Smonk, or, Widow town : being the scabrous adventures of E.O. Smonk & of the whore Evavangeline in Clarke County, Alabama, early in the last century--

From Publishers WeeklyE.O. Smonk is an ugly, unwashed, murdering rapist who has terrorized the small town of Old Texas, Ala., for years. In 1911, the town summons Smonk to stand trial, and a nonstop blood-orgy of brutality and destruction is the result in Franklin's gloriously debauched second novel (following Hell at the Breech). After Smonk's goons assault the Old Texas courthouse and kill the town's menfolk, reformed former Smonk associate turned lawman Will McKissick pursues Smonk. Meanwhile, a posse of Christian deputies chase teenage whore Evavangeline through the Gulf Coast, but the girl is a skilled killer, too, and the trail of her victims spans the region. McKissick follows Smonk's trail out of and back into Old Texas, while Evavangeline drifts into the town, where all the children are dead except McKissick's 12-year-old son and the widows lay out their dead husbands on their dining tables. The town's sordid past, about to be exposed, involves a rabies-ravaged one-armed preacher, a rabid dog named Lazarus the Redeemer, incest and a church full of dead boys dressed in Sunday best. Fast-paced and unrelentingly violent, Franklin's western isn't for everyone, but readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong. (On sale Aug. 22) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"[Smonk] mixes William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, and Deadwood's David Milch, Franklin pulls off a unique Western saga." (Entertainment Weekly )"Part western, part Southern gothic, yet wholly original, this is a beef jerky of a story [.] full of flavor" (Tampa Tribune )"A David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino codirection of Deadwood . . . a world where not one person knows an iota of goodness." (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review )"An edgy, quirky, bawdy look at the days of cowboys and shootouts, Smonk is the real deal." (David Milch, Creator of Deadwood )"Franklin's talent for the completely offbeat and outrageous illuminates a world that is at once vibrantly alive and completely human." (Times-Picayune (New Orleans) )"I am amazed at Tom Franklin's power" (Philip Roth )"fast-paced and unrelentingly violent...readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong." (Publishers Weekly )"Maintaining the dark tone of his excellent first novel, Franklin goes for the gothic in [this] weirdly fascinating tale" (Kirkus Reviews )

It's 1911 and the townsfolk of Old Texas, Alabama, have had enough. Every Saturday night for a year, E. O. Smonk has been destroying property, killing livestock, seducing women, cheating and beating men, all from behind the twin barrels of his Winchester 45-70 caliber over-and-under rifle. Syphilitic, consumptive, gouty, and goitered—an expert with explosives and knives—Smonk hates horses, goats, and the Irish, and it's high time he was stopped. But capturing old Smonk won't be easy—and putting him on trial could have shocking and disastrous consequences, considering the terrible secret the citizens of Old Texas are hiding.

Publishers Weekly

E.O. Smonk is an ugly, unwashed, murdering rapist who has terrorized the small town of Old Texas, Ala., for years. In 1911, the town summons Smonk to stand trial, and a nonstop blood-orgy of brutality and destruction is the result in Franklin's gloriously debauched second novel (following Hell at the Breech). After Smonk's goons assault the Old Texas courthouse and kill the town's menfolk, reformed former Smonk associate turned lawman Will McKissick pursues Smonk. Meanwhile, a posse of Christian deputies chase teenage whore Evavangeline through the Gulf Coast, but the girl is a skilled killer, too, and the trail of her victims spans the region. McKissick follows Smonk's trail out of and back into Old Texas, while Evavangeline drifts into the town, where all the children are dead except McKissick's 12-year-old son and the widows lay out their dead husbands on their dining tables. The town's sordid past, about to be exposed, involves a rabies-ravaged one-armed preacher, a rabid dog named Lazarus the Redeemer, incest and a church full of dead boys dressed in Sunday best. Fast-paced and unrelentingly violent, Franklin's western isn't for everyone, but readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong. (On sale Aug. 22) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

It's 1911 and the secluded southwestern Alabama town of Old Texas has been besieged by a scabrous and malevolent character called E. O. Smonk. Syphilitic, consumptive, gouty and goitered, Smonk is also an expert with explosives and knives. He abhors horses, goats and the Irish. Every Saturday night for a year he's been riding his mule into Old Texas, destroying property, killing livestock, seducing women, cheating and beating men—all from behind the twin barrels of his Winchester 45-70 caliber over and under rifle. At last the desperate citizens of the town, themselves harboring a terrible secret, put Smonk on trial, with disastrous and shocking results.Thus begins the highly anticipated new novel from Tom Franklin, acclaimed author of Hell at the Breech and Poachers.Smonk is also the story of Evavangeline, a fifteen-year-old prostitute quick to pull a trigger or cork. A case of mistaken identity plunges her into the wild sugarcane country between the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, land suffering from the worst drought in a hundred years and plagued by rabies. Pursued by a posse of unlikely vigilantes, Evavangeline boats upriver and then wends through the dust and ruined crops, forced along the way to confront her own clouded past. She eventually stumbles upon Old Texas, where she is fated to E. O. Smonk and the townspeople in a way she could never imagine.In turns hilarious, violent, bawdy and terrifying, Smonk creates its own category: It's a southern, not a western, peopled with corrupt judges and assassins, a cuckolded blacksmith, Christian deputies, widows, War veterans, whores, witches, madmen and zombies. By the time the smoke has cleared, the mystery of Smonk will be revealed, the survivors changed forever. “Fast-paced and unrelentingly violent... readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong” with this western from an Edgar Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly).From the New York Times–bestselling author of Hell at the Breech and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, a historical thriller in turns hilarious, bawdy and terrifying.It's 1911 and the townsfolk of Old Texas, Alabama, have had enough. Every Saturday night for a year, E. O. Smonk has been destroying property, killing livestock, seducing women, cheating and beating men, all from behind the twin barrels of his Winchester 45-70 caliber over-and-under rifle. Syphilitic, consumptive, gouty, and goitered—an expert with explosives and knives—Smonk hates horses, goats, and the Irish, and it's high time he was stopped. But capturing old Smonk won't be easy—and putting him on trial could have shocking and disastrous consequences, considering the terrible secret the citizens of Old Texas are hiding.Praise for Tom Franklin: “I'm reminded, by the evocative strength of the prose and the relentlessness of the imagination, of William Faulkner.” —Philip Roth“It's as if the author kidnapped Raymond Carver's characters and set them loose in the Deep South.” —The New York Times Book Review It's 1911 and the townsfolk of Old Texas, Alabama, have had enough. Every Saturday night for a year, E. O. Smonk has been destroying property, killing livestock, seducing women, cheating and beating men, all from behind the twin barrels of his Winchester 45-70 caliber over-and-under rifle. Syphilitic, consumptive, gouty, and goitered, an expert with explosives and knives. Smonk hates horses, goats, and the Irish, and it's high time he was stopped. But capturing old Smonk won't be easy, and putting him on trial could have shocking and disastrous consequences, considering the terrible secret the citizens of Old Texas are hiding. E. O. Smonk, an Old Texas cowboy who lives life on his own terms, spends his time on a quest for a good drink, a good bar brawl, and good sex, until a chance encounter with a sexually ambiguous prostitute transforms his life, in a bawdy novel set against the backdrop of the Old West of the late 1800s. Reader's Guide available. Original. 30,000 first printing. After enduring a year of destroyed property, murdered livestock, seduced women, and beaten men, the desperate and secret-harboring citizens of a secluded, early twentieth-century Alabama town place the responsible party on trial, with disastrous results. By the author of Hell at the Breech. Reprint. 25,000 first printing. Title from eBook title screen (viewed on Sept. 6, 2006).