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    The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel

    Written by Daniel Woodrell

    Narrated by Nicholas Tecosky

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Shug Akins is a lonely, overweight thirteen-year-old boy. His mother, Glenda, is the one person who loves him--she calls him Sweet Mister and attempts to boost his confidence and give him hope for his future. Shuggie's purported father, Red, is a brutal man with a short fuse who mocks and despises the boy. Into this small-town Ozarks mix comes Jimmy Vin Pearce, with his shiny green T-bird and his smart city clothes. When he and Glenda begin a torrid affair, a series of violent events is inevitably set in motion. The outcome will break your heart.

    "This is Daniel Woodrell's third book set in the Ozarks and, like the other two, Give Us a Kiss and Tomato Red, it peels back the layers from lives already made bare by poverty and petty crime." --Otto Penzler, "Penzler Pick, 2001"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 24, 2012
    ISBN9781611135046
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Death of Sweet Mister

    3.5/5

    124 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      What I shall now call the Ozarks version of Oedipus Rex! Woodrell has a way of writing that makes you feel a little squeamish and uncomfortable without really substantiating your thoughts until the very end.The symbolism used throughout this book is masterful, and the story line one that is reminiscent of Greek tragedies (as previously mentioned.)Woodrell finds a way to write AS the character, not through them, and that's the only reason why I had a problem getting through this book-the character's grammar was horrific and my mind just couldn't take it! However, it's definitely one that sticks with you awhile after finishing it.
    • 4/5
      Shug, whose mother affectionately calls her sweet little mister, has been dealt a tough hand in life. He's thirteen, overweight and friendless, with an alcoholic and promiscuous mother and an abusive father his mother hints isn't really his father. They live in a small house in a cemetery, the rent paid in exchange for keeping the cemetery grounds, which falls mainly on Shug to maintain. His father, Red, is a petty criminal with a record who starts including Shug in his activities in that Shug is told which houses to break into and Red and his friend keep the proceeds. Set in the early seventies, The Death of Sweet Mister is a grim and heartbreaking story which should be hard to read, but Daniel Woodrell has given Shug a sweet, clear voice that speaks in the cadences of a poor boy in a rural community. Shug really is a pleasure to spend time with, even if there's very little happiness in his life. He does love his mom, who loves him in return and he's curious about the world around him.Woodrell writes about poverty-stricken rural communities like no one else. He captures relentlessly hard-scrabble lives with compassion for their narrowness of circumstance and lack of opportunity. He also writes people who, even in the limited choices offered, consistently make the wrong ones. There's an inevitability in what happens to Shug, but this doesn't make the ending of this short novel any less surprising.
    • 4/5
      Reason for Reading: This may sound weird but, I enjoy reading well-written depressing books. I have never read this author before nor actually even heard of him, but he caught my eye when I saw that the publisher had reprinted all his works in a new line of trade paperbacks. I had a hard time deciding which book to try first but this one seemed to fit my interests well and it was short so a good one to try a new author. It is really hard to use words such as "I liked" or "I enjoyed" with such a brutal and sad story. If you like happy endings or rays of hope, this is not the book for you as it is the complete opposite. We see a poor family living well below the poverty line, the word family here is optional as the parents are each extremely dysfunctional though in completely different ways. But they both have the same effect on the boy. This is virtually his coming-of-age story. The story is brutal in its harshness and honesty. I don't want to tell the topics it deals with as that would giveaway a major spoiler to the plot, but let's just say the book becomes harder and harder to read as the plot and the characters become more and more broken. This was an emotional, tough read but well worth it. Achingly well-written, the despair and cruelty that is so real in this story touched me deeply. Personally, for me, I "enjoy" this type of story, and this one in particular because it brings home the reality, to me, of a life without Jesus. Unimaginable emptiness.
    • 4/5
      A story about the animal nature of love and sex and the cruel, cold, hard world. At the end of the day, sometimes, bad choices are all that remain. Here Ye! Here Ye! and Lest Ye Forget!!!...Daniel Woodrell is a supremely talented writer
    • 3/5
      Ok, this book was introduced to me as a challenge from a friend who thinks he can get me to read outside of my comfort zone. Well, alright now. I read it. I guess it was more or less what I expected (especially since I know what my friend likes to read). It was definitely about a totally dysfunctional family set in the Ozarks. The narrator is Shuggie Akins the son of a woman named Glenda and a man who is almost unknown. The man, however, that he lives with is referred to as "Dad" but we know that isn't true. Dad is an awful character. He is a thief who steals for drugs; he drinks too and has a side kick named Basil. As would be expected Red aka Dad beats up his wife, womanizes and brow beats Shuggie into doing his dirtiest deeds for him.I won't go on any further because if you are the least bit interested in this book (it's only 196 pages long) you'll figure out the story.I met the challenge. I am unfazed, unimpressed and not inclined to read anything further by Daniel Woodrell.
    • 5/5
      Daniel Woodrell's The Death of Sweet Mister is southern-fried Greek tragedy at its best. Woodrell creates a dark, seedy, unforgiving world and then forces you to navigate your way through it. It's not important that you like the characters. What's important here is that you endure the same pain that they've endured. This ain't some cozy Beach Read, folks. This is a book that takes you out of your comfort zone, a book that forces you to look at the world a little differently, and for that, I applaud Mr. Woodrell.
    • 3/5
      My first book of 2010 has left me stunned as a deer in headlights while watching an approaching car speed around a corner with little time or space to spare.This dark, disturbing tale of abuse, incest, Ozark mountain poverty, dysfunction, alcoholism and drug addiction packs a wallop that takes the breath away!Told from the voice of overweight, mamma's boy 13-year-old Shugg, the writing is terse, tense and powerful. Little Sweet Mister, so called by Glenda his sultry, seductive mommie, never stands a chance to escape the never ending state of craziness as it envelopes him like the fog on the overgrown path, treacherous and filled with snaky people.The cast of misfits are vividly portrayed in all their evil nature. Red, Shugg's "father", is about as low-life as possible. While switching between smacking him until he bleeds and indoctrinating him into stealing drugs from dying people, Red certainly does not present a positive role model.When Glenda discovers a possible way out via a large, well-dressed man who drives a Thunderbird, the story quickly spirals into a fast nightmare.I read this as a discussion spring board for the Missouri Readers group.
    • 4/5
      Daniel Woodrell is a very good writer. He just happens to write about distasteful topics. In this book he writes about Red who was about as mean as they come. Red liked two things: Shug's mother Glenda and olden rhyming rock'n roll. He was a "bubble off plumb," and the only time he was even halfway decent to 13-year-old Shug was when he was coaching him in the trade of preying on dying people to steal their drugs. It doesn't get more distateful than this...or does it?This is my second book by Mr. Woodrell. His stories are dark and compelling about people you don't want to know but can't get them out of your head long after the final page is read.
    • 4/5
      So well-written, such horror.
    • 2/5
      Reader's Digest claimed this author to be one of the great but unknown contemporary writers so I gave the recommended book a read. I don't care how well written it was, or intellectually stimulating or southern depicting, or crafted to perfection, and it was all these, any book that depicts a father-like figure that bullies the son and brings him up like Fagan did Oliver Twist only to be dismembered my his wife who is then raped in incest by said son is just not a great book.
    • 4/5
      Death of Sweet Mister was not as good as Winters Bone. The boy in the book was not as likeable. His only endearing trait was his love for his mother which turned ugly and lewd in the end. The prose, tempo, and succinctness of the writing was great. If you like feel tense and uncomfortable all the way through a book then this is the book for you.
    • 5/5
      “Warning signs are flashing by but we pay no heed Instead of slowing down the pace, we keep pickin’ up the speed Disaster’s getting closer every time we meet Goin’ ninety miles an hour down a dead end street.”Country music star, Hank Snow, had a hit with the song Ninety Miles an Hour Down A Dead End Street, and this very song kept playing in my head every time I picked up [The Death of Sweet Mister] by Daniel Woodrell. As the pages kept turning, I could see disaster coming and yet could not turn away.This is a powerful book, written in a straight-forward take no prisoners style, with razor-edged dialogue that feels authentic and real. Set in the Missouri Ozarks, a place that seems to be a rule upon itself, the story is told by thirteen year old Shug Atkins who paints a grim picture of his life. He lives with his mother, Glenda and his so-called father, Red. Red spends most of his life either in jail or on his way to jail. He is a cruel, ignorant and brutal man. Glenda is a beautiful woman-child who gets through life by staying drunk. She calls Shug her Sweet Mister, and relies on him for most everything. Without going into plot details, there are no rainbows on the horizon here. Made all the more emotional by it’s simplicity, [The Death of Sweet Mister ]is a sad and merciless look at a life that seems destined for failure. Yet despite it’s bleakness, this was for me a stirring read that will long linger in my mind.
    • 5/5
      Shug Atkins is thirteen and lives in a cemetery (or bone orchard, to him) with his sadistic, petty-criminal father, Red, and his long suffering - and drinking - mother, Glenda. Glenda is the caretaker of the cemetery, but Shug does the work. Red steals things and takes pills.When another man, whose Thunderbird is the only thing Shug likes about him, takes an interest in the still-beautiful Glenda (Red refers to her only as “the witch,”) his family unravels even more.In addition to being an outstandingly told story, set in the south, with spot-on characters, Woodrell fits in some beautiful prose. Shug at a river: “The water had that sound of women that wouldn’t hurt me. That sound of voices in talk that I could join.”About Red: “His voice to me seemed always to have those worms in it that eat you once you’re dead and still. His voice always wanted to introduce me to them waiting worms. He had a variety of ugly tones to speak in and used them all at me on most days.”Shug is overweight and comes across as powerless for most of the story. When he does take matters into his own hands, the results are calculated and brutal.