authors since I stumbled across "Desperation Road" in a charity shop.
Blackwood is his latest and as ever his characters are the lost and the lonely,flawed people shaped by their histories and ,particularly in this book , their upbringing. Blackwood is bleak,powerful and affecting.
The book begins in Red Bluff , Missisipi in 1956 and a defining moment in Colburn's life. It then jumps ahead to 1976 with a a family straight out of Deliverance rolling into town, the Man,the Woman and the Boy are all we ever know them as, on the way they've dumped a younger boy as they can't feed him. We learn enough about them to know that life has been a journey,and not a good one but we never hear their full story. Sheriff Myer checks them out and is assured that they'll move on. In the meantime Colburn has moved back to Red Bluff,by now a decaying shell of a town while the vagrant family go into hiding.
That's the build up to a story of murder, madness redemption,relationships and the past affecting the present. The town is dying while the relentless ingress of the Kudzu vines slowly takes over.
The book reminded me of the work of so many other authors, not least Cormac McCarthy and the Man's descent into a feral entity was very much like Lester Ballard's in child of God. The descriptions of nature and the spiritual thread was pure James Lee Burke , the wreck of a Black Cadillac rolling into Red Bluff with it's malevolent and shadowy occupants Stephen King and even a touch of Tolkein as the action moves to under the Kudzu blanket which is almost a different world hiding all kinds of things with various characters entering there almost as as part of a quest. and the vines as a malevolent entity destroying anyone who ventures into their domain.
This is not a cheerful book but it's a fantastic read, I had the niggling feeling when finishing it that it was some kind of allegory that I wasn't getting.
As always from Michael Farris Smith Blackwood is a superbly written book that will stick in your mind for a long time after you've finished it ,if you're a fan of Cormac McCarthy or James Lee Burke you'll love this.

Thanks to Michael Farris Smith, Oldcastle Books and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Farris Smith is a powerful writer with some of Cormac McCarthy's intensity of vision. This book is a tour-de-force that melds the 'return to my hometown' trope with 'small town secrets' and gives the whole thing a kind of existential makeover that is part biblical, part gothic. At the heart, as with MFS's previous books, are people broken, suffering, and desperate, weighted down by burdens of the past and past actions, deliberate acts or failures to act, even tragic accidents that still manifest as guilt. The theme of redemption has a quasi-religious edge, the bestowing of grace that comes with acknowledgment.

A brooding, dark story with only the barest chinks of light to lift it, articulated through beautifully controlled writing.