Smonk: A Novel

Tom Franklin

oct 2009 · Harper Collins

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“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

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Tom Franklin is the New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award. His previous works include Poachers, Hell at the Breech, and Smonk. He teaches in the University of Mississippi's MFA program.