Give Us a Kiss: A Novel Audiobook

Quotes

• “Takes on a mythic quality…One is tempted to hear echoes of William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, or Andrew Lytle…Mr. Woodrell isn’t imitating any of them. He’s only drawing from the same well they did, but with a different take, a different voice, a sharper sense of irony and satire…slick, sparkling, stylized.”

  — New York 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 luck for us, he’s remorseless that way.”

  — Los Angeles Times

• “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

• “A sly gem of a book…A darkly funny, lusciously written joyride into the heart of hillbilly wilderness.”

  — Seattle Times

• “A darkly comic crime dance where the mystical and the murderous make out in the corner…The result of all these genre shenanigans is charmingly (and terrifyingly) good, dirty fun.”

  — Salon

• “One of the best-written novels of the decade…Joyously vulgar and as raw as three-day-old corn whiskey.”

  — Cleveland Plain-Dealer

• “The dialog here is solid and the players unforgettable. Narrator Brian Troxell’s accented presentation brings out both the humor and the sometimes deadly seriousness of each episode. The story also has as close to a happy ending as Woodrell musters. Both raunchy and dangerous, this will have listeners demanding a sequel.”

  — Library Journal (audio review)

• “Woodrell add[s] a smart dose of writerly in-jokes and bottom-up social analysis to his usual mix of peckerwood poetry and butt-kicking violence…Woodrell elbows his way to the forefront of tough-guy fiction.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

• 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

• He celebrates blood kin, home country and hot sex in this rich, funny, headshakingly original novel. Woodrell is a ladystinger of a writer.

  — Annie Proulx

• Slick, sparkling, stylized....takes on a mythic quality.

  — The New York Times Book Review

• 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

• Woodrell is a marvellous writer.

  — Roddy Doyle