ZOMG it has been a long time since I posted a review. And it certainly took me long enough to read Suttree. I finished it over a month ago, then read East of Eden. I’ve been busy.
Anyway, Suttree is probably the best book I’ve read so far this year, and this post will totally not do it justice because it’s been so long, and I forget quickly.
It’s about Suttree, a guy in his twenties who gives up a comfortable, if not affluent, life to live in a houseboat on the Tennessee River and fish. He becomes involved with a huge cast of characters who live near the river. And that’s enough plot.
Imagine what would happen if John Steinbeck came up with a story in the vein of Cannery Row or Sweet Thursday, and William Faulkner wrote it. That’s Suttree. I enjoyed every minute of it – and there were lots because Suttree is a Very Long Novel and Totally Worth It.
I guess it’s taken me so long to write about it for a few reasons. First, there’s the thesis and the (no longer) sick cat. I also can’t post this review on my library blog because the first few pages of this novel describe a guy who sodomizes an entire field of watermelons and contain the N-word at every opportunity. Then, of course, it settles down – but I can imagine the complaints when some little old lady decides to give it a try. What’s funny is that my reviews over there are numbered, too, so they’ll be mysteriously missing #13. Which, I guess, is appropriate.
So. Go pick up a copy of Suttree – the library, of course, doesn’t have it – and settle in for a good five hundred pages. It’s so worth it.
