Arkansas Book Review
Brandon's dialogue is clever and natural ... or, at least, it seems natural for a bunch of off-their-rocker thieves. Kyle and Swin's personalities are very disparate but not forcedly so, creating a tension that leads to conversations that are absurd but believable in-context.
The crime aspect is something different. There are no secret meetings with the mob boss in the local smoke-filled saloon, no car chases or encounters with gruff detectives. Instead, Frog runs his operation without ever meeting his underlings. Kyle and Swin work only perhaps ten hours a week in their illegal jobs, mostly just picking up packages and driving them across a state or two.
Kyle and Swin are natural, unsympathetic criminals but aren't the Reservoir Dog, bank-heist type. Rather, they are criminals because that's all they can relate to, not because they dream of vast fortunes.
Brandon chooses to jump between two major perspectives to relate his story.
First, there is the present-day perspective of the several main characters, which is told in a more or less standard way. There are some interesting points of style, like when Swin talks about writing a book about these adventures, just as they happened, taking an unbiased view. The reader realizes that he holds that book in his hands; the fourth wall is nearly - but not quite - broken.
The second, more striking, perspective is that of Frog, whose story is told in the second-person "you." It starts much further back in time, when frog is just starting his career in crime, and jumps forward towards the time of the main action.
The two perspectives play off each other and, combined with Brandon's storytelling, form a cohesive whole.
Arkansas is the kind of novel you want to pass off to a friend - not just because it's a good read, but because it makes you feel cool recommending it. It's also the kind of book you want to have sitting on your shelf, its gold embossing glimmering in a ray of sunlight - hopefully catching the eye of a nosy guest.
The crime aspect is something different. There are no secret meetings with the mob boss in the local smoke-filled saloon, no car chases or encounters with gruff detectives. Instead, Frog runs his operation without ever meeting his underlings. Kyle and Swin work only perhaps ten hours a week in their illegal jobs, mostly just picking up packages and driving them across a state or two.
Kyle and Swin are natural, unsympathetic criminals but aren't the Reservoir Dog, bank-heist type. Rather, they are criminals because that's all they can relate to, not because they dream of vast fortunes.
Brandon chooses to jump between two major perspectives to relate his story.
First, there is the present-day perspective of the several main characters, which is told in a more or less standard way. There are some interesting points of style, like when Swin talks about writing a book about these adventures, just as they happened, taking an unbiased view. The reader realizes that he holds that book in his hands; the fourth wall is nearly - but not quite - broken.
The second, more striking, perspective is that of Frog, whose story is told in the second-person "you." It starts much further back in time, when frog is just starting his career in crime, and jumps forward towards the time of the main action.
The two perspectives play off each other and, combined with Brandon's storytelling, form a cohesive whole.
Arkansas is the kind of novel you want to pass off to a friend - not just because it's a good read, but because it makes you feel cool recommending it. It's also the kind of book you want to have sitting on your shelf, its gold embossing glimmering in a ray of sunlight - hopefully catching the eye of a nosy guest.
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