Desperation Road

November 14, 2016
Like those in his 2013 novel, Rivers, the characters in Smith’s latest struggle to put the past behind them—but this time, the storms that have torn their lives apart are mostly of their own making. Russell Gaines has served 11 years in prison for killing a man while driving drunk. Released, he rides the bus back to his home in McComb, Miss., only to be beaten and threatened with revenge by the dead man’s brothers. That same evening, homeless onetime addict Maben Jones also heads toward McComb. Without cash and transport, she leaves her young daughter, Annalee, sleeping in a cheap motel and tries to turn some tricks in the parking lot. Instead, a deputy abducts and rapes her. Grabbing his gun, Maben shoots him to death and flees the scene. As she tries to protect Annalee and evade capture, her path and Russell’s cross—but whether they will help or just endanger each other is far from clear. The plot’s gritty outlines notwithstanding, Smith is a meticulous craftsman who evokes his protagonists and their world with patience and subtlety. Ultimately, the road of the novel’s title moves not just through desperation, but also into a tentative landscape of hope, and perhaps even redemption. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group.

Starred review from October 15, 2016
Two hard-luck cases collide in this smooth-flowing novel of the Deep South, where a Mississippi town harbors a long-brewing hunger for vengeance and a slim chance of redemption.Maben and Russell are heading to McComb from different directions, geographically and otherwise. She has been on the road for too many years after a terrible car accident and has tried almost everything to make a life somewhere for herself and her young daughter. He has been serving 11 years in prison for a drunken driving incident that killed a young man. But fate takes Maben on yet another nasty detour via a deputy sheriff who rapes her and then calls up two friends to join the party. Maben grabs his gun and ends that soiree before it gets going. Russell steps off a bus and into the fists and boots of the dead young man's two brothers. Russell's stolid father and a Mexican woman he has taken in offer stability when it's most needed. Another deputy sheriff, who played high school football with Russell, faces the awkward task of finding out why his old friend turned up at the scene of Maben's highly motivated gunplay shortly after investigators arrived. Smith (Rivers, 2013, etc.) gives Maben a gritty strength that may not be enough in her current plight. Russell, a moody, meditative loner who knows that "rough lives got rougher," has his hands full with the murderous brothers and seeking out the woman he lost while in prison, but he's inclined to help where he can. The book's brooding atmosphere lights up often with strong scenes of high tension. Smith writes shapely prose and sharp dialogue and everywhere displays an acute sense of the moments and pain that can define lives in a small town.

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November 15, 2016

As he did in his debut Rivers, Smith once again uses his native Mississippi as the perfect backdrop for this dark but satisfying novel of coincidence and revenge. Tasting freedom for the first time since high school, Russell Gaines is coming home after serving an 11-year prison sentence for killing a young man while driving drunk. At the same time, a woman named Maben returning to the same town finds herself on the run after a fatal encounter with a corrupt local cop. As their lives intersect, both are forced to face their pasts and decide on their futures. Russell and Maben are well-developed characters, and it's easy to understand their choices even if they don't always seem to be the right ones. Smith's comfortable pacing allows for plenty of action while never rushing readers, so they can enjoy the excellent writing. VERDICT Smith's second novel is every bit as good as his first, an excellent piece of Southern crime fiction for Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin afficionados. [See Prepub Alert, 8/26/16.]--Craig L. Shufelt, Fort Erie P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2016
In his acclaimed apocalyptic first novel Rivers (2013), Mississippian Smith explored the murkier side of his native culture while depicting a global-warming-ravaged South drowning under endless rain. Smith's latest continues his psychological dissection of troubled souls, this time in the present and featuring two protagonists with blood on their hands, whose paths cross fatefully one summer day in their hometown, McComb, Mississippi. Just released from an 11-year prison sentence for manslaughter, Russell Gaines returns to McComb already targeted for vengeance by the brothers of the man he killed in a drunk-driving accident. Across town a homeless woman, Maben, trudges from the countryside with a little girl in tow and, after a misguided attempt to trade sex for money, haplessly shoots and kills a deputy sheriff. When a chance encounter draws Russell and Maben together, the two social outcasts discover they are also bound together by a mutual tragedy in the past. Smith's lean, visceral prose will keep readers glued to a richly textured and briskly paced story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)